Deacon

I'm new here and trying to sort it out. I joined because I have a classic Olds I need to let go (1986 Regency 98). We're trying to cope with unemployment here in the Kalamazoo area and can no longer afford two cars, especially one that needs work. It's really a sweet car in pretty good shape, considering, and where better to find someone who could appreciate it and actually afford it than here? I have no idea how to assess a fair value or find someone who might be interested. I believe that I have to post something before I can place an ad for sale ... is that right? I will sincerely appreciate any advice.
Thanks!
Deacon

Jamesbo

Welcome aboard

Give it a shot by scrolling down below the reply box and hit manage attachments be sure you're in advanced and not quick reply.

jaunty75

The Old Cars Price Guide August '09 edition lists the value of a 1986 Olds 98 Regency (which was the only "sub-model" of the 98 available that year) in showroom condition (#2 condition, according to their guidelines) as having a value of from $3,990 to $4,060, depending on body style and trim level.

Dropping down to #3 condition, which, according to the OCPG, is what you typically see at car shows and cruise-ins (a "20-footer"), the values range from $2,570 to $2,610. So, based on your very quick description, your car is probably worth in the $2,500 to $3,500 range.

For a daily-driver on which everything works but which could use some restoration, values are in the low $1,000 range (around $1,100 to $1,200).


As un-nice as it sounds, your car, at 23 years of age, is right down there at the bottom of the value curve. Cars become antiques by definition, at least informally, when they reach 25 years of age, and after that their values generally rise, although it could be slowly. To most people, your car is just what President Obama had in mind for the soon-to-end "cash for clunkers" program.

If fact, if you could trade it tomorrow, the last day of the "clunkers" program, you could get maybe $4,500 for it, which is probably twice as much as you could sell it for on the open market right now. Of course, you have to buy a new car to get the $4,500, and you say that your finances are tight right now (which is why you're selling yours), so I don't think this option is open to you.


But there's the reality of your car's value in today's market. Unless you can find someone who will buy it because they're a fan of Oldsmobile and they happen to like the 1986 models, and it might take you a while to find someone that fits this definition, your most likely buyer is someone who will just see it as a very old used car (and from an era, unfortunately, when GM's and Oldsmobile's reputations were definitely taking hits for low-quality workmanship and poor styling--in those days, Olds 88s and 98s were hard to tell from Pontiac 6000's if you were more than 20 or 30 feet away).

In fact, if we really want to carry this right down to the most depressing point possible (and why not!), it was the very lousy sales of those late '80s Oldsmobiles along with the much derided "not your father's Oldsmobile" advertising campaign that nearly killed Oldsmobile (the first time) in 1992. Olds was saved that year and retargeted by GM as an "import fighter." That's when what turned out to be Oldsmobile's final era (Intrigue, Aurora, Bravada, minivans, etc.) began.


So what I'm really trying to say here, m'boy, is that you're trying to sell the car that nearly killed Oldsmobile!

jaunty75

The discussion above (mostly me, I admit) got me to thinking about a compilation I did back in the 90s when I was editor of our club's newsletter of Oldsmobile production in the late 80s and early 90s.

Oldsmobile's high-water mark for production was 1984. Olds made 1,203,843 cars that year, and it was more than any other year in its history. Production stayed at almost 1.2 million for 1985 and 1986, and then it began to drop precipitously:

1987: 853,000
1988: 764,000
1989: 693,000
1990: 583,000
1991: 447,000
1992: 511,000 (rebounded a bit)
1993: 398,000 (dropping again)


But you can see that by 1991, Olds production was down to only about 1/3 of what it had been only seven years earlier. Thus all the talk and the near death of Oldsmobile in 1992.

Probably the most disheartening thing to Olds people in 1993 was the recognition that the last time Olds had sold fewer than 400,000 cars was way back in 1961 (318,000 that year).



Trivia question! Oldsmobile sold more than 1,000,000 cars in only six model years. I mentioned three of them above (1984, 1985, and 1986). What were the other three? Tiny hint: they were also consecutive years.



And, Mr. Moderator, I know full well I'm now WAY off topic here! I apologize. Got a stream of consciousness going, and I couldn't stop it.

mugzilla

75 76 78 ...

Snowdog

'77 '78 '79

jaunty75

Snowdog has it. 1977 was the first year that Olds sold more than 1 million cars. Did it for three straight years, took a several year hiatus when sales went back below 1 million, and then did it for three more in the mid-80s before the bottom fell out.

Mugzilla, back to school for you! In my hint I said the three years were consecutive.


Thanks, guys.

