Oldsmobile closed its doors in 2004, and many of its best ideas faded from memory with it. These 10 cars put new hardware in showrooms early. They run from the 1940 Hydra-Matic and the 1953 Oldsmobile Fiesta’s wraparound windshield to dual airbags you could order in 1974.
Each entry says what Oldsmobile offered, when it arrived and who says so. Where a rival or a GM sibling got there first, the entry says that too.
1. 1940 Oldsmobile Hydra-Matic
Oldsmobile buyers got a fully automatic transmission a year before Cadillac buyers did. GM introduced Hydra-Matic in October 1939 as a $57 option on the 1940 Oldsmobile, and Cadillac followed for 1941. Motoring historian Bill Vance calls it the industry’s first fully automatic transmission.
It used a fluid coupling instead of a torque converter, so it needed four forward speeds, Mac’s Motor City Garage explains. The original selector had no Park position. Later, versions of the gearbox went to war in M5 Stuart and M24 Chaffee tanks. GM also licensed it to Hudson, Nash, Lincoln, Kaiser-Frazer, Willys and Rolls-Royce. In fact, Vance’s history of Oldsmobile engineering puts Hydra-Matic near the top of the brand’s long list of firsts.
2. 1953 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Fiesta
Harley Earl developed GM’s wraparound Panoramic Windshield with Libbey-Owens-Ford, and it appeared first on the 1953 Oldsmobile Fiesta and Cadillac Eldorado. By contrast, Buick’s Skylark, the third GM dream convertible that year, made do with conventional glass. The Fiesta’s windshield also sat three inches lower than a standard 98’s.
The Oldsmobile Fiesta came with a power top, power windows and hydraulic power seats as standard. Its Autronic Eye dimmed the headlights automatically, Mac’s Motor City Garage notes. A special 303-cubic-inch Rocket V8 made 170 hp, 5 more than other Oldsmobiles. However, at $5,715 it cost $1,600 more than a Cadillac 62 convertible, and only 458 found buyers.
3. 1955 Oldsmobile Holiday Sedan
Oldsmobile launched its pillarless four-door Holiday Sedan on January 6, 1955, in all three series: 88, Super 88 and 98. Buick unveiled its four-door Rivieras two days earlier on the same GM B-body shell. So the two GM divisions shared the four-door hardtop’s debut.
Technically, Oldsmobile “wasn’t the first carmaker with a four-door hardtop,” says Mac’s Motor City Garage. Still, it calls the result “really a tie.” Holiday models then made up well over half of Oldsmobile’s 583,000 cars for 1955, a 65 percent jump. The Super 88 and 98 used a 202-hp four-barrel Rocket V8, while the base 88 made 185 hp. Meanwhile, more than 98 percent of buyers paid $165 for Hydra-Matic.
4. 1957 Oldsmobile Super 88 J-2
For $83, any 1957 Oldsmobile could get the J-2 package, with three two-barrel carburetors, higher compression and a low-restriction air cleaner. That lifted the 371-cubic-inch Rocket V8 from 277 hp to 300 hp.
GM’s own heritage collection calls 300 hp “enormous power in 1957,” and its Super 88 entry puts 0-60 mph under 8 seconds. A separate $385 racing setup added a radical camshaft and heavy-duty internals, although few buyers ordered it. Lee Petty and his son Richard, for example, drove Olds convertibles on the Daytona sands and hardtops at other stock-car tracks.
5. 1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire
Oldsmobile turbocharged its aluminum 215-cubic-inch V8 for the F-85 Jetfire, which debuted at the New York Auto Show on April 20, 1962. Only GM’s own Corvair Monza Spyder beat it to a turbo, with a reveal a few weeks earlier in Chicago.
A Garrett T5 turbo and 10.25:1 compression gave 215 hp, “a full one horsepower per cubic inch,” Mac’s Motor City Garage says. Oldsmobile also fed the engine a 50/50 water-methanol mix it called Turbo-Rocket Fluid. When the tank ran dry, a switch limited boost. The car cost $3,045. Oldsmobile sold 3,765 Jetfires in 1962 and 5,842 in 1963, then dropped the turbo for 1964.
6. 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado
When the 1966 Toronado went on sale, no American car had sent power to its front wheels since the Cord 810/812 of 1936–1937. Oldsmobile made it work with a front-drive version of GM’s Turbo Hydra-Matic, called the TH425.
A silent chain on two 7.5-inch sprockets linked the torque converter to the gearset. Up front sat a 425-cubic-inch V8 rated at 385 hp and 475 lb-ft, Over-Drive Magazine’s fact sheet shows. Bill Vance also credits the car with reviving front-wheel drive in the U.S. Oldsmobile produced 40,963 Toronados for 1966. In addition, Motor Trend named it Car of the Year. It also placed third in that year’s European Car of the Year vote.
7. 1974–1976 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight with airbags
In 1974, an Oldsmobile buyer could order driver and passenger airbags. GM’s Air Cushion Restraint System, option code AR3, cost $225 that year on the Delta 88, Ninety-Eight and Toronado. According to Curbside Classic, GM became the first automaker to make airbags available to the general public.
Ford had fitted airbags to 92 1971 Mercurys and 831 1972 Montereys, but those went to fleets and employees, Curbside Classic notes. GM’s passenger side even used two-stage inflation and an inner knee bag. Oldsmobile sold 5,483 airbag cars from 1974 to 1976, more than Buick or Cadillac, according to a 1983 NHTSA-commissioned study. The price rose to $315 by 1976, and GM then dropped the option.
8. 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais Quad 4
The Quad 4 arrived in the 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais with twin overhead cams and four valves per cylinder. Drivingline calls that layout “a first for GM,” after five years of development.
The 2.3-liter four made 150 hp and 160 lb-ft at launch, with a 7,000-rpm redline, Drivingline reports. That output beat several larger V6s in GM’s own lineup. A High Output version with 180 hp followed two years later. Then the W41 reached 190 hp in the 1991 Cutlass Calais.
9. 1990 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo
The 1990 Toronado Trofeo offered a color touchscreen called the Visual Information Center. It ran the climate system and radio, and it kept watch over other vehicle systems.
Buick had put a nine-inch green-on-black CRT in the 1986 Riviera. So the Trofeo’s screen was an updated version of GM tech, The Drive explains. Even so, the color unit added a calendar, a compass and trip computer for basic navigation, and early cell phone integration. It cost $1,300, and few buyers paid for it. Power came from a 165-hp V6 driving the front wheels through a four-speed automatic.
10. 1991 Oldsmobile Bravada
Hagerty calls the 1991 Bravada GM’s first luxury SUV. Oldsmobile built it on the same GMT-330 platform as the Chevrolet S-10 Blazer and GMC S-15 Jimmy, but added Bilstein dampers.
Its SmartTrak all-wheel drive worked electronically. As a result, drivers didn’t need the extra transfer lever of the Insta-Trac system in Chevrolet and GMC trucks, Hagerty explains. SmartTrak also stayed exclusive to Oldsmobile. The Bravada sold 9,381 units in its first year. The last one left the line in January 2004, about three months before the Oldsmobile brand ended.
More from Fast Lane Only
