As a matter of fact, for some of us it was our father’s Oldsmobile. Perhaps a 1964 Jetstar 88. Sky blue. Long and lumbering, with massive bench seats, a temperamental engine and a tendency to tip precariously in turns.
To a newly minted driver, a car like the Jetstar was freedom. Didn’t really matter how it looked or performed. It cut the surly bonds that tied adolescent to home, and that was good enough.
Oldsmobile, as just about everyone knows, is going out of business. That was announced in December 2000. Now it’s really happening. Oldsmobile’s long goodbye is nearly over; this model year will be its last.
But the Olds brand will live on among collectors of the famous nameplates like Toronado and Rocket 88. And it will live on because somewhere in almost every American family’s automobile genealogy, there’s an Olds. If you look back far enough, there’s a jaunty Cutlass, or a muscular 442. Or a Jetstar, a car that didn’t put on airs.
A few years back, Olds tried to reassure buyers that they had reinvented their brand, that it wasn’t, as the ad said, “your father’s Oldsmobile.” Among those they inexplicably chose to deliver this message was Star Trek icon William Shatner and his daughter.
But Americans believed that it was, indeed, their father’s Olds. And that, among other things, spelled doom.
That’s OK. Lots of companies go out of business after proud histories. To tell the truth, the Jetstar was a beast to drive. But we’d give almost anything for another ride in it.
