Four Four Tony

Years ago there were services that could document the history of your car from day one to the present. I was wondering if they were still around and if anyone here had ever used one of them? I'd like to figure out the history of my 442 if possible.
I have the window sticker so I know the selling dealer and know the owner's names back to 1986 but before that I have no idea. Massachusetts didn't use titles from like 1975 to 1986 so the registry can't look it up and I believe my car was always in this state.
Anyone know how to figure it out?

jaunty75

You're not going to find any service that will do this. In fact, I've never known of any services "years ago" that did this, either, and I've been hanging around this hobby for almost 20 years.

For Olds, the Olds History Center used to tell you, if you wrote to them, that they could produce a window sticker and original selling invoice for any Olds from 1977 or later if you gave them the VIN. But anything before 1977, and you were out of luck. It's apparently different in Canada as GM of Canada apparently kept better records, but for U.S.-sold cars, no chance.

Now, you are WAY ahead of the game already because you know the selling dealer, and you are also ahead because you have ownership history going back a considerable ways. Have you checked into the dealership itself? Is it still in business? It may not be selling Oldsmobiles anymore, but if they're still selling cars and they've stayed in the same location and they've maintained consistent ownership, they might still have old records. It's a bit of a long-shot, but you never know. I was able to find out from the build sheet the selling dealer of a '75 Delta 88 I owned in the '90s, and they turned out to still be in business. I contacted them, and they were able to produce a document that had the original purchaser's name and address. They were no longer at that address, and I couldn't track them down, but it was something.

IF the dealer still exists, and IF they have any kind of records that go that far back, they might be able to tell you the original purchaser. Even if you get this information, though, it's likely that, after so many years, that person won't be at that address any more and might not even be alive any more.


If tracking down the dealer doesn't work, you can try the earliest owner information you have. Try contacting that person and see if they know who they bought the car from. Then contact THAT person and see if THEY know who they bought the car from. And so on. If you're lucky, maybe that 1986 owner bought the car from the original purchaser.

You never know what might happen. The most likely thing is that you'll hit dead ends everywhere. But this is the only hope you have. You almost need to hire a private detective. But there is no systematic record-keeping housed somewhere that you could just log into with your vehicle's VIN and out pops a list of all the owners your car has ever had, their addresses, and when they owned the car. Wouldn't it be great if there was.

Four Four Tony

I did look up the selling dealer but they're not in business in any way shape or form that I could find anymore. The service I was thinking of was almost like a private eye for car history from what I can remember. I could swear I saw an add in Hemmings for it too but maybe I just saw something about someone else doing it in a restoration story and my memory is playing tricks on me. Ah well, we'll see what happens.

jaunty75

You could be right. My experience is with Oldsmobile. I have no idea what you could find if you were trying to trace a Ford or a Chevy. You might have better luck, especially if you had a Corvette. There's more demand from Ford and Chevy owners because there's more of them, and it would be worth someone's time to establish a service like this or to try to accumulate the records and make them available. I've heard of some people trying to do this with Olds, but it's much more hit or miss in my experience.

I'm not surprised about the dealer being gone. Many folded when Olds did. But, on the other hand, I recently acquired a '73 Olds from the original purchaser's family, and I so know who the selling dealer was from the paperwork they had with the car, including the original window sticker. That dealer is still there under the same name selling Jeeps and Subarus. I haven't contacted them because I don't need to because I already know everything there is to know about the ownership of this car. It would be interesting, though, to know if they still had any sales records from 37 years ago, so I may yet contact them. But it can happen that a former Olds dealer could still be in business.

When I contacted the dealer for the '75 Olds I mentioned above, he was very cooperative and interested in what I was trying to do. (I wrote to him by letter. This was WAY before email was anything.) It turned out that all he had all from back then, and at the time of my inquiry, it had been only about 19 or 20 years since the cars was sold, not the 41 it is now for your car, was what he called a "delivery card." It was about the size of an old computer punchcard, and all it had on it was the car's VIN and the purchaser's name and address. It must have been something that was kept with the car until the person who bought it took delivery. It might have been made at the factory if the car had been special ordered, which a '75 Delta 88 convertible might have been.