Junkyard Find: 1979 Oldsmobile Omega
The folks in Dearborn spent many decades making Mercuries that were just slightly flashier Fords, and so the car-shopping public had no problem with a Comet that was obviously a Falcon (or Maverick), or a Marquis that was obviously an LTD (or Granada). Not so with GM, whose divisions mostly did a pretty good job of building cars that camouflaged their connections to corporate siblings… that is, until the Malaise Era. By the time Carter was President, you could buy a Chevy Nova with Buick, Pontiac, or Oldsmobile badging. I found this example of the Olds Nova at a Denver wrecking yard yesterday.
Alfred Sloan’s “a car for every pocketbook” idea, with a GM buyer progressing from Chevrolet through Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac as he climbed the ladder of success, had largely been discarded by The General’s bosses by the time this Omega hit the streets. However, a late-70s GM loyalist could have done an all-Nova pocketbook-progression sequence: Chevrolet Nova, Pontiac Ventura, Oldsmobile Omega, Buick Apollo… and then into the pinnacle of X-body success: the Nova-based Cadillac Seville.
Just like yesterday’s Malaise Era Junkyard Find, this car has the good old Buick V6. By 1979, GM had made an “even-fire” version of this engine, so Oldsmobile drivers could experience some semblance of quiet luxury.
There’s really no hiding the Nova here, but the Oldsmobile Division did the best they could on a shoestring branding budget.
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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I am surprised no one wants this for a rod. It even has factory AC. Put in a Olds 305,350 or 403 or SBC. But I guess real Novas get more respect.
I could easily see someone using this car as a project involving GM's E-Rod crate engine ... perhaps as a phantom 442.