End of the Line For This '70 Olds Delta 88
After my X-themed rant the other day, you’ve gotta figure I’ll be looking for more excuses to quote X songs.
That’s right, there’s an X song entitled “Delta 88.” Let’s just make this perfectly clear: when it comes to Los Angeles pote/musicians, Exene Cervenka is approximately 9,000 times the poet Jim Morrison ever was (though I hear Morrison had the better stage presence).
Right. So, I was roaming one of the self-service junkyards near my place in Denver and I ran across this 1970 Delta 88. It’s been picked over, but still has plenty of parts left. Check out this vinyl-and-simu-leather interior!
Some of the engine— which I presume is a 2-barrel 455— remains. Not only that, it’s got an 8-track!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Olds engines were the best GM designs, from a reliability standpoint. And most had the turbo 400 trans even with the 350 engine. Unlike chevy, which used the marginal turbo 350 behind their 350 and smaller engines. Starting in 77 chevy didn't offer the turbo 400 at all. You could still get it in the bigger BOP cars though, as well as the caddies.
This was a great car and the poor gal looked like she was in good shape when she was scraped. These things barely lasted past 1980 in New England with the salted roads in the winter. I had my frame rewelded 3 times by 1987. The Olds rocket in the middle of the dash glowed red when the high beams were on. That was something I thought was cool when I was a kid. I don't know how many times I pegged that speedo. Enough to break the cable which ran from the driver's side front wheel. I had highway gears on mine, loved picking fights with Mustang GTs with 131mph speed governors. I loved the huge metal gas pedal too. It made a satisfying "clunk" when you floored it.