Hello all - newbie here joined up to educate myself on the Jetstar 88. My housekeeper was gifted this car, and knowing that I'm a car guy she's been pleading with me to help her sell it. I would buy this car myself, but I already have a 71 Buick Skylark restomod consuming my free time!

The Jetstar 88 seems like a middle to lower spec car for 1964, but this one was optioned with power steering and power breaks and nice chrome/stainless trim. Everything works on the car, it runs and drives and it's a solid condition 3+ survivor with a good quality repaint at some point. No rust, the body and floor look 100% SoCal solid. It looks like it's been stored in a garage since around 2004 and has 8k miles on the odometer. I need to figure out if that's really 108k. It's still riding on bias ply tires - so that needs to be remedied asap!

Questions I have: 1. Anything in particular to look closely at or check on this car? I'm thinking brake fluid flush and trans. It has had an oil change. Points could probably use a look.

2. Are these convertible tops hydraulic?

3. Any suggestions on how/where to help her sell it? I think a classic car dealer would offer a very low sum and I don't love doing that, on the other hand I don't want to take on the task of trying to sell it on a site like a bringatrailer.com when it's not my car. The car is in Orange County, CA.

4. Values are always subjective. Oldcarsguide says $13.5k for condition 3 running up to $21k for a condition 2. I saw one sell on Mecum for $17.6 a few years ago. Any other recent sales folks might refer me to?

I GREATLY appreciate any answers or input. I feel a little like an intruder here in the Oldsmobile forum, but I will gladly trade Buick knowledge for anyone out there now or in the future. We're all BOPs I guess. Thanks again.

 

The Jetstar 88 was the bottom-of-the-line model in Oldsmobile's B-body family. It's a B-body car (same as an other Olds Eighty Eight that year) except that it used the engine, trans, brakes, and rear axle from the smaller A-body cars to save cost. As a result, there are a LOT of one-year-only, one-model-only parts on these cars. For example, the front spindles, motor mounts, frame, rear axle housing, and rear axle shafts are unique to the 1964 Jetstar 88. There are no replacements or reproductions available. If the car is really in good shape, that's not necessarily an issue, but be aware of it. Most parts vendors will incorrectly list replacement parts (like brake parts) for other Olds full size cars. These cars use the same 9.5" diameter drums as the Cutlass line for that year, which fortunately are readily available. The rubber motor mounts are a problem if they need replacement, as they are unique to the 1964 J88 and no one makes new ones. The only option is to have a vendor like Steele Rubber revulanize the originals, which means that the car is out of commission until they come back. The two speed Jetaway trans is a long tail version that is unique to the 1964-67 J88, Delmont 88, and Vista Cruisers in those years. It does have the switch-pitch torque converter. The rear axle uses internal parts from the 8.2" axle used under the 1964-67 A-body cars, but as I said the housing is unique to the 64 J88 due to width and control arm mounting points. There are virtually no reproduction body parts available for these cars. The bumpers use a unique "blind" mounting system with brackets welded to the backside so the bolts don't show. This unfortunately created a pocket that retained mud and salt, causing nearly all of them to rust out. Yours look good, but pay attention to this area on the backside of the bumpers. Yes, the top is hydraulic. And no, nothing from the same year Impala will interchange, at least not anything mechanical or body-wise. Some interior parts are common.

 

Welcome. You might try Facebook Marketplace and Offer Up to sell the car. Just make sure your housekeeper meets potential buyers at the local police station. Also, transactions should be done only in cash, or by wire transfer at the bank.

 

Your car is exceptionally rare being that it has all those options, including factory cruise control, especially being a Jetstar 88. GLWS

 

Welcome to the site.

 

I would agree with this. I think this car is worth somewhere in the mid-teens. You get $15K for it, and you'll have done well for your housekeeper.

Don't worry about the options on the car in determining price. The main things that determine value are what it is and its condition. It's a 1964 Jetstar 88 convertible in very good condition. Whether or not it has power windows or cruise control or whatever is in the noise as far as value goes.

I owned a '64 Jetstar 88 myself back in the 1990s, and everything that Joe P says about them is true. But they are fun cars.






Here's a photo of it as I bought it. I never figured out why it was gray. The maroon color is correct based on the paint code on the cowl tag.

Note the rot in the rear bumper on each side. This is what Joe P was talking about. I was able to get a replacement from Hall's Oldsmobile Salvage (anyone remember them?) and have it rechromed. The front bumper was ok as is, and I just had it recrhomed.







