atomicthumbs

remote sensing practicioner

gregarious canid. avatar by ISANANIKA.


Website League address
@wolf@forest.stream
send me an email
atomicthumbs@wolf.observer
twitter but hopefully i only post photos there in the future
twitter.com/atomicthumbs
newsletter!! this one will let me tell you where i go
buttondown.com/atomicthumbs
newsletter rss same thing
buttondown.com/atomicthumbs/rss
Website League (centralized federation social media project)
websiteleague.org/
Push Processing (Website League photography instance)
pushprocess.ing/
88x31 button embed code
<a href="https://wolf.observer/88x31"><img src="https://wolf.observer/images/wolf-88x31.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"></a>
forest.stream (general admission website league instance)
forest.stream/
bluesky (probably just for photos)
bsky.app/profile/wolf.observer
this will be a cohost museum someday
cohost.rip/

rusty-speednut
@rusty-speednut

You've all seen those stupid clickbait lists. The WORST cars ever made! These cars were a MISTAKE. The automakers GREATEST FAILURES of all time. Like pretty much all clickbait, these articles are slapped together by people who barely understand anything about the topic they've been tasked to write about, and always sort of end up being the same list over and over again of low hanging fruit of often-misunderstood cars that frequently have far more interesting backstories than the three sentences of word vomit attached to a stock photo would let on.

This is one of those cars.

This is a 1981 Oldsmobile Diesel. Admittedly, this one was made a couple years after the first run of them, which objectively did earn their place on the list. My personal favorite story regarding these cars involves all nine of them that were delivered to CARB to certify the car for sale in California suffering catastrophic mechanical failures before testing could actually be completed. The most severe issues with the initial designs were identified and corrected rapidly, but the damage that the first batch of cars had done to the reputation of Oldsmobile's diesels (and to a lesser extent, the reputation of passenger car diesels as a whole) in the United States was too much to come back from. Sales slowed down heavily, and within a few more years, the 350 diesel was dead.

Between the fact that all of the early cars died extremely rapid deaths, and not many of the later cars were sold, combined with the usual age-related issues of B-body GMs of this era, there are very, very few of these things left in running and driving condition. This one appeared for sale in Portland a few months ago, and I immediately set to work coordinating with a friend I knew would be easy to sell on buying it, as well as some friends who were already en route to Portland for other reasons already. I pride myself in my ability to not just procure stupid vehicles for myself, but also put together convoluted arrangements to get stupid vehicles into the hands of my friends too.

I had the pleasure of keeping this thing at my house for a little while, and couldn't resist the temptation to take some period correct 1980s family photos with it. It's such a lovely shade of brown that matches my house quite nicely. I even drove it to work for a week, and had some time to really become comfortable and familiar with the car. Someday I'm going to put together an actual story of how I feel like this maligned 1981 Oldsmobile diesel is an actual better car than anything I've driven made in the last five years and maybe try and submit it to an actual website. But for now, it suffices to say that it doesn't deserve the reputation foisted upon it by people who have likely never even seen one in person, let alone driven one.

Anyway, this is the kind of shit that keeps me into cars. Getting to experience the kinds of things that nobody else has a chance to. There are lots of "good" cars out there that anyone with enough money can go buy and join a group of people who all own the exact same car and modify them in the exact same way and circlejerk about how great they are. Cars like the Oldsmobile transcend that. It's a different kind of rare. And so when I get the opportunity to experience something that most people will never get, I will always jump on it.

My friend who bought the car is coming out in a couple months and we're gonna drive it from here to Minneapolis, along with another friend who bought something out here that is also extremely silly. I am very excited.


You must log in to comment.

in reply to @rusty-speednut's post:

i'm so glad i got to drive this thing. it absolutely fucks. there's a part of me that is really sad I didn't get it because it was so close to me and cheap and there's another part of me that acknowledges that i'm not a mechanic and don't know shit about cars and it would probably become the Burden of my life