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I am looking for a first-generation Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser wagon, which is the same car my family owned when I was a young kid. My plan is to fix it up to be good enough to drive it to a family reunion next summer (July 2020), and then likely turn around and sell it. Imagine the shock and surprise on my dad and siblings' faces when I roll up in the car we used to tow our boat on vacation in northern Michigan!
Here's my wishlist, in general order of priority:
Sound body without any major structural repairs required. I can handle general mechanical issues and worn parts, but this is a short-term thing so I am not looking for a full restoration project. I'm going to be driving it from the east coast to the upper Midwest (and back), so I'll need to get it into reliable enough shape to drive long distance.
Wood paneling with cream/beige paint. Our original wagon was this color combo, and while the paint color is a nice-to-have, the wood paneling is a must-have!
Three row seating
Later model is better, I suppose, but overall condition has higher priority.
Currently reside in Philly suburbs but willing to travel/ship for the right car. I've created a similar post on stationwagonforums.com, but want to cast a wide net if I have any hope of pulling off this stunt. (My wife is going to kill me if I actually do.)
It's on the other side of the country from you (Wyoming), but here's one. It's not an exact match to your wish list, but then these things don't grow on trees.
Here's another one, a '75, that's a little closer to you. Again, not an exact match to your wish list.
Both of those are great looking cars, but I've got to have the wood paneling, which to me defines the era of this car. Plus the one is a bit above my price range; ideally would like to keep it below five figures if possible. (I know, beggars can't be choosers, but I started begging only just a few days ago when I hatched this crazy idea.)
Good luck. Just try to be as open-minded as possible. I owned a '73 Custom Cruiser from 2010 to 2014, and it was a fun car to have. But, as I said, these don't grow on trees, and you're asking for something reliable enough to drive half-way across the country. I think your first priority should be condition with a secondary priority being exactly what options it has or exactly what color it is. I'm sure that showing up in any first-era Custom Cruiser wagon will thrill the family.
It's on the other side of the country from you (Wyoming), but here's one. It's not an exact match to your wish list, but then these things don't grow on trees.
Normally I omit pics when quoting / replying to a post, but in this case...
+1,000,000 to you for the "don't grow on trees" one-liner, combined with the tree mural behind this car. Friggin' made me laugh way harder than it should have!
I am looking for a first-generation Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser wagon, which is the same car my family owned when I was a young kid. My plan is to fix it up to be good enough to drive it to a family reunion next summer (July 2020), and then likely turn around and sell it. Imagine the shock and surprise on my dad and siblings' faces when I roll up in the car we used to tow our boat on vacation in northern Michigan!
Here's my wishlist, in general order of priority:
Sound body without any major structural repairs required. I can handle general mechanical issues and worn parts, but this is a short-term thing so I am not looking for a full restoration project. I'm going to be driving it from the east coast to the upper Midwest (and back), so I'll need to get it into reliable enough shape to drive long distance.
Wood paneling with cream/beige paint. Our original wagon was this color combo, and while the paint color is a nice-to-have, the wood paneling is a must-have!
Three row seating
Later model is better, I suppose, but overall condition has higher priority.
Currently reside in Philly suburbs but willing to travel/ship for the right car. I've created a similar post on stationwagonforums.com, but want to cast a wide net if I have any hope of pulling off this stunt. (My wife is going to kill me if I actually do.)
So it was pointed out to me (on the stationwagonforums.com forum) that the Oldsmobile Custom Cruisers were BIG wagons. So big, in fact, that it would not have fit in my garage. So my idea was basically out the window until I discovered that the Chevy Caprice Estate wagons were slightly shorter. My family actually owned one of those also -- in the 80s -- but if I were to find a second gen ('71-'76), they do look similar enough to the Olds that it would have the same effect. So my search has been modified to a Caprice Estate, either early 70s or early 80s body styles. And of course, with the wood paneling.
Exactly how long is your garage? Yes, the Olds clamshells were longer each year than the same-year Chevy clamshell, but not by much (2 to 3 inches at most), and the '71, '72, and '73 Custom Cruisers were shorter than the '75 and '76 Caprice Estates. The '71 Custom Cruiser was only 1/10 inch longer than the '72 Caprice Estate. The '73 Caprice Estate was longer than the '72 Custom Cruiser by 1/10 inch.
Here's the numbers. The only one I couldn't find was for the '74 Chevy.
What you want to do is write these in order of length and then draw the line at the length of your garage. I think you'll find that if a Chevy clamshell can work, an Olds clamshell might also work if it's the right year.
