June 25, 2017: I am just starting to construct this site – come on back often
Over the years I have owned five 1950 Oldsmobiles. Indeed my first car was a 1950 two door sedan that I purchased when I was 15 (1957). The photo below shows my cousin and I standing by my car.
Over the years I painted it a metallic lime green and then later a bright orange. I am trying to find pictures of those versions.
The next '50 Olds I bought was around 1965. It was a four door standard shift. I painted it a maroon color and drove it for a short time before selling it. As I recall, it had one bad cylinder but still ran very well (See photo below).
In July, 1986 I purchased a pretty rough '50 bubble coup. It does run (somewhat) and has a few speed equipment parts on it. I have stored it since purchase, hoping to start a project to bring it back to life. (See photo below). I should note that I have gathered a ton of parts for this car and have most of what I need to make it a decent car.
In 1991 the following ad appeared in the Denver Post:
I show this ad in my '47 Buick project page (here). The reason I show it in both set of project pages is that, not only did I purchase the '47 Buick from the wrecking yard, I also purchased a '50 Olds four door sedan from the same wrecking yard. It was my intention to make a full on custom out of the four door. That was not to be. It turns out that in 1994 I purchased a '50 fastback from a friend and the four door ended up donating lots of parts (including the frame) for that project. Here is the four door on its way to wrecking yard:
And my last purchase (November 23, 1994):
I just could not resist purchasing this '50 Olds fastback from a good friend. The body was in good shape and I knew I had all the parts to finish the project. I did a lot of work on this car in the mid-90s and have just recently began to work on it again. It will be the subject of a build diary on this website (see menu).
As a side note, all of my high school friends had '50 Oldsmobiles. At one time we had almost every model. In those years, the '49/'50 Olds were the fastest cars and the muscle car era was not to be born for several years.
I have to say that my love of '50 Oldsmobiles was partially a result of my parents purchasing a beautiful '50 four door – new. My dad was so proud of the power that the car had. That was kind of a joke, since he was the worlds slowest driver.
Jim ShepherdEvergreen, CO
jim@beltguy.com