I was on the prowl, window shopping for Oldsmobiles today. I was wondering how everyone else finds Oldsmobiles for sale? Of course, there is Craigslist, Hemmings and our own website; however, what other websites are out there to find classic Oldsmobiles for sale?

 

I'm do web development and built http://oldsmobilecentral.com/. Its a site that lets people post Oldsmobile ads and look through past ads for free. It keeps a database from what has been posted to try to help calculate fair price and give people an idea of what has been on the market. If you sign up, it also supports setting up email alerts when an Oldsmobile fitting the criteria you want gets posted. It also has a few other features like a primitive VIN decoder, location map, forum, and a few other things.
I'm currently working on a revamped version of it but it might be a while before that gets out.

 

It depends on your area/country of course. In Canada we have used.ca (aka used everywhere) and kijiji.ca along with other competing online buy/sell/trade market places. I usually find a google search with some parameters brings back a good mix of returns.


Then there are gearhead/muscle car facebook groups.


I found both my '70s through word of mouth just talking to guys in my local car club.

 

Cars on Line / Oldsmobile list Olds 1901 -1999 by year model,you will just have to "weed through the ones "who have watched to much Barrett Jackson. Also Oldcarads. You can state what brand and models you are interested in. . Larry

 

I'm not sure I want to make it easy for others to find the cars I'm looking for...

Seriously, I search everywhere - ebay, Craigslist, the Olds FB sites, classifieds here and on other sites, etc. You never know what you will find. FYI, it helps if you learn to write concise search scripts.

 

And use good keywords...

 

X2

I have used most everything possible. As some here know, I tip the UPS driver also. Those drivers go everywhere! They even go down dead end roads and even in many no trespassing places. My driver has found a total of 11 cars and I have bought 6 of those. I need to get in good with the FedEx driver but not sure he goes anywhere the UPS driver don't already go.

When I was into restoring and rebuilding old Honda 3 wheelers I was using propane drivers to find me stuff. Seams like everyone piles there old junk off road projects and golf carts next to the propane tank, lol.

 

A nice drive around town sometimes brings leads, also at times when some one might post a pontiac catalina they might have a starfire sitting in the back. Some old timers have lots, my advice is to call these guys and ask them all what they have in their yard.. look at the Craigslist pics, does it look like there might be more cars in the back? So you might wanna try searching outside of olds to find an olds if u catch my drift.

 

You guys should join offer up and let go. Younger people are using this rather than Craigslist. On letgo it might be harder to find but they are there search classic in letgo.

I like the "tip the driver" approach jensen

 

Don't forget the easiest way to find an Olds: place a "wanted" ad and let the cars come to you. There's plenty of people sitting on the fence about their car ("I know I should sell it someday"). All they need is a push -- seeing that there really is someone looking for their exact car.

 

fixed that for ya Joe IDK if you or anyone else has noticed but between google and ebay ruining their searches to provide you w less matches of what you want and more of what they want you to see.. the concise well thought out search terms are less valuable

 

Then I'd use different search engines. My .02 cents

 

I go to my local Oldsmobile dealer. Doesn't everyone?

 

found two of mine on eBay ,but waited until the listing went around a couple times and ended ,then contacted the seller privately, went to look at them and offered cash .imo got good deals on both of them.takes alot of time and patience though.

 

Jaunty75 lol. Man yesterday I read an old post were you said if you want a friend, get a dog"
Now that's a man quote.

 

A good aggregator for Craigslist is searchtempest.com. You input your keywords, a reasonable facsimile of your location (town or ZIP), and a range for how distant you are willing to search, then click "search." Searchtempest looks at the craigslist databases (more than one!), and gives you search results based on distance from your ground-zero location. One drawback, since it looks at the back-end databases, it will return ads which have already ended, in some cases.

 

I've used search tempest too but found that it leaves a lot to be desired. If you run a search on search tempest, then run the same search on your local Craigslist, you will often find that a number of the cars listed locally never appeared on the search tempest search. Pretty frustrating when you think about what you might not be seeing across the country.

 

Rand5204,
That is good to know. I've not done any comparison searches like you describe, so I've not seen any disparity. But I have captured some great deals that weren't in my local CL.

Good to know, I'll keep my eyes open next time.

 

I've used Search Tempest in the past but apparently they updated their software or changed their website because it's unusable for me now. Plus, I also read that Search Tempest was investigated by Criagslist for copyright infringement or something...

Whatever happened broke Search Tempest.

It was a pretty convenient way to search the nation for the 2 or 3 Oldsmobile diesels that happened to be for sale at any given time.

 

Yeah, I really don't understand why Craigslist cares about sites like Searchtempest. I can't figure out how a nationwide search tool like that hurts CL in any way.

 

Craigslist needs to offer a service similar to what Search Tempest does (or did). There's apparently a demand for it.

I ran across this site about a week ago:

https://claz.org/

In fact, I read about the Craigslist copyright infringement when investigating this site. It works well, but not as well as Search Tempest did. It brings up a lot of old ads. I did run across a few good ads during my search though.

 

Have you ever taken a train ride? I did a few years ago and it is amazing what you see in everyone's back yard. No one faces their house towards the tracks. Only problem you have to keep a road map handy so you can find it again... Tedd

 

Tedd, that's a great idea. For all those folks mentioning searching the old fashioned way, Barn Find Hunter is an awesome program by Hagerty Insurance: