I’ve had a lot of cars but remarkable few I’ve regretted parting with. Alas this Oldsmobile Omega coupe is one of those regrets. Sure, it was a totally rubbish car. A wallet raping 15mpg on a good day and it could barely crack a ton despite having 5.7 litres of finest Detroit V8 under the bonnet. At 70mph upwards you could forget about using the air con… if you did it would simply overheat.
But somehow this car was still glorious. A vision in brown and beige that stood as testament to the miserable malaise the US car industry was to fall into after it’s golden years of the ’50’s and ’60s. The fuel crisis and crushing smog controls were to change the once mighty V8 muscle man into a wheezy weakling, with paltry power figures despite biblical thirst.
