Welcome back! Today we’re asking an important question: What’s wrong with being comfortable? But before we can do that, we need to finish up yesterday’s stickshift sedans:
Another lopsided one. But I guess I’m not too surprised: the siren song of all that horsepower in an unassuming-looking sedan is hard to resist.
Now then, to new business: David wrote an article yesterday detailing his desire to fight his body’s natural want for comfort.
It may be because I have an eighteen-year head start on David in choosing cool fun vehicles over practical comfortable ones, but from my viewpoint — within a stone’s throw of half a century old — comfort is something I have earned. I’ve done my time going eighty miles an hour in a Miata with the top down, and bouncing along over potholes in a Pathfinder on all-terrain tires, and sweltering in a non-air-conditioned Scirocco in the heat of a Chicago summer, the backs of my thighs cooked medium-rare on the black vinyl seats. I’m done. I have my MG and my truck if I want to relive my glory days of rough noisy “cool” cars; for the daily grind I want cushy seats, soundproofing, and air conditioning that will keep a side of beef fresh.
The way to find comfort, as in so many other pursuits, is to seek out the wisdom of those older than you. In terms of cheap transportation, this means elderly-owned cars. I’ve found two of them for us to look at, both from the Sacramento area, and thankfully neither with a vinyl top.
1994 Lincoln Town Car – $2,000
Engine/drivetrain: 4.6 liter SOHC V8, 4 speed automatic, RWD
Location: Carmichael, CA
Odometer reading: 188,000 miles
Runs/drives? Sure does
Lincoln’s big sedan was softened and modernized in 1990, in a classic example of aerosion, and in the process became a much more attractive car. It still rode on Ford’s big rear-wheel-drive Panther platform, upgraded with air suspension and four wheel disc brakes. Starting in 1991, the Town Car was powered by Ford’s “Modular” 4.6 liter single-overhead-cam V8, which would go on to power zillions of Crown Victorias, Mustang GTs, pickups, and vans. But it got its start right here in the Lincoln Town Car.
The ad for this Town Car doesn’t give us much to go on; all we’re given is that it has new tires and a new battery, and that everything is “up to date.” One would hope that the seller has records to back that up, but I wouldn’t count on it.
But judging by the photos, this car looks like it’s in good shape, and quite original, which is nice to see. It even still has the original stereo with a tape player. Break out your Tony Bennett’s Greatest Hits and sing along!
This wouldn’t make a bad daily driver at all, I don’t think. It’s comfortable, reliable, and the gas mileage isn’t great, but it isn’t atrocious either; twentyish miles per gallon looks like the norm. The biggest problem I can see is the size: This car is a foot and a half longer than the Coupe DeVille I used to drive, and that thing was ponderous in parking lots.
1994 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight LSS – $2,500
Engine/drivetrain: 3.8 liter OHV V6, 4 speed automatic, FWD
Location: Fairfield, CA
Odometer reading: 200,000 miles
Runs/drives? Excellent, the ad says
Oldsmobile’s big Delta 88 sedan switched from rear-wheel-drive to front-wheel-drive in 1986, and dropped the “Delta” from its name in 1989, becoming the “Eighty Eight.” In this form, it went through two body designs, but was powered by only one engine: the legendary Buick-sourced 3800 V6, available only (of course) with an automatic transmission.
This Eighty Eight, from after the 1992 restyle, is an LSS (Luxury Sport Sedan) model. In later years, the LSS gained the supercharged 3800, but as far as I can tell, in 1994 it only meant bucket seats and a center console, a little bit firmer suspension, and maybe a little less chrome. Oldsmobile never could decide if they wanted to be sporty like Pontiac or luxurious like Buick, and ended up trying to do both at the same time.
This car has a lot of miles, but appears to be in excellent shape. It’s a one-owner car, with records going all the way back, and the seller says it must be driven to be believed. You hear that line a lot, so take it with a grain of salt, but it does look like a really nice car.
It’s a handsome machine in general, too; I’ve always liked the Oldsmobile version of the H-body better than the Buick (too stodgy) or the Pontiac (too plasticky). The 3800’s crown has become a little bit tarnished as the years and miles go by, but it’s still an excellent engine, and if this one has been kept up as well as they say, it should have some life in it yet.
Cool cars that are difficult to drive are still cool, and always will be. But sometimes a guy just wants to sit back in a comfortable seat, turn on some music, and isolate himself from the traffic a bit. We’ve got two good options to do just that. Which one is the one for you?
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
I went with the Town Car because this generation was just coming online when I worked at a Ford dealer that really wanted to also be a Lincoln dealer, so we serviced a lot of these. Not sure what I’d do with it, but if it were reliable enough it could rival our Pacifica as a cushy long-distance cruiser.
I’m also freshly stung by the leaky intake manifold issue in my sister’s ’04 LeSabre that 3800s of this vintage are known for. She’s on a tight budget, and by the time she had the work done (I do a lot of the work on her car, but that was one I wasn’t comfortable touching, for logistics reasons) I think some coolant got into the oil (it went somewhere) and my paranoid ear is now hearing some ticking. Those things are cockroaches, and she babies the car, but I’m just hoping that she can keep it together until she can assume responsibility for our mother’s Jeep Renegade.
