Shopping for a new car......

[Kamakiri]

With the traveling and road trips, my 2009 Scion xB is a great car, but not ideal. Decided to take a look at the luxury market to see what's out there, as I haven't been car shopping in ages. On the list of things I saw online were a Mercedes E-class, a Lexus LS430, an Acura MDX with entertainment package, and a few others, but I wanted something that was a classic American luxury car.

I was shocked to find a huge lame expanse of crappy black plastic in a Cadillac as in a Saturn, and every used SRX SUV stunk like cigars, or some very obese person owned it and flattened out the front seats. The Lexus LS430 was pretty well beat, the MDX was gone, the BMW 5 series was too odd to feel at home in, and the Lincoln Town Car I checked out for the heck of it had a front seat less supportive than a drunk football coach. Even looked at the new Chrysler 200, and it's nothing more than a prettied up Stratus. I checked out other Lexus, Buick, Dodge, you name it, and I couldn't find anything perceptibly better for travel than my Scion.

After being burned out of car shopping, I decided to take a different slant. While not a long-distance cruiser, after looking at Cadillac, Mercedes, Lexus, Acura, Lincoln, and many others, I might have finally found the driving experience that best suits me......

[Kamakiri]

This is the length of hood you need to have in order to have 8 cylinders in a straight row. It reminds me of those 1940s cartoons where the hood goes on for about 100 feet. They weren't far wrong!

[Kamakiri]

From the drivers' seat. Push button start, and note the odd box to the left of the steering column, which are the directionals. Center button turns them off. No need for a side view mirror in 1948 I guess

[ctc17]

Probably gets the same mileage as the modern gas hog luxo wagons you listed but a lot more class. Sweet

[Sandy G]

Love it !! You REALLY need some phat whitewalls to go on that Bad Boi tho....

[jbivy]

Nice Olds. You can never go wrong with a classic. A big beautiful sedan like that just begs for weekend drives.

[Reece]

This IS your father's Oldsmobile. I see it's got the 4-speed Hydramatic. You need plaid summer seatcovers. And a straw hat.

[Kamakiri]

This was one of the strangest cars I've driven, with the exception of my 1960 Bentley S2 RHD. I pulled it back into the garage where the car was stored, and I could barely see the fenders, but I could see the prow of the hood clearly. It literally WAS like docking a boat.

[Sandy G]

Yeah-I have a buddy who had a '48 Chevy 4 door that was the same body as this. The windows are TINY, & there's all kinds of blind spots. The rear window is almost useless.

[Electronic M]

Great score!

Always thought the 47' Olds' were beautiful cars.....For a few years now I've been dreaming of getting the two door fastback version of that car. IMHO the fastbacks of the 40's were sportier, and cooler looking, but if you want to look like your loaded and showing off then the body style you have conveys that image better than the fastbacks can.

At any rate that is one cool car.

[Kamakiri]

It's not in my driveway yet, the guy wants to trade for my '55 Buick. the Buick at this point needs at least $2,000 in parts plus work to get it moving, and the Olds needs a gas tank flush and the brakes bled, then drive.

As they are, the cars are worth about the same. The Buick will be worth much more when done, but will need a lot more work than I have time to do for now. The Olds is about as roadable as any survivor of the era, but it's not a restoration candidate....it's a PA car, meaning that while there's not a ton of rust, there's rust, and as soon as you'd go to pull the body panels apart, it'd need everything....and even a 98 point show car '48 Oldsmobile isn't worth more than $7,000 or so.

Which is fine by me. All I wanna do is drive it . Neither the Olds nor the Buick is what I'd call my "dream car", but they're both fun and represent my personality well

[Sandy G]

The Olds-Izzit flathead or OHV ? I remember those motors were TINY in displacement-Something like 267 CID-not much more than a latter-day Chevy 6.Of course the 1st Lincoln Zephyr had a flathead V-12 of 267 CID-the last ones, in '48, were292 CID. Ford's fabled V-8 was only 221 CID- Mercurys were 239.Caddy's 1st OHV V-8 in '48 was 331CID-the flathead it replaced was 346.

[Eric H]

That Olds reminds me of the British Zeus.

[bgadow]

I love it! I'd like to find a swap like that for my '50 Caddy. It needs more work than I have time/money for right now. I'd gladly trade it for a "lesser" car that needed less work.

[hi_volt]

Sweet looking ride! Reminds me of my old 1948 Plymouth 4-door