Hello all! I have owned a few classic cars over the years, but last week I purchased my first classic Olds! She is a 1964 Jetstar 88, in absolutely beautiful condition, 90% of it still original factory. The last owner had her in storage since 1980, so no New England rot and rust!

I have never owned a classic Olds, so I am hoping this site/forum can be a great resource for me to learn more about my car and address issues.

great to be here!

 

Very nice car - welcome!

 

Welcome, and she indeed looks to be in mighty fine condition!

 

Nice car! Where a bouts in New England? I'm in ct.

 

Welcome to C.O. Love the land yachts. What you have there is called the "Celebrity Sedan"


Just my opinion - but the SSIII wheels on the car just don't suit it. They were designed for the A body. In 1983/84 Olds expanded the availability of the SS wheel to the Delta 88, but it had a large special brushed aluminum center cap. Basically it was to make the 88 coupe look more sporty, but not a lot of these options really hit the streets. I think that was because most of the 88 buyers at the time were looking for the upscale version of the Impala. The 88 already came with an impressive list of standard features and the styling was better too.



The more popular option for the classic look on the Delta 88 was the wire wheel covers



Enjoy the car. Wheels will always be discussion items in the 'eye of the beholder'.

 

I am in the Providence, RI area

 

I agree about the wheels, the old owner must have slapped them on at some point. They just dont quite look right with the car. Wheels and restoring the paint job(there is some bondo spots that were never properly painted over) will be my first big changes that I will be doing. Thanks for letting me know the 'celebrity sedan' is the proper name, I have had people asking if she was a Holiday Sedan, and I just didnt know the proper answer.

 

You're welcome. Most often when the term 'Holiday' is thrown about it refers to the body style where there are no B pillars on the car. In 73 GM adopted a new term for 4 door pillared sedans called "Colonnade". This meant the door did not have a frame around the glass, but the roofline and B pillar were in place to stiffen the body.

Your 64 came in several versions:
Holiday Sedan:


Holiday Coupe


Convertible


A lot of people get the Starfire, Super 88, Dynamic 88, Jetstar 1 and Jetstar 88 mixed up. I think mostly because they used pretty much the same bodies but different trim levels. The advertising of the day dictated what level of trim your social class/sportiness fell into. The Starfire was the first step below the 98 and only came in 2 high end lines - Coupe and Convertible. Next came Super 88 in 2 lineups - Celebrity Sedan and Holiday Sedan, followed by Dynamic 88 and Jetstar 1, which was basically the upper end styles of the Jetstar 88 but with more power and available in 5 models. It came standard with a choice of 394 engines (260 hp opt, 280hp std, 330 hp opt). Jetstar 1 was only available as sports coupe and had the higher performance 394 engine developing 345 hp. The Jetstar 88 cost less and had the smaller less powerful 330 (225 hp and opt 262 hp) engines.

There was no station wagon in the Jetstar line up, but the Dynamic line up included the (somewhat rare now) Fiesta wagon

 

Nice. The J-88 is in many ways more practical than the other series 1964 88s simply because it has a little more modern drivetrain and shares a lot of chassis components with Cutlass and Chevrolet- meaning generally easier to find.

I don't see a thing wrong with those SS wheels on it, because most of these cars I see have had damned Chevy Rally wheels installed. If you do change them and keep 14" wheels/tires, you'll be a little limited as far as factory wheelcover offerings. There were five total for J88- dogbowls, three full wheelcover styles (which can all be seen in Allan's second post), and wire caps.

Enjoy yer car!

 

Welcome aboard

 

Nice! Welcome aboard....

 

Thanks everybody! I will def have lots of questions in the near future as I start tinkering with this beautiful beast!

 

Probably can get the front bumper fixed fairly easy at a chrome shop. Good luck with your project.

Take lots of pics of what you're doing as you go along. The camera will be your best source of how things were before, during and after resto. I don't think there are Chassis Service Manuals for your car so document everything you do.

Start a build thread on each of the projects you undertake on the car. We love seeing how things are coming along. You'd be surprised how many of the guys here have knowledge of these older beasts.

 

Being in Providence area you're close to two of the major Olds parts suppliers- Everett Horton (OldsDad's dad) for NOS and quality used, and Fusick Automotive over in CT for reproduction and NOS.

 

Wow, thanks for the advice! I just had my first mini-crisis when I went to register the car. Here in RI despite its age, I still need a full inspection. The inspection station wouldnt pass her until I got a new muffler and tailpipe, there was some exhaust leaks in those spots beyond patching. SO i took her to my mechanic, who informed me I had to find the part. I hopped online thinking it would be an easy task (like i said in my original post, i have had experience with classic cars but they have all been with old air-cooled VWs, which are easy as pie to find parts for online) and ran into a problem finding a muffler and pipe that would fit. After calling customer service for every major parts shop, and being told they had nothing that would fit, I finally got the parts from Summit Racing, both Flowmaster parts, but I was informed they would fit a 1964 F85, but he didnt know what the hell a J88 was. Reluctantly I ordered the parts, as I only have 5 days to inspect the car before they pull the plates. It was unusual for me to be unsure of the parts, and to take the risk of ordering blind. The parts will be here tomm, and I am hoping it will be fine. This event has spurred me to start studying Olds like crazy to avoid any future hiccups....

 

Very nice looking Olds! welcome to CO! Good luck on the exhaust system.

 

Welcome! Always great to see another New England owner!

 

A Cutlass/F85 exhaust is not going to fit. You don't have an exhaust shop there that can custom bend an exhaust for it?

5 days is not much of a grace period. Not sure how RI inspection works. Here it's annual. I know some states only require it when the car changes ownership or is brought into the state for the first time.

Get used to people not knowing what the car is. Even though my Starfires do not say Chevrolet or Impala on them anywhere, people insist on calling them Impalas. Same with the Toronado- they insist it is a Riviera. When I tell them no, it is not, they say "You sure?"

 

X2 on exhaust.
re: Olds is Chev or Buick? Yeah, but an Olds guy knows. The one good thing about these older cars is some of the body parts from other large B bodies is interchangeable.

ajschirling You're going to find that a lot of the replacement parts for your car either have to be fabricated or come from donor cars. When you start getting into the history of Olds, it's a great read. But try to find any place other than boneyards who have an inventory of these old beasts is almost non existent. Just an FYI, I saw a post on this site last year about a HUGE boneyard out in CO. Can't remember the post name. If I do, I'll send it to you.

rocketraider - Do you remember that one too?

 

I just read your introduction to the olds world and welcome. I am originally from rehoboth ,mass. But now i live in southern ohio. I have a 1968 442 convertible i am trying to finish that my dad gave me last year. I learn something new on here every time i am online these guys are very helpful.