1950 Oldsmobile 88: Clay County man makes the most of second chance to own rare sedan

Certain cars have a way of evoking memories of your youth. It happened last March to 75-year-old Jerry Shields when he and his wife, Mary, traveled to Scottsdale, Ariz., to visit family.

While there, Shields noticed there was a Goodguys car show nearby. It was natural for him, his wife and mother-in-law to go. They love cars and car shows.

Shields, a member of the Golden Oldies Car Club in Kansas City, enjoys viewing vintage cars. He has entered cars in car shows and has owned several 1956 Chevys and a 1967 Oldsmobile.

When Shields stepped into the Goodguys show, his only intention was to look at the vintage cars on display. That is, until he walked by a 1950 Oldsmobile 88 two-door sedan.

The shiny, garnet red Oldsmobile intrigued Shields so much that he walked past it a second time. Then a third time. The more he saw it, the more he started thinking back to when he was a teenager.

“I went to my dad when I turned 16 and said, ‘Dad I want to buy a car,’” Shields said. “I need somebody to sign with me to get a loan on the car because I didn’t have enough money. My dad said, ‘OK.’ I told him I would like to buy a 1950 Oldsmobile. Dad said no.

“That’s what went through my mind. Here was my chance to buy a 1950 Oldsmobile. It is a beautiful car. To this day, he never explained why he didn’t want me to have a 1950 Oldsmobile. He had an opinion on them.”

Shields’ opinion of the 1950 Oldsmobile is very high.

“When I was 16, these cars were known as being quite fast,” Shields said. “In my opinion, it is the first factory hot rod. Nobody says it that way today. Oldsmobile was way ahead of everybody when it came out with it. This is a 135-horsepower car. It would really go.

“Most people don’t remember this car. They ask what year. They say ’60 or ’40. They couldn’t quite get the year. After we got past that, they would say, ‘I don’t remember them being this nice looking.’ They were surprised it has a V-8 in it. It has an automatic transmission. They didn’t realize they had automatic transmissions. Every car my dad had were stick shifts. Automatic in our family was just not done.”

After Shields bought the car, it took a while to get it to his home at the village of Oakwood in Clay County.

It was shipped to him last May. He immediately wanted to install dual pipes. But when he took it to a muffler shop, he was informed the frame would need to be cut to install them.

“I completely backed off the idea,” Shields said.

Work, though, needed to be done before Shields could showcase his 1950 Oldsmobile in car shows. The transmission went out. It sat in a shop for seven weeks while parts were found for it.

He was told it would have been cheaper to put another type of engine in, but he wanted the 1950 Oldsmobile to be as close to its original form as possible, regardless of the cost.

Shields figures he has put 600 miles on it, driving it to car shows.

“We just had it at the World of Wheels at Bartle Hall,” Shields said. “We had it there for three days. I drove it to and from down there. It was a nice show.

“I’d say we will show this car at least once a month, starting in May. One show we are keying on is the Antique Automobile Club of America in June and we plan on entering it and have it judged there at the Independence Center.”

Shields said there are not many 1950 Oldsmobile 88 sedans around these days. He believes the main reason his car survived all these years was because it spent 25 years in the garage of a previous owner who lived in Simi Valley, Calif.

For Shields, he is glad his car endured. No matter how many times he walked away from it at the Goodguys show, he kept coming back to it.

“We found this car and fell in love with it,” Shields said.

This story was originally published March 6, 2015 at 6:00 PM with the headline "1950 Oldsmobile 88: Clay County man makes the most of second chance to own rare sedan."