Car Stuff: Random Sighting #22

There are still a number of street-parked finds from my neighborhood that I have not yet posted, so let's have a look at a mid-1980s large American car.

This is another Oldsmobile, a 1989 Eighty Eight (formerly Delta 88) Royale. But it's a Royale without cheese, because it's not the nicer Brougham model. This car is the direct successor to random sighting #16 (the first year for this design was '86), and it's nice to be able to see the evolution of a car from one generation to the next.

I'm able to peg the year on this one because of small things like the badges on the rear fenders and the tail lights, which had amber turn signal lenses in their top halves in the preceding years, and for '90 the car got a different front-end treatment.

It looks about the way you would expect a 25-year-old car that lives in New England and parks on the street to look. Most of these were owned by older folks, who were probably inclined to coddle them, so either this one was passed down to a family member, purchased by someone outside the family, or simply owned by someone who wasn't interested in cosseting a vehicle. But it has still managed to hang onto 75% of its wheel covers and pass an inspection.

These are actually nice cars, pleasant to drive with a nice ride and one of General Motors's better engines of this era, all of which may explain why this one is still on the road in beater service.