I didn’t know the manifold design problem persisted for that long. I thought they fixed it in the Series III 3800. I have a ’98 88 as my daily, and I had plenty of notice that the coolant would begin to find its way into the combustion chambers and eventually hydro-lock the mill, and when it started coughing and spouting glycol mists, I was able to get the car to my mechanic in time to save it. There’ve been no repercussions, fortunately. I find the size of the Olds is about as big a car as I can handle, and it has FWD, which, together with 4 snows, gives plenty of traction in the snow. It rides very well, and handles OK if you look around curves and start the turn early.
The answer is always Panther.
The air suspension on the Town Car will start to leak. Most owners I know replace the bags with springs from Crown Vics.
Oh, and I once rode in a hired Town Car with bad air suspension from Manhattan to Newark airport. My spine and ass weren’t happy.
Lincoln. More trunk space than a mid size SUV.
To quote my all-time favorite Car and Driver article from back in the day, “Oldsmobile, bitch, Oldsmobile!!” 🙂
The 3800 has pep and I can feel myself sinking into those cushy cushy leather buckets. We’ve has several 3800- powered vehicles of this vintage from the General and they were all good drivers with few problems
Hard choice as I like both cars. I had a 94 Thunderbird with the 4.6 and later a Grand Prix with the 3.8. Both excellent engines. I guess the Olds would be more fun to drive.
I went 3800 over RWD panther today, because I can’t make all that rear overhang not ruin my comfort while driving and (mostly) parking. Also, while I can’t figure out how it held up so well the velour doesn’t look as comfortable as the buckets in the Olds. Final nail in the BIG coffin was the air suspension vs. LSS “firmer” (than what?) ride.
This is kind of a weird one for me. Normally, I’d go with the big cushy body-on-frame cruiser, hands down, and 10 years ago that’s what I would’ve voted for. But, life experience has gotten in the way of that easy decision, and I’ve got to remain an Oldsmobile Man.
To start, I’ve owned two Olds ’98s and a Buick Park Ave. from that era and really grew to like that combination of comfort and reliability for a dirt cheap purchase price. Routinely getting over 30 mpg on the highway didn’t hurt either.
The other side of this is that as our kid was growing up, we ended up with some friends by way of playdates. Well, those folks turned out to be real nutcases, and they would only drive Lincolns of this variety. I rode in and worked on both of theirs a few times. Both of those Lincolns always had a weird smell, and odd things seemed to break all the time. I don’t necessarily think it was the cars’ fault, but that and the overall association with the owners has kept me from wanting to own one.
I am a Ford guy for the 80’s and 90’s, but that Lincoln makes me seasick looking at it. I voted for the Olds, but could go differently on a different day.
The Lincoln with the proven platform is the one for me.
I grew up with a 1992 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight. While there’s some charm in the bulletproof mechanicals (and I agree with others that it was the best-looking H-body), it’s not enough to overlook the way ours fell apart cosmetically. I’d have to vote for the Lincoln. I especially like that upright, boxy 90s Town Car look.
Now, if it were an Oldsmobile Aurora, I’d have voted for that, hands down.
oof, no thank you, the Northstar inspired motor is just as unreliable and probably harder to fix considering qty sold.
I mean, you’re right. I just love the design of that car enough to deal with the Northstar.
Always gotta go with the 3.8 car. It’ll pull 300k cushy miles at 30 mpg until the body rusts away.
The Lincoln looks nice, but what can I say, I like to be able to actually park my cars. It’s the (incredibly clean) Olds for me.
Real couches don’t have consoles.
Town Car.
I’ll take the Lincoln. Just remind me to hide the keys from Uncle Junior.
Mark, I’ve got about 8 years on you. I fully support, and echo, your reasons for earned comfort. I’ve done my 150+ on the Autobahn (MANY times over many years), stump-jumpin’ in a car, in a truck, and on a dirt bike, and bounced my sore ass across many miles in an Army Gama Goat (Google it, youngsters), Duece-and-a-Half, 5-Ton and Hummer (and in the air on untold number of helos and C130s).
That said, gimme the Linc.
I am in a similar situation. My wife’s nostalgia car is a Prius. When I was recently shopping for our next car, I decided to try steering her to the Accord Hybrid, which sacrifices some mileage for a better tide. I’m done with the economy car experience.
I voted Oldsmobile because I own a 1999 Oldsmobile Eighty Eight. Was given to me and my twin by my grandparents when we were 15. Sixteen years later we are still driving it. It is the car we take if we want to know that we will get there regardless of how much snow is in the road. It’s an absolute tank, comfortable, and quite reliable. Other than spending a few years chasing an intermittent misfire, (bad ground), it has run perfectly. Been towed twice , once for the notorious 3800 series II intake leak and once for an oil pressure sensor that decided to eject from the engine.