To sell this car, you are going to have to get your hands dirty. You need to advertise it and be prepared to meet with and/or respond to potential buyers. I would suggest craigslist. It always gets a bad rap, but nothing will give the car wider exposure, and I have sold two vehicles that way without any difficulties. A nice thing about it is that it costs next to nothing ($5, I think, for a month).

I would certainly advertise it on this site, as you more or less have done here. But you should put it in the cars for sale section with an actual asking price as that's what the forum rules require.

 

You're taking on too much here. All you know is that the odometer says 8,000 miles. Just say that in the ad and say that you don't know if the odometer has rolled over. It probably has, but maybe not. But you don't need to figure this out. Just let the buyer know what it says and let him worry about it.

Ditto on the tires. Leave them alone. Unless you plan to drive the car at all, let the buyer worry about the tires and buy what he wants. As long as the car can be driven a mile or two for test drives, leave the tires that are already on it there.

You certainly DO want to make sure it starts reliably and runs. Changing the oil is a good idea as well as checking other fluids. But there's no need to change the transmission fluid or coolant as long as both are full and the car moves and the engine doesn't overheat. Make sure the brakes are ok and that the reservoir stays full of fluid. If I were buying this or any car that had been sitting for 20 years, I would change all the fluids, anyway, no matter what the seller says what has or has not been done.

In short, you want to invest in this in car in the way of time and money ONLY what is needed to sell it.

 

I remember Hall’s, I bought a bumper for my 65 Cutlass then. I think they were in Kansas if my memory is right. Nice guy to deal with, what was his first name again?

 

I think it was Earl. Yes, they were in Soldier, Kansas.

There's a discussion of Hall's here.

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...-around-18516/

 

Wow - thank you everybody. That's all AMAZINGLY helpful. Greatly appreciate all this knowledge and input.

 

I went back to look at the car again and noticed it didn’t have A/C, but had all those other options, strange it didn’t have it being a California car, must of been an ordered car.

 

I don't think the fact that a 1964 anything that doesn't have air-conditioning is at all unusual. Back in those days, A/C was seen very much as a luxury, and many buyers of convertibles in those days thought to themselves, I'm buying a convertible. I don't need air conditioning.

Also, while this car might be in California now, do we know that it was originally sold there? We apparently only know the history back to 2004.

 

First, A/C was still an expensive novelty in 1964. Second, the car is a CONVERTIBLE! In SoCal, where it never rains. Why would you need A/C if the top is never up? And yes, given the other options on what was intended to be a loss-leader model, this car was almost certainly ordered and not bought off the lot.

 

The Jetstar 88 was supposed to give Oldsmobile dealers an entry into the market dominated at the time by the "low-priced three," Chevrolet, Ford, and Plymouth. Olds dealers could have something to attract buyers who normally would consider Oldsmobile above their affordability level.

But the price differences between the corresponding Jetstar 88 and Dynamic 88 models weren't all that much. The D-88 was the bread-and-butter car line for Oldsmobile. It was supposed to attract the middle-class to upper middle-class buyers that were the heart of the Oldsmobile target market..

Here's the base price data from the 1964 Dealer Specs book.

An an example, the price of the Dynamic 88 Celebrity Sedan (four door pillared sedan) was only $70 more than the corresponding Jetstar 88. This is less than 3% more.

For the Holiday Coupe (two-door hardtop), the difference was, again, $70, which is about 2.3% more for the D-88.

For the convertibles, essentially the same difference, $71 this time, a difference of just over 2%.

It's hard to believe that these very small differences in base price really gave Olds dealers trying to sell the Jetstars much ammunition. I know that $70 was a lot more in 1964 than it is in 2025, but, still, as a percentage, the differences were so minor as to be negligible.







Sales of the corresponding models bore this out, I think. Below are the 1964 production figures for each body style, first Jetstar, then Dynamic. In each case, the Dynamic didn't just beat the Jetstar, which you would expect, but it smoked it.

Celebrity Sedan: 24,614; 57,590
Holiday Coupe: 14,663; 32,369
Holiday Sedan: 19,325; 50,327
Convertible: 3,903; 10,747

In each case, the Dynamic beat the Jetstar by more than 2 to 1. In the case of the convertible, it was almost 3 to 1.

Of course, you would expect Oldsmobile's main model, the Dynamic, to outsell the base Jetstar. But, as I said, the Dynamic didn't just beat the Jetstar, it pounded the Jetstar into the ground.

Remember, the Jetstar lasted only three years. I would guess that perhaps Olds felt that the Jetstar was cannibalizing buyers as much from its own Dynamic market as it was from Ford, Chevy, or Plymouth and that the investment in maintaining an entirely separate model that wasn't much lower in price wasn't worth it.