Out with the Olds
A 1941 Oldsmobile Series 98 Custom Cruiser Sedan, a piece of almost-wartime (in the US) Americana but now cruising the roads of Italy. Nor is it alone; its owner has another one as well. How has this happened? It’s a long story, in which some touching details of American domesticity have been uncovered. But first, we should learn what Oldsmobile was, where it came from, and what it meant to an American public always hungry for the latest in automotive temptations.
We’ll begin during the years immediately after the advent of the car, when hundreds of automotive enterprises came and went. Very few became proper car manufacturers, embarking on real production and not just showing a couple of handmade cars, and even fewer are remembered today. Oldsmobile is one of them. A look at the entries for the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, open to cars built up to 1 January 1905, shows that Oldsmobile’s cars were among the most technically advanced of all.
Established by Ransom Eli Olds in Lansing, Michigan, in 1897, the Olds Motor Vehicle Company was shortlived. Two years later it relocated to Detroit and was renamed the Olds Motor Works, with the 35-year-old Olds