I love that Eighty Eight as much as any fancier vehicles I’ve owned. Only car my family has had that rivals it in comfort is a BMW E38.
I want to say Lincoln, but the Olds looks better preserved and like something I could actually see myself driving.
Both of these are impressively boatlike, but if I’m going to be driving around in eroded (and aeroded) grandeur, I gotta go with the Lincoln.
well it is definitely a tough choice, the 4.6 mods are pretty reliable, scary to think they spawn the 5.4 triton though. but the 3800 is legendary for fuel economy, reliability and relative ease of repair when the few things that do go wrong….well go wrong, but at least diagnosing the issues is knot a real difficulty. I guess Olds for me. If I am going to do winter in a large 2wd vehicle I guess FWD is better than RWD.
I’ll take the Lincoln (V8, RWD, memories of my grandfather), though from the description and pictures, doesn’t look like you could go wrong with the Olds either.
Of note, this Town Car is the base Executive, which most likely means the single exhaust and 190 horsepower, instead of the 210 that came with the optional dual exhaust.
True Story. I had a 1992 Olds 88 that I drove until the seat wore out at about 150,000 miles. My father in law, a mechanic, then found me a 1993 Olds 88 owned by a little old man that smoked a stogie (there was a black spot on the headliner from the smoke) to replace it, but I was getting bored of these cars.
A woman in my office, about 70 years old, had an adult child in her mid 30’s who was a bit of a head case. She wanted mommy and daddy to buy her a Miata. To speed it along, she didn’t change the oil in the car she was driving, and it needed a ton of work. Her parents paid to get it fixed, and IIRC, she totaled it leaving the dealership.
This woman is telling me about this, and she said “I’ll help her out, but I’ll be damned if I buy her a Miata!”
I said “Have I got the car for you. It’s big, It’s safe, It’s reliable, and she’s gonna HATE it.” So I sold her the car.
A few weeks later, I asked about it, and she said “Well, we never did give it to her. My husband loves it!”
I went Lincoln, but what I really want to know from the knowledgeable types here is:
Do they still make those white-wall-ish tires??
Mainline tire companies I mean, as I bet Coker…maybe…offers them by now.
As of a few years ago a couple did (Hankook for sure). I bought some for my Cadillac when I still owned it.
Wonderful.
If I were to own a legit Town Car (no Lincoln, the MKT wasn’t the same thing), I’d want the full Town Car experience for as long as I could get it.
I have whitewall Optimos on my older Mercedes and they’re a perfectly fine three-season tire, so I’ll second that recommendation — although in checking they seem to have stopped making them in the W115’s size, bummer, guess I’ll have to splurge on Uniroyals next year.
One thing my mechanic told me is that with the Hankooks on older, heavier cars you’ll want to inflate them higher than the original manufacturer’s pressure. I’m not sure if this would apply specifically to the Lincoln given 20 years’ advances in tire engineering, but I’d been running my set at the original 28/32 radial inflation specs for a few months and it noticeably wore down the outer tread. Something worth checking, in any case.
Otherwise they’re great. A little chirpy sometimes, but I’ve had to make several hard, floored-pedal brakes to avoid hitting boneheads on cell phones in roundabouts — yeah, love you too, Massachusetts — and even without ABS the Hankooks brought two tons of car to a stop really quick.
Hankooks were what my buddy found for his old ’92 Caprice maybe four years ago. They didn’t grip worth a damn in winter, but they were fine in the dry and the rain for a year or two until he sold the car after it got to be too rotten. I believe they were Optimo H724 – “they seem to be the whitewall” as he told me.
Went Olds because I’ve had excellent luck with the 3800, having owned two where the engines still ran great when the rest of the car was done for. One was well over 300000k when sold on.
Sure, the electrics and transmission could be questionable because… Well it’s GM. But one owner with receipts suggests it’s been cared for.
Without knowing the history of the Olds, it’d be the Lincoln all day. That fuzzy bench seat looks supremely plush, I appreciate doing long graceful skids in winter, the formal-yet-restrained styling will never completely age, and I believe this was before Ford started seriously decontenting the Town Cow.
That said, in this price bracket (as in general, but especially for a comfortable budget commuter) you’re buying based on condition as much as anything else, and that Olds’ll be a steal for someone. I want to say ’94 was the last year for the Series 1 3800 before the debacles involving cracked coolant-leaking intake manifolds and crappy gaskets, but if I’m wrong, I’m sure it’ll be documented in those records somewhere. It appears to be quite a nice car.
I’d happily take either and I’m only voting for the Lincoln because I miss snow-drifting without the handbrake or an aggressive flick.
To clarify, since the 88’s been documented since new, apparently, it’d potentially be the better deal for Your Average Person once a garage gave it a once-over. I’d be willing to accept a bit of mystery in exchange for snowy-parking-lot skids, however.
You know what they say – go big or go home.
I’d choose to go home in that big, cushy Lincoln.