Deacon

Well -- Jaunty75, Mugzilla, Snowdog and others, I know I am in the company of some serious experts. I am no expert, just a guy who ended up with his father-in-law's Olds (yes, this WAS my father's Oldsmobile...) I really appreciate the pricing advice. I could get $250 from my local junkyard guy, but I know the vehicle is worth more, and I believe it would be a great find some someone here at Classic Olds who is into that year/model either to rebuild it or to use it for parts. My next post will be in the "For Sale" forum, and I'll be as accurate and honest as I can be, and I'll get the wife to shoot some photos.

Thanks again for the support!
Deacon

jaunty75

Deacon,

Good luck! I didn't mean to come across as TOO negative. It's just that looking at Olds history, your car falls into a period when Olds began the long-term slide in sales that would ultimately lead to its death. They still sold over 1 million cars in 1986, so the problems hadn't yet set in with your model year. But about 60% of those sales were Cutlasses, so the large cars were already beginning to slip.

I've found that the Old Cars Price Guide is not too bad in valuations. Their steps in price between one condition level and another can be large, so things are very average, and lots of cars will fall in between their price levels. But you would probably do very well to get more than $3,000 for the car. You'd probably have to keep it another 10 or 15 years before its value would rise to what it cost new, at least in terms of nominal dollars. I would guess that, in 1986, the sticker price on a '98 Regency was on the order of $15,000. It'll probably be quite some time before its value rises back to that level.

One thing you haven't said is, what's the mileage on it? That could have a significant bearing on the price if it's very low. Everybody expects a 20-25 year old car to have 100,000 to 200,000 miles on it. If yours has 20 or 30K, that's a selling point.

mugzilla

I luva luva wifey in the background when I'm car hunting ...

Homestar

That's great reading Mr Jaunty! Good posts.
BTW My best friend's name as a kid was Johnty.

Deacon

The mileage isn't bad for its age--not quite 97,000 original miles. A few other pluses: garaged its entire life (really important in Michigan) and pretty much babied, at least until I got it! My father-in-law bought it to replace a Delta 88 he loved. He was retired by then and this car spent most of its early life in Arizona and got a lot of regular maintenance. I'll tell the full story in the ad.

And thanks again man for the welcome and support.

jaunty75

You've got some positives there. The 97,000 miles won't set anyone's heart aflutter, but the Arizona life and always-garaged will help, especially if this means that the car looks good, with little or no rust, a nice paint job, and a clean interior. I'm looking forward to reading your ad.

pynoman

I'm new here, trying to get my forum "credit rating" up so i can post elsewhere.
I have 72 Olds Vista Cruiser.

wmachine

Easy there, Jaunty, I think you're getting carried away!
Since you wandered into the History of Oldsmobile area, I have to disagree with your assessment of the demise of Oldsmobile. I think you're a bit simplistic with your view of what happened.
Lousy sales in the late '80s came with lousy quality, and that wasn't limited to Oldsmobile (or GM for that matter).
You bet, the bad advertising hurt Olds, but it was much more than just "You father's Olds". There was "The New Generation of Olds", too, and other advertising misfires.
And Olds never was really the targeted "import fighter", that was Saturn.
It wasn't really where *Oldsmobile* was that killed them, it is where *GM* was. And where they were was with their head up their, well, you know.
There wasn't really an "almost" in 1992, it was a pretty steady decline since the '80s. GM has been on the path to where they've ended up now (bankruptcy and forced restructuring) for decades. Oldsmobile's departure was just a stretch down that road.

True, that '86 98 is at the bottom of the value curve, but it is due to its age, and nothing to do being an Olds. A comparable Pontiac or Chevy is not worth any more.

jaunty75

The purpose of Saturn was to break away from the GM mold altogether and stay only with small, more or less entry-level cars. Saturn was an attempt to mimic the imports like Honda, who offered only small and intermediate-sized cars, rather than trying to cover the gamut from subcompacts to large SUVs and pickup trucks like, for example, Chevrolet or Ford.

We think of Honda now as being more full-line, with everything from subcompacts like the Fit to minivans like the Odyssey to SUVs like the CRV and Pilot to weird vehicles like the Element to large pickup trucks like the Ridgeline to hybrids like the Insight and Civic Hybrid. But Honda has only come to offer this range of vehicles in more recent years. At the time of Saturn's birth in 1990, Honda's image was that of just a few cars (Civic and Accord) built well.

GM was also touting how Saturn was a different approach to manufacturing with flexible work-rule labor contracts, worker input into manufacturing efficiency, and so forth. But their entry-level-approach has hurt Saturn from the start as people who buy a Saturn early in their lives do not have higher-end Saturn models to move to as their income and status in life rises. It's only more recently that Saturn has tried to keep these people with some higher end offerings. I recall many articles in magazines and newspapers from that period quoting GM executives as stating that Olds was being retargeted as an "import fighter." Whether or not they ever put their heart where their mouths were is open to debate.

