1996 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Review

Supercharged engine dropped from this model, and daytime running lamps have been added. Don't expect a 1997 Ninety-Eight.

Take an Oldsmobile Eighty Eight, add a few inches of length, about 100 pounds, and some cargo area, and you've got the Ninety Eight Regency Elite. Oh, and tack about $6,000 onto the sticker price while you're at it.

Sure, the Ninety Eight is better-equipped than the Eighty Eight, but not six grand worth. For the same dough, you could opt for the speedy and comfortable LSS rather than the stuffy Regency Elite. It seems that many people are doing just that. With the introduction of the Aurora and the success of the LSS, Olds is marketing cars to a different crowd than the Ninety Eight appeals to. The Ninety Eight is for consumers who want a Cadillac DeVille but have a Chevy Caprice budget. It's for people who don't like to drive; those who do so only when necessary. Since the Eighty Eight fulfills this mission for far less money, sales of the Ninety Eight have dropped dramatically over the past few years.

Witness the small number of changes to the Ninety Eight for 1996. Daytime running lights have been added, and programmable door locks are new. Twilight Sentinel is now standard, as is a panic mode that gets the horn and lights going for as long as two minutes. Otherwise, the status quo reigns for the new model year.

Time to get a Ninety Eight is running out. The car surely won't survive beyond 1996 as Oldsmobile remakes itself in Saturn's image. The deletion of the supercharged 3.8-liter V6 from the options list, as well as meager improvements for 1996, portend the imminent demise of this throwback to the days when an Oldsmobile was your father's car. With the Aurora, LSS and Eight Eight to choose from, we doubt many Olds customers will lament the loss of the Ninety Eight Regency Elite.