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). I painted this Oldsmobile three times over the period I owned it. First it was painted in black primer then metallic lime green and then later a bright orange. Those versions are shown in the gallery below:
The photo of the car in primer was taken at my cousin’s house in Cheyenne, WY.
The next ’50 Olds I bought was around 1965. It was a four door model with a rare standard shift transmission. I did some body repair and painted it a maroon color. I mainly purchased/repaired the car to make a few dollars, but I did drive it for a short time before selling it. As I recall, it had one bad cylinder but still ran very well (See photo gallery below).
In July, 1986 I purchased a pretty rough ’50 “bubble coupe”. 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. Maybe some day if I get the rest of my projects done and live long enough {huge grin}
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 sets 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 (see below) 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 main 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 below).
As a side note, most 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 — the so-called “muscle car era” would 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 (see photo below). My dad was so proud of the power that the car had. That was kind of a family joke, since he was the worlds slowest driver.
The photo above was probably taken in ’56 or ’57. That is my mom and me when I had hair.
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