Beautiful car

 

That's a beautiful Oldsmobile. He's even replaced the bumper fillers.

 

Some comments:

It's a gorgeous car. A perfect example of a mid-70s boulevard-cruiser, living-room-on-wheels that spoke to everything the word "Oldsmobile" ever meant in the full-size field.

He says that the A/C, radio, and clock are not working. The clock is no big deal. They're pretty easy to remove and can be sent off for repair if you don't want to attempt it yourself.

It's a shame about the A/C because that's a very much expected thing on a car like this. The cost to repair could be anything, depending on what's wrong and whether or not the car has ever been converted to R-134a.

The radio is special situation. I have both '77 and '78 Toronados that have the exact same dash. Getting at the radio in these cars is a royal pain in the *** because the entire trim just above the lower dashboard and the lower dashboard itself have to be removed. Even then, you still have to reach up from below.

But that's not the only issue. Look closely at the radio in this photo. Note that it is recessed a bit, and the sides of the chrome-plated escutcheon around the edges of the opening are trapezoidal-shaped. That's because the dash face (the woodgrain part) actually slants forward slightly. Any replacement radio that would fit in a shaft-style opening will be recessed a bit. That's not necessarily a problem, but what can be a problem is that the shafts for the ***** on the factory radio are extra long so that they reach out far enough to attach the ***** to. Some aftermarket radios won't have long enough shafts. Some will.

Another big problem is that the faceplate that comes with the aftermarket radio will not fit at all as it meant for a radio that sits up flush with the front of the dash, not recessed.





If the original radio can be repaired, wonderful. But then you're stuck with a radio that was standard for the time but way out of date now. Who still has any 8-track tapes? Even if you find some, which you can online, at garage sales, etc., they're just as old as the radio, and the tape can often break after a few plays. The station presets are all mechanical with an analog tuner and a little red bar that shows the dial position.



Here's what I ended up doing with my '78. This is an aftermarket NOS Radio Shack (Optimus) radio that I found on ebay. It sits in the recess, the shafts are long enough, and it works fine (but I don't have cassettes anymore), but it definitely looks unfinished. Without the faceplate, you have to just remember what each shaft controls (balance, fader, volume, etc.)






I did find online a database of Radio Shack catalogs, and I found the entry for this radio. It's from the 2000 catalog (all of $99.99!), when they were still making aftermarket, shaft-style radios. Note the labels around the faceplate (tone, tuning, fader, pull-out for balance). Note also the *****. I didn't use the ones that came with the radio because they are way too small and didn't look good. Fortunately, ***** from the factory radio fit fine and gave the whole thing a little better look in spite of the missing faceplate.

One thing nice about this radio is that is it late enough that it has a "CD-in" jack, which is just an audio input (AUX) jack. So you can connect any audio source to it, like a smart phone or, like I do, the output of a satellite radio (something that was on no one's radar in 1976!)

 

I think that car is worth the asking price at first glance. I think I recognize the road signs in the video, it is in the DFW area here in north Texas. If anyone is interested seriously I would be willing to try to go and take a look at it personally for you. Let me know.

 

It says right in the listing where the car is located.

 

This is a damn nice car and appears to be well worth the money.

 

Not a big fan of the big boats, but this car is in great original shape for this money. Last year of the 455s. I do fondly remember those "cathedral" tail lights when in high school.

 

doh!