100 Cars That Changed History

“1957 Oldsmobile 88 4 door Hardtop” by Sicnag – 1957 Oldsmobile 88 4 door HardtopUploaded by OSX. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

79. Oldsmobile 88 1949-1999 United States

The 88, or Eighty-Eight, was a full-sized car manufactured and sold by the Oldsmobile division of General Motors from 1949 to the turn of the century. From 1950 until 1974, the 88 was Oldsmobile’s best-selling automobile. It has been marketed with a dozen different variant names and styles, but remained a leading full-sized sedan throughout ten generations and five decades. The original was one of the best performing vehicles of its time, with a light weight and powerful overhead-valve high-compression V8 engine. The smaller B-bodied 78 is considered the predecessor of the American muscle car. In 1989 the 88 nameplate was changed to Eighty-Eight. Although its later generations don’t inspire the same raw emotion that the earlier generations did, the Eighty-Eight line produced some awesome cars.