Junkyard Find: 1984 Oldsmobile Delta Eighty-Eight Royale Brougham
You want class? In 1984, Oldsmobile had class in dump-truck quantities. Just listen to how the name Oldsmobile Delta Eighty-Eight Royale Brougham rolls off one’s tongue.
This car, one of the final examples of rear-drive/full-frame Oldsmobiles ever built (1985 was the last year for the rear-drive Delta 88), may not be quite as Broughamic as the ’72 Mercury Marquis Brougham we saw last week, but you can still see the last hurrah of mid-60s-style luxury for the masses in this car.
The 140-horsepower Olds 307 V8 wasn’t much engine for a 3,635-pound car, but it was smooth and quiet.
Such luxury!
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 own and drive one of these (but getting another car so that I'll have to drive it a lot less). I'd like to buy some parts for it, but I can't even seem to find many of the parts anywhere. Any ideas? Some of the covers of the controls on the console and the electric seat have come off. The front grill has a few pieces of plastic broken and I'd like to get that replaced. Several of the plastic covers for the lights on the front have also suffered some damage. The engine works fine, though, and has less than 80k on it. If it makes any difference, it's the coupe.
We had one of these in the family for years . Tan 1980 Base 2-door with optional(?) Landau roof. My dad bought it used in 1984, drove it for years, then handed it down to my uncle. My uncle drove it for another couple years until the rear bumper snapped off on a railroad track and he dumped it for a brand new '95 F150. To this day I still remember pulling up to his house and seeing the retrieved bumper sticking halfway out of the trunk!