The Last Soldier Prepares To Cross The Block

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

The bare and plain fact that TTAC was, to some degree, built on the GM Death Watch series often causes our readers to think that we, as a group of writers, hate GM. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your humble author grew up thinking the “Mark Of Excellence” was a mandatory part of every seatbelt buckle and that the Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Regency was the most awesome sedan money could buy. If we’re angry at GM, it’s in large part because the people who ran the company destroyed an incomparable, irreplaceable legacy through their complacency, incompetence, and short-term thinking. The men who ran the company into the ground managed to snatch an improbable defeat from the jaws of victory. There is no hell hot enough for the architects of General Motors’ fall from grace. They destroyed a big part of the United States and there was no, repeat, no reason for it to happen.

And now the emblem of their seemingly deliberate failure is coming up for sale.

Nine years ago, the final Oldsmobiles rolled off the assembly line. Although the brand had been somewhat revitalized by a thoroughly unified-looking lineup that imitated the look of the peerless first-generation Aurora, GM had starved the brand of a proper followup to that car and had relentlessly cut money out of the interiors and engines while bullying as many dealers as possible into voluntary closure. The inexplicable popularity of Buick in China meant that when it was time to compress that particular area of the Sloan Plan from two nameplates to one, it was the Rocket brand that took the bullet.

As if to emphasize the fact that Oldsmobile’s death was a matter of heartless planning rather than some sort of emergency situation, the company built a “Final 500” of all five major vehicle lines. The Intrigue that is coming up for sale next month is supposedly the last Oldsmobile ever built, featuring over 1,000 signatures from plant workers. It’s worth noting that multiple sources claim an Alero was actually the last one built.

The Intrigue is expected to fetch about forty thousand dollars; less than what you’d pay for a modern puffer-barge like the BMW 528i. Will it ever be worth more than that? I doubt it. America may be a shadow of the country it was when the open road resonated to the sound of a million Dynamic 88s, but one thing remains consistent: we don’t value the losers.

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • Geozinger Geozinger on Jun 22, 2013

    I grew up in a Ford family, back when that mattered. I met my wife, they were Oldsmobilists. (and Lutherans, too!) This resulted in my getting a 442 and my wife (then girlfriend) a Toronado and a Delta 88 (with 403 power!), they got us through most of the 80's. In early 2001, we went to the local car show to look at potential replacements for our current rides; I was VERY interested in a new Intrigue. My wife saw something new we'd never seen before... A Pontiac Aztek. She was in love. Instead of an Intrigue we got the Aztek. I wonder if there were more stories like mine, if more people had purchased Intrigues instead of Azteks, that Oldsmobile would have survived. Maybe not. But the 1972 442 I had is on the top of my lifetime 10 best cars. I can't imagine anything will ever replace it. Unless I get a Z06 Corvette...

    • See 5 previous
    • Les Les on Jun 24, 2013

      @Les "But thrashing the engine to the redline makes it Sporty, like a Formula 1 car! Who wouldn't want a 1.3 litre that revs to Over Nine THOUSAAAAAND over a 6 litre Lump that gives you peak torque practically at Idle.. that's hardly 'sporty' now is it?" [/sarcasm] :)

  • Les Les on Jun 24, 2013

    Seems odd.. during the years when all the GM divisions were allowed so much autonomy they were as much competing with each-other as they were with Ford and/or Chrysler General Motors was so successful it felt genuinely threatened by the possibility of anti-trust action. Then consolidation-consolidation-consolidation, everyone get their little ducks in a row under centralized GM authority, homogenize the product lines and kill all the duplicated effort of independent design and engineering divisions because it just makes good business sense... and the result being GM going through Bankruptcy proceedings.. Twice.

    • See 1 previous
    • Les Les on Jun 24, 2013

      @NoGoYo Umm... If the previous paradigm didn't make business sense, but during which the company was so incredibly successful it was threatened with possible anti-trust action, and the succeeding paradigm Did make business sense.. and lead to multiple bankruptcies.. ...did the new paradigm Actually make business sense in the first place?

  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
  • ToolGuy Ford is good at drifting all right... 😉
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