Regarding the '77 to '90 wagons, all the full-size GM wagons were downsized for that era, and all were shorter than even the shortest Chevy clamshell wagon. For 1977, the Custom Cruiser was 217.1 inches long while the Caprice Estate was 214.3. Both are shorter than the '71 Caprice Estate. So if the '71 Caprice Estate fits in your garage, than any '77 to '90 Custom Cruiser will fit in your garage, and you don't have to limit yourself to Chevys of that era if it's an Oldmobile you'd rather have.
My garage measures exactly 225.5" from door to wall. So the first gen Oldsmobiles are basically out. I even considered "well, what if I park it diagonally?" but I think it would be too tough to maneuver since we have two single-bay doors (plus then both my wife and I would be stuck parking in the driveway).
Looking at table on the Caprice Wikipedia page, it shows the length for the second gen as:
219.9 in (5,585 mm) (1972)
221.9 in (5,636 mm) (1973)
222.7 in (5,657 mm) (1974-75)
222.9 in (5,662 mm) (1976)
Are those lengths not correct? Any of those theoretically would fit (but without a lot of wiggle-room).
I imagine jacking the car up to get underneath it is going to be a challenge if I've got only a couple of inches. And I'll have to either open up the garage door to get around it (which I won't want to do in the winter), or climb through it. And I needed to take off the front clip for anything, I'd have to back the car half-way out.
The next generation Caprice ('77-'90) shows as 215.7" on Wikipedia. That would at least give me about 10 inches of clearance. I think I could work with that.
Looking at table on the Caprice Wikipedia page, it shows the length for the second gen as:
219.9 in (5,585 mm) (1972)
221.9 in (5,636 mm) (1973)
222.7 in (5,657 mm) (1974-75)
222.9 in (5,662 mm) (1976)
Are those lengths not correct?
These are not correct. I looked at the Caprice Wikipedia page, and those dimensions appear to be for the Caprice Sedan and Coupe, not the Wagon. The values that I quoted earlier all come from the specifications page from the various wagon-specific Chevrolet dealer brochures from those model years.
The shortest Chevy clamshell wagon you can get is the '71 at 223 inches. It's 3.1 inches longer than the '72 Caprice sedan/coupe.
Originally Posted by GoGreen
I even considered "well, what if I park it diagonally?" but I think it would be too tough to maneuver
The problem isn't maneuvering. Rather, it's your high school geometry. The car's diagonal is the hypotenuse of a right triangle with the car's width and length as the other two sides. Doing a little Pythagorean theorem and using the width given on the Wikipedia page, which I assume is the same for the wagons and sedans (if it's not, my number will be off slightly, but the point will still stand), gives a diagonal length of the '71 Caprice Estate as 236.7 inches. This is almost 14 inches longer than the car's length.
Originally Posted by GoGreen
The next generation Caprice ('77-'90) shows as 215.7" on Wikipedia.
This is more or less correct, but note that, for the third generation ('77-'90) Caprice, they actually do give a separate length for the wagon (which they didn't do for the second generation), and you can see that it's about three inches longer than the sedan. But note that they also give only a single value for the wagon length, implying that the length was the same for all 14 model years of that generation, and that's not true.
As I noted earlier, the length of the '77 Caprice Estate was 214.3 inches, and that comes from the '77 Chevy dealer brochure specifications page. The latest year for which I have access to a brochure is 1987, and the '87 Caprice wagon was about an inch longer at 215.1 inches. So the lengths of the wagons did vary a little bit during the '77 to '90 run.
Have you considered the 91 and 92 Custom Cruiser? I have no idea how long they are, probably pretty close to the 77-90 wagons. They are getting more difficult to find in good condition.
I doubt that he would want one of the last-generation Custom Cruisers. Go back and read his first post. The whole point of this exercise is to surprise everyone at his family reunion next summer by driving up in a wagon like the ones his family owned back in the day. From reading his posts, it appears that his family owned both a clamshell-era Custom Cruiser and an early '80s box-wagon Chevy Caprice Estate, and he's looking for one or the other. But he's since discovered that any of the CC's wouldn't fit in his garage, so he widened the search to clamshell-era Caprice wagons, which are generally a little shorter.
The problem isn't maneuvering. Rather, it's your high school geometry. The car's diagonal is the hypotenuse of a right triangle with the car's width and length as the other two sides. Doing a little Pythagorean theorem and using the width given on the Wikipedia page, which I assume is the same for the wagons and sedans (if it's not, my number will be off slightly, but the point will still stand), gives a diagonal length of the '71 Caprice Estate as 236.7 inches. This is almost 14 inches longer than the car's length.
