Ransom Eli Olds started building cars in 1897 in Lansing, Michigan. Oldsmobile became the first U.S. high-volume manufacturer of gas-powered automobiles by producing 635 cars in 1901 and held that honor through 1904.
Oldsmobile had a sales manager named Fredrick Smith who pushed Ransom Olds to guarantee these cars were defect-free. This resulted in Smith and Olds having a falling out. Olds left the company in 1904 and formed the REO Motor Co. (his initials), which made cars and, later, trucks until 1975.
The first Oldsmobile was the famous “curved-dash” model produced from 1902 to 1907 and was the first assembly line-produced car (often credited to Henry Ford) except that in this case, the employees worked on a stationary vehicle rather than the vehicle moving down a line. Oldsmobile became part of General Motors in 1908 and was right in the middle of the GM product line, above Pontiac and below Buick.
Oldsmobile was the experiential division for GM, where newer inventions and features such as automatic transmission and front wheel drive were tried on Oldsmobile first before being shared with the other divisions. Oldsmobile became so successful that by 1976 it was the third best-selling make in the country behind Chevrolet and Ford. Its success also contributed to its downfall, though. When demand for the famous Oldsmobile “Rocket V8” engine could not be met, GM installed the equally sized Chevrolet V8 engines. That proved to be a public relations nightmare, and the popularity of Oldsmobile dropped.
In 1988, Oldsmobile introduced a series of new models and used the advertising tagline “This Is Not Your Father’s Oldsmobile” in an attempt to escape the poor reputation of earlier model years, but the ad campaign failed. The last Oldsmobile was made on April 29, 2004.
This week’s featured car was probably not your father’s Oldsmobile either, but it may have been your grandfather’s. It’s a 1934 F Oldsmobile Tudor sedan owned by Pleasanton resident Peter Bedegi. The “F” signifies that it is a six-cylinder car. When new, it would have sold for about $675 or about $13,560 in today’s dollars.
Bedegi has owned it for about a year. He has owned several other classic cars made in the 1930s, “but they weren’t the cars I really wanted. I like from 1932 to 1936 and almost bought a 1935 REO that was in Texas, but then this COVID-19 stuff was happening.”
He kept looking, though, and found this car advertised by a classic car dealer near Chicago. There are different kinds of car collectors — some like old cars that are original or restored to period-correct specifications. Some like the style or looks of a particular car but want the comforts of a modern car such as power steering, air conditioning, automatic transmission, a V8 engine, 12-volt system, disc brakes, etc. Those models are called “resto-mods.”
Peter Bedegi’s car is definitely a resto-mod. Not only does it have all the modern features listed above, it has things like a Bango tilt steering wheel, Fat Man front suspension, coil-over adjustable front shocks, Custom Beede instrument cluster, cloth reclining bucket seats but with the period-correct look of mohair with matching door panels and a headliner, a period-correct floor shift that works the automatic transmission and more.
This was a car that definitely interested Bedegi, but the car was near Chicago, and he didn’t want to fly there. The dealer told him he could ship it to him, which dealers do all the time.
“I told the dealer I wanted to think about it. I looked in Hemmings magazine where they have people all around the country that will go search out a car for you. So I contacted this guy who went out and did the once-over on it and said it’s a good driver and thought the owner had spent at least $100,000 fixing it up.”
The car had only 20,000 miles on it since the restoration 10 years earlier, but the new owner found a local mechanic who went through the whole car and did little things, like fix a leaking gas tank, to make the car as perfect as possible.
Naturally, I was curious as to how much Bedegi paid for this beautiful burgundy 1934 F Oldsmobile. He tells me he paid $38,000, which makes me think he got a very good deal. He tells me another tidbit about this deal that I’ll share with you, though. The previous owner had died, and his widow was selling the car. It was undoubtedly taking up garage space, and she apparently had no interest in or appreciation for the car. It’s my belief that whether you want to buy a resto-mod car or a time-share property, it’s best not to be the original owner and to buy it from a widow.
Have an interesting vehicle? Contact David Krumboltz at MOBopoly@yahoo.com. To view more photos of this and other issues’ vehicles or to read more of Dave’s columns, visit mercurynews.com/author/david-krumboltz.
