1972 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Convertible

I bought the Delta 88 in March/1983 as the second owner in Seattle, Washington. It had ~90,000 miles at that time and in the next 10 years, I put another 55,000 miles on it ... but now that I have a family, that's steadily decreased to less than a thousand miles/year ... although my kids enjoyed riding in it. On Sep 28th, 2014, it hit (1)75,000 miles ... and then on October 22nd, 2019, it hit 77,777.7 miles ... and on October 2nd, 2024 it rolled over to 79,000 miles ... so it that rate, it will rollover the odometer in 2075! ;-)

The Delta 88 Convertible is garaged and has stayed in pretty good shape (doesn't get out much in the Winter per this May 1st, 2024 screenshot!) and hasn't required much mechanical work (here's the maintenance log) although the gas gauge stopped working on me around 2010 and I found that out the "hard" way! There is no tripometer, so I now carefully write down the mileage when I fill it up - here's what that looks like. LOL I actually didn't put any gas in the car for the entire year of 2020 - COVID means even less driving.

As some people know, I'm a bit ... uhhhh ... "stubborn" (!) about putting up the convertible top, and in fact, am often asked if it has one or even works. The true answer is YES to both ... but again, Alek is a bit stubborn and it hasn't been up in years. It's actually not bad in the weather as long as you are moving, since due to the airflow, all the water/snow/whatever goes behind you! ;-)

Some highlights/pictures of the Olds Convertible:

First big road trip for the Delta 88 was Seattle to San Antonio, Texas (via Denver) on my way to Air Force training. Ironically, the biggest breakdown the car has ever had was a semi-failure of the distributor cap in the first 200 miles after leaving Seattle with my Mom. Here is a picture in Denver with my grandparents
Driving over Colorado Mountain Passes, Rocky Mountain National Park with my future wife in 1996, and it has even seen some 14'er trailheads!)
Used as Wedding getaway car several times with security provided by the G-men
Golf Tournament Prize and wheels to the golf tourney ... didn't have to give it away! ;-)
Hanging out in the driveway and with Little Dirk helping drive
Assisting with weapons testing in a 20 foot diameter shock tube - picture1 and picture 2
It is a great car to transport shade trees
Makes a great HulkMobile!
The Delta 88 is the Coldest Car, the Coolest Car, and the Longest Car around! ;-)

Some other misc. trivia/stories:

First day I bought it, 8 of us went crusing from McMahon Hall across the UW campus.
No ski rack required - just pop the skies in the back seat! ;-)
On its 10th year of ownership, I parked it at work and unknowlingly backed and buried the tailpipe in the grass behind the parking spot at work; the old potato in the tailpipe trick - ooops! I had to get a ride home from work that night since we hadn't figured it out, but the weather forecast was good, so I wasn't worried about it raining on it. Unfortunately, I had parked the car right in the path of a broken sprinkler head that sprayed a perfect fountain of water into the back seat. Suffice to say, my co-workers thought that was pretty funny when I showed up for work the next day as the Delta 88 Convertible was doing double duty as a bathtub! ;-)
In 2016, the transmission started to make some howling noise (even in Park) ... so I ended up having it rebuilt - it now purrs like a kitten. Since the car had to stay for a week+ at the auto-shop, I had to put the convertible top up ... it's been over a decade since I've done that. I un-hooked it, plugged the fuse back in, hit the switch ... and CLICK ... that was it! Turns out this is a common problem for Oldsmobile tops ... so the solution was to disconnect the drive cables and manually lift it up. It's a pretty big/heavy metal scissors arrangement, but with help from Wendy, Dirk, and Kyle, we got it up ... and then stretched it a bit to click it in - here's a very rare picture with the top up. After the tranny rebuild, the 1972 Oldsmobile Delta 88 runs whister quiet and still looks pretty snazzy for a 44 year old car as seen in pics here, here, and here!
As of 2023, I've owned the car for 40 years - still look snazzy and purrs like a kitten!