Actually, I was thinking the hypotenuse of the garage, not the car, would give me enough distance to fit the entire length of the car if I parked it diagonally inside the garage. The garage is almost nearly a square, so the hypotenuse of garage is around 318". That's longer than the length of the car. However, obviously the car has width, so the full hypotenuse of the garage isn't available to fit the car. I'd have to figure out where the corner of the car would be hitting the side wall of the garage and then measure that back to the door. It would likely still be too tight, and without a double-width garage door, pulling it in through the single-width door and then making the turn might be impossible.
But nonetheless, thanks for all the info! I believe dealer brochure measurements over what is shown on Wikipedia, so anything pre-1977 won't fit.
I doubt that he would want one of the last-generation Custom Cruisers. Go back and read his first post. The whole point of this exercise is to surprise everyone at his family reunion next summer by driving up in a wagon like the ones his family owned back in the day. From reading his posts, it appears that his family owned both a clamshell-era Custom Cruiser and an early '80s box-wagon Chevy Caprice Estate, and he's looking for one or the other. But he's since discovered that any of the CC's wouldn't fit in his garage, so he widened the search to clamshell-era Caprice wagons, which are generally a little shorter.
Precisely. But per jaunty's measurements, even clamshell Caprices are too long. (I had thought they were several inches shorter than the Olds, but apparently not true.) So I'm shifting my focus to third-gen Caprice Estates, which at 214-215", should allow me to close my garage door.
Here are pictures the two wagons my family owned (or very close to them).
First-gen Olds Custom Cruiser (probably a later model, like a '74 or '75, since I was born in 1973 and I don't think my parents had it yet when I was born):
Then we got an early (or mid) 80s Caprice Estate. Looked just like this one:
TBH, that one would probably be more meaningful to my youngest sister, who was born in 1980 and probably has no recollection of the Oldsmobile. But she spent a lot of time riding in the far back of that Caprice. And probably would be easier for me to track down a reliable one (without paying through the roof).
First-gen Olds Custom Cruiser (probably a later model, like a '74 or '75, since I was born in 1973 and I don't think my parents had it yet when I was born):
That is a '76 Custom Cruiser. They're easy to tell if you can see the front as '76 was the only year of the six-year run of clamshell Custom Cruisers that featured rectangular headlights. The '71 through '75s all had round headlights.
This is a '75 Custom Cruiser, from the '75 Olds dealer brochure.
What a great-looking wagon! I found an old photo where you can see our actual car in the background. (I'm the kid on the left.) Tough to tell exactly, but if I had to guess, I'd say those are round headlights, which means ours would have been earlier than '76. I'm sure my dad has other pictures with the car, so next time I'm there I'll have to sneak a peek at some old albums.
Ahh found it. Strangely Facebook marketplace will only allow searching in a 100 mile radius.
Glad you found it. Good luck with your search for a wagon. In marketplace, I like to move the search all over the map. I hate when some days it says marketplace not available in this area.
I used it to find my 96 98 Regency Elite in Houston, TX. A friend of mine from WA mentioned that it was started up in the Pacific NW but I found plenty of potential Oldsmobiles in the midwest.
Actually, I was thinking the hypotenuse of the garage, not the car, would give me enough distance to fit the entire length of the car if I parked it diagonally inside the garage. The garage is almost nearly a square, so the hypotenuse of garage is around 318". That's longer than the length of the car. However, obviously the car has width, so the full hypotenuse of the garage isn't available to fit the car. I'd have to figure out where the corner of the car would be hitting the side wall of the garage and then measure that back to the door. It would likely still be too tight, and without a double-width garage door, pulling it in through the single-width door and then making the turn might be impossible.
But nonetheless, thanks for all the info! I believe dealer brochure measurements over what is shown on Wikipedia, so anything pre-1977 won't fit.
So just for kicks, I made a to-scale drawing in Excel of my garage and the car based on their dimensions. Turns out a 228" wagon WOULD fit diagonally (and with a few inches to spare)! Might take a lot of back-and-forth maneuvering to get it in position, but I think it could be done. HA! (My wife would have a fit.)
So just for kicks, I made a to-scale drawing in Excel of my garage and the car based on their dimensions. Turns out a 228" wagon WOULD fit diagonally (and with a few inches to spare)! Might take a lot of back-and-forth maneuvering to get it in position, but I think it could be done. HA! (My wife would have a fit.)
