Hi. I am new on this forum and i am also new to the classic car market. I have been searching for a while for a full sized classic American car. I always loved the smooth ride and the comfortable seats that these big boat cars provide. It feels like you are riding on a cloud. I love the classic look they have as well. I am mostly searching for a 1977-1990 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser station wagon. But I like all cars that are boats like Lincoln town cars and Cadillac Fleetwoods or Broughams. However, I am not mechanically inclined at all and i do not know the prices of cars at all. I tried searching for cars online through various sites like cars.com, hemmings.com, and facebook marketplace, and craigslist. I got very little results. It was either the car was too much of a project and completely run down or the price was way out of my range. I am also scared of buying these old cars because anything can happen the next day. like the transmission can go out which is an expensive repair and these cars are sold as is. I have never bought these types of cars before so if anyone can give me any advice it would be greatly appreciated. Also if anyone in this community is selling a car or knows about a car for sale that they can recommend me to take a look at is good help as well. I guess I
also need a rough estimate on what to pay for these types of cars like the wagon I mentioned. I don't need showroom condition but something that is at least decent condition. Thank you all.
-Sammy

 

Welcome to the site and good luck in your quest. The thing about old cars is maintenance, it can be expensive if your mechanic'ing through your wallet. As you mentioned there are no guarantees and they can break at any given most inopportune moment. The year models your going after are the beginnings of the EPA years and aren't the simplest to repair. They are not the most desirable of cars and lack aftermarket following for restoration parts. With that said they are comparably less expensive to get into. Not trying to rain on your parade, just noting the obvious.

 

If you can't accept this, then you're in the wrong hobby. You say you're looking for 1977 to 1990 Custom Cruisers. The newest of those is now nearly 30 years old. Expect whatever car you buy to need work. They can be made pretty much as reliable for daily driver use as a modern car if that's what you're after, but unless you pay top dollar, expect whatever you buy to need work. But most people look at this as a positive and as a challenge because the old car hobby, to most people in it, is the fixing-up of the car more than it is the end product.

Since you're looking specifically for a wagon, consider spending some time over at stationwagonforums.com. Nothing but wagons over there, and lots of Custom Cruisers of the years you're interested in get posted and talked about.

You don't say how far from home you want to find the car, but doing a nationwide craigslist search of Oldsmobile Custom Cruisers turns up a few nice ones. They're all over the country, but one of them is right in your area.

https://detroit.craigslist.org/wyn/p...940920785.html

https://atlanta.craigslist.org/eat/c...929623796.html

https://chicago.craigslist.org/sox/c...947143490.html

https://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/c...930503012.html


Here's three on ebay right now.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/153589635795

https://www.ebay.com/itm/113838008578

https://www.ebay.com/itm/273953906570

 

Find a shop that will look over a car when you go to buy it. That silver OCC Jaunty provided the link to looks like a good one to look into.

 

Here's one that is ready to drive anywhere -

https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds...8/2294547.html

 

Dear Oldcutlass,
Thanks for the info. I am not sure on how to do my homework on these cars. The problem is that buying a used car is like gambling in casino. I don't know how it's going to turn out in terms of reliability and I don't know how much it is really going to cost me especially repair prices seem to be going through the roof. This is even more true when the parts for these cars are rare. I guess I will pay a mechanic for inspection so I would not have to buy blindly. I decided to find something affordable and take a chance with it. Someone showed me an Oldsmobile custom cruiser for sale in my area that is affordable and in good shape. So maybe something like that.

 

Dear Jaunty 75,
Thank you for doing such a good search. I called they guy selling the 1984 Oldsmobile Custom cruiser in Chicago. It just came to the market so I wouldn't have caught that deal if it weren't for you. However, the owner told me someone is coming to take a look at it and he will let me know if that customer will buy it or not. So right now I am hoping that it would still be available because it is the car I am looking for and the price is affordable and it seems to be in great condition.

 

Dear Olds 64,
Thanks for the advice. i just hope I do not waste $200 on an inspection for a car that is not worth buying due to being in poor mechanical condition. i am waiting for the owner to get back to me about the silver 1984 Oldsmobile custom Cruiser. I'm hoping it would still be available.

 

Dear D. Yaros,
Thank you for showing me that car. love big boat convertibles. But the price is not affordable in my budget. In that price range this is a car that needs to stay garaged to maintain its value. Daily driving this car in Chicago will make it rusty and the value will be diminished.I don't know how to take care of classics in that price range. My price range is up to $5000 maximum.

 

$200 for a vehicle inspection is quite high. I would expect it to be an inspector that would do the test drive, take pictures and prepare a report. That's something I would pay if I were buying a classic Oldsmobile half way across the country. Find a shop that will look at a car for you without an appointment. Most shops should be willing to do a quick inspection for folks buying used cars.

 

You have an inherent conflict. You want two mutually opposed things at the same time. You want a reliable used car right out of the box, but you also want it to be 30 to 40 years old. These two events usually do not happen simultaneously.

The people on this forum are into old cars. They own, repair, and drive their own old Oldsmobiles because it's a hobby for them. They have some other vehicle or vehicles, usually much newer, that they use as daily drivers. Few people on this site hire someone to do a mechanical inspection of an old Oldsmobile before buying. Most are savvy enough to do that inspection themselves or have a trusted individual do it for them if the car is not nearby. But, as I said above, they expect the car to have problems and to need repair and restoration. Hunting down those elusive parts is part of the hobby and part of the fun. So is the repair that follows. Few people on this site use their old Olds as a daily driver, so locating parts quickly is not an issue.

Little of the above applies to you, apparently, except for the fact that you want an old Oldsmobile. But you want it to be as reliable when you buy it as you would expect a late-model, three or four year old used car to be. And you want parts to be just as plentiful. And you want it to be inexpensive. It doesn't work this way.

It appears from the ads we've seen that you can get a decent Custom Cruiser from the model-year range you're looking for, but you still have to keep in mind that the newest of these 1977 to 1990 Custom Cruisers is 29 years old and the oldest is 42. As I said earlier, expect whatever car you buy, no matter how much you might have it inspected before you buy it, to need some significant maintenance, anything from four new tires to a transmission overhaul to a complete redoing of the brakes to who knows what else. It goes with the territory. These cars were reliable daily drivers when they were new, and there's no reason they can't be that way again. But it is rare that something this old will be that reliable immediately upon purchase, unless you pay top dollar, which you don't want to do.

My advice is, if you can afford it, to have a second, reliable car as your daily transportation until your Oldsmobile purchase has been gone through and upgraded as necessary. Do expect to have to spend some money.

As far as parts, you should have little trouble locating mechanical parts (brake parts, tune-up, suspension, etc.) right over the counter at your local Autozone or NAPA store, but body and trim is an entirely different issue. Nothing is reproduced new, so if you ever need a bumper or fender or headlight trim or whatever, you will most likely have to find a junkyard car and take the parts off of it. But you can avoid this by buying a car initially that is in as good a shape cosmetically as you can afford.