---

Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit.  This has got to be a unicorn, if ever there was one.

I clicked on the listing just to observe the unadulterated greatness of the over-the-top Kennedy-era styling GM saw fit to lavish on The New Frontier.  It’s as if Bill Mitchell slammed the door behind ol’ Harley Earl as he left the building and then said, “Boys, to Hell with fins.  We’re all about the skegs and fenders with more points than your secretary’s sweater!  And Panoramic glass?  Put it on the back window so nobody’s knockin’ their knees when they get in any more!  There’s a new sheriff in town!”

But then, the icing on the cake was the fact that this unit was built for someone wanting an Oldsmobile, but at a Chevy price.  “Yeah, Arn,” he told his salesman at the dealership.  “I said order it with a three-on-the-tree.  I only want one option:  the ability to pay if off early because it’s so damn cheap.”  

I can only imagine the pride he must have felt pulling into his father-in-law’s driveway.  The Ol’ Man had told his daughter, “Go ahead and marry him.  He’ll never make anything of himself, but have it your way.”  The only thing that would have made the owner of this new Dynamic 88 Celebrity Sedan feel any better about himself is if the Little Woman next to him on the front bench seat trimmed in patterned cloth and complemented by two-tone gray vinyl had a fresh bun in the oven when she got out of the car.

This is pure Mid Century Modern Americana on a budget, baby.  The steak AND the sizzle.

Just look at those chrome oval instrument clusters.  The owner of this Bad Boy could just as easily have been at the controls of the Saturn 1-A launched on October 27th of 1961 as behind the wheel of this sedan.

Mitchell knew what he was doing.  The Rocket brand sold 45,584 of these Dynamic 88 Celebrity Sedans with a price tag of $2,900 (that’s about $30,713 in 2025 dough).  Yeah, a loaded Impala would have been about the same price.  But with a Chevy the Little Woman’s Ol’ Man could tell his buddies at the club that his ne’er do well son-in-law could only afford the bottom rung offering from The General.  You can’t put a price on avoiding that kind of indignation.

Of those 45,584 that Oldsmobiles sold, there can’t be more than a handful that were stripped down more than the girls over at The Skuttlebutt and had a three-on-the-tree transmission.  I’m telling you, this is going to be a topic of conversation tomorrow morning at The Grounds for Divorce.  And if that isn’t enough to get the boys around the table all stirred up, when I play the video of Cupcake behind the wheel shifting those gears smoother than a baby’s butt. . . well, let’s just say there’s going to be at least a half dozen more ‘watchers’ in Fort Stockton.

This one has it all.  Style.  Power.  Attitude.  Three pedals on the floor;  three gears on the column.  Back when ‘Celebrity’ was an Oldsmobile, not someone with a sex tape and an online following.  Back when there even was a brand called Oldsmobile.  “The seller notes evidence of paintwork on the body and replacement chrome plating on the front bumper, and chips and other blemishes.”  That’s probably the way it left the factory.

And we didn’t care.  It said “Body by Fisher” on the door sill plates; that was good enough for us.  It had to be good.  It was American.

---

---

---