Final Parking Space: 1980 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Regency Diesel Sedan

Somehow, I have managed to get 18 months into this weekly series without documenting a single vehicle built by the company that introduced the world to mass-produced automobiles. We’ve admired GM vehicles badged by Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, and even Geo in their final parking spaces here, and now it’s time for our first Oldsmobile: an oil-burning Malaise Era luxury sedan found in a Denver-area car graveyard last week.

The General’s Oldsmobile Division, situated between Pontiac and Buick on Alfred Sloan’s no-longer-so-ironclad Ladder of Success prestige scale, rode high during the middle 1970s and well into the 1980s, with the Cutlass family at or near the top of the car sales charts for many of those years. It’s no wonder that Elwood Blues was excited to see that the 1980 Oldsmobiles were in early.

The Ninety-Eight was the king of Oldsmobile luxury sedans for 1980, and the Regency was the top Ninety-Eight trim level that year.

The MSRP for the 1980 Ninety-Eight Regency sedan started at $10,159, which comes to about $41,889 in 2025 dollars. This car was built with a generous helping of costly options, so its actual price tag would have been much higher.

The most interesting of those options, from an automotive-history standpoint, is this 350-cubic-inch Oldsmobile diesel V-8 engine. It cost $860 ($3546 after inflation) and was rated at 105 horsepower and 205 pound-feet.

GM began bolting the Oldsmobile 350 diesel into new cars for the 1978 model year, and the timing couldn’t have been better. Diesel fuel at the time was cheaper than gasoline, and diesel engines got superior fuel economy, both of which were potent selling points during a period of tough economic times in the United States. Once the Iranian Revolution caused oil prices to double starting in mid-1979, drivers of diesel vehicles were able to avoid the worst of the gas lines and odd-even-day rationing.

Unfortunately, there were problems with the Olds Diesel 350. This engine was based on the gasoline-burning Olds 350, the block and other components of which were strengthened in order to handle the compression increase to 22.5:1. This proved to be insufficient preparation for the real world of diesel driving.

GM had beefed up the block and used tougher cylinder head bolts for the diesel 350, but the number and locations of the head bolts weren’t changed from those of the gasoline-burning 350 (doing so would have required redesigning the entire engine from scratch). That resulted in stretching or breaking of head bolts, which caused blown head gaskets and worse.

On top of that, the diesel fuel available in the United States at the time was of uneven quality. Mercedes-Benz and Peugeot, two manufacturers who had done reasonably well selling diesel cars in the USA during the 1970s, spent the money to include water separators in their diesel cars’ fuel systems. GM did not, which led to endless corrosion and contamination problems in the Olds diesels’ fuel-injection hardware.

Interestingly, the Oldsmobile 4.3-liter diesel V-6 (which was based on the Olds 350 and thus was entirely unrelated to the Chevrolet 4.3 V-6) didn’t suffer nearly so much from the problems that bedeviled its big brother. GM fixed most of the diesel 350’s flaws after a few years, but the sales damage had been done; while the engine was available through 1985, it found few takers after 1981 (falling gasoline prices starting in 1982 were a factor in Americans turning their backs on oil-burning cars).

Here’s something you don’t often see on GM’s C-Body land yachts: a Corvette L88-style fiberglass hood scoop, probably sourced from J.C. Whitney.

The hood scoop’s installer made it functional by slicing a hole in the hood’s sheet metal.

I suspect that the scoop was an attempt to deal with chronic engine overheating. It wouldn’t have worked, but at least it made the car look racy. With a mere 105 horses in a 3,832-pound vehicle, a speedy image would have at least made the driver feel better.

While this generation of Ninety-Eight was shorter and nearly a half-ton lighter than its massive predecessor, it was still an imposing luxury sedan in the Detroit postwar tradition. When Chuck D rapped “suckers to the side, I know you hate my Ninety-Eight” in 1987, he was referring to the downsized-yet-intimidating 1977-1984 version shown on the record jacket with a pair of Cadillacs.

The optional factory AM/FM/8-track player with electronic tuning is still in the dash. This was a $493 option ($2033 in today’s money), but well worth it if you wanted to listen to “London Calling” on 8-track.

I found this official dealership-issued Oldsmobile-branded 8-track cartridge in the car. It appears that the Oldsmobile Division found Glen Campbell, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney a bit too radical for their sensibilities, so their songs are covered by The Living Voices and Hugh Montenegro & His Orchestra.

You could buy a new 1980 Olds Ninety-Eight with an AM/FM/cassette or AM/FM/8-track rig equipped with built-in CB radio and special antenna, but this car had an aftermarket Fuzzbuster CB under the dash.

Judging from the sun-ravaged padded vinyl top and the dates of the repair receipts I found inside the car, I’d say that it got parked at some point in the 1990s and never drove again.

The original owner’s manual was still inside.

There’s copious layering of body filler throughout, with at least one backyard-style application of new blue paint on the body.

There are aftermarket gauges and switches under the dash. This car’s owner or owners were determined to get their money’s worth out of it.

I decided to buy the CB radio and 8-track tape, for a total of $20.88 with taxes and fees. Yes, I have an 8-track player plus several CB antennas, as one does.

Production of this generation of Ninety-Eight continued through the 1984 model year, after which it was replaced by a smaller front-wheel-drive successor. The final Ninety-Eights were 1996 models; the Oldsmobile brand itself got the axe after the 2004 model year.