Check out this article from Time magazine from that time period:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...971481,00.html

But at the beginning of the 1990s, while Olds by then was offering a minivan for the first time, you could still go and buy a variety of nameplates (Cutlass, 88, 98, Toronado, Custom Cruiser) that had been around for decades. By the end of the decade, these were all gone, with Cutlass being the last to go in 1999. They were replaced with Aurora (the main "import fighter"), Intrigue, and Alero (with the Bravada thrown in for good measure). They even changed the long-lived rocket logo to the Olds oval to help with the image change.

Also, do you remember that Olds did everything it could to HIDE the fact that these cars were, in fact, Oldsmobiles? You could find an "Aurora" or "Intrigue" badge with no problem, but the word "Oldsmobile" itself was difficult to find on the exterior of the car. It might have been, for example, molded very lightly into the rear bumper. This is the extent to which Olds went to try to change its image. Imagine, being ashamed of your history. How sad.

Here's another interesting article from that time period:


The Cowboy Driving Oldsmobile

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...976980,00.html

GM's problem was that they couldn't turn around the Olds image in that short a time-frame if it was ever possible at all. For nearly 100 years, Olds' market had been the "bench seat and column shift" set, and they couldn't shake this image in just a few years. Heck, as I've point out elsewhere, for most of the last 25 or 30 years of Olds's life, more than 50% of their sales were Cutlasses. But even with this, the IMAGE of Olds was that of a brand of cars driven by 55 and 60 year old doctors, bank executives, and insurance salesmen. By the end, the average age of an Olds buyer had risen into the low 60s, too old to be considered hip and have any chance of competing against the likes of Honda and Toyota, which were and are very popular with younger families.

It was probably true for many years prior to Oldsmobile's demise that GM had too many car brands, something which they've only now belatedly acknowldedged with Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer, etc. going away. The loss of some division was surely inevitable, and it happened to be Olds as while GM was losing sales overall in the late 80s as you point out, Oldsmobile's sales were falling the farthest the fastest relative to their market share and production capacity. Even at the time the end of Olds was announced in 2000, they were selling more cars than Buick. But Buick was profitable, and Olds was not.

It's also really not quite correct to state that Olds sales were in a steady decline since the 1980s. I have Olds production figures for 1990 to 1999:

1990: 583,440
1991: 447,093
1992: 511,594
1993: 398,142
1994: 478,872
1995: 480,998
1996: 362,881
1997: 304,759
1998: 329,742
1999: 352,197

So, yes, production fell from more than 1 million per year in 1986 to the 300,000 to 500,000 range by a half-decade later, and it was this rapid, steep fall that almost resulted in a decision to kill Olds in 1992. But Olds DID enjoy a bit of a resurgence in the mid-1990s due to the Aurora, which started with the 1995 model year, along with better marketing and an overall improving economy. Unfortunately, they couldn't sustain this (2000 production was around 260,000, I believe), and down they went.

wmachine

[QUOTE=jaunty75;103881]
But as you just said before this, Saturn was actually brought on to battle the imports. What the the GM execs were saying was double-talk. And you believe them? Despite what you just previously said?

All moves similarly done in other divisions. Thus nothing really to do with the demise of Olds.

,
Huh? The Aurora was supposed to be a "world class" car, to compete with European cars more than Japanese (who are the imports mostly referred to in reference back then to "import fighter")

This was part of the "they didn't have a clue" (what they were doing). This was not part of an image change, it was image denial! The new logo was intentionally designed so at about 20 feet away or more, it was not recognizable and resembled a number of other makes.

Hard to find? When the Aurora came out you couldn't find it because it wasn't there!

Nope. That's exactly what the bean counters said and wanted you to believe. That is *not* what propelled the Cutlass to record sales in the '70s and helped Olds sales climb too. This is why you don't let bean counters run the company. THEY DONT KNOW WHAT MAKES SALES. Sure they saw sales drop. Note that they had farther to drop with Olds because they rose so much just before that. They didn't make and market the cars the way they did when they *were* successful.

That's what happens when you buy into the above bean-counter story. You stop trying to sell to young buyers.
This is why I believe that Olds didn't really just die, it was killed off. Starting in the early '90s, GM starved Olds until it "had" to be put down. Just part of GM's overall ineptness.

Dang, Jaunty, you sound like one of the bean counters. A dying man gasping is not enjoying a resurgence. The corporate plugs were already pulled at that point. And just an example of what I mean? 1995 was when Olds pulled out (meaning GM pulled them out) of NHRA drag racing. After 12 straight years of winning the Manufactures Cup. Aside from automobiles having a history of "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday", there is a unimaginable amount of engineering that comes from racing. So let's cut off Oldsmobile Engineering.
Yeah, down they went......followed by.......