In 2000, Oldsmobile was all but dead. They were still selling cars, but General Motors had committed the brand to the scrapyard. As the Auroras, Aleros, Silhouettes, Intrigues and Bravadas rolled off of the assembly lines, an effort was pitched as one last-ditch effort to try to wick up some enthusiasm for the Rocket brand. Dubbed the SV series, one Alero, one Silhouette and one Intrigue were yanked off of the line, modified in pretty much the same fashion (red exterior with body kit mods, special wheels, and Recaro seats, among other goodies) and were pitched as pushing Oldsmobile’s performance image. Funny, when everybody knows the brand is going away, nobody believes that the performance cars are going to fly. It’s rumored that the Silhouette was sent to a junkyard, and there’s floating hints that the Alero might have seen the same fate, but amazingly enough, the Intrigue SV has somehow managed to survive intact and is now sitting on eBay.

Initial impressions: it’s a body-kitted Intrigue, but it looks good. Hiding behind those wheels are four-piston Brembo brakes and cross-drilled rotors, 13″ in the front and 10.9″ in the back. Why go full-kill for the brakes? Because someone decided to play with the running gear as well. We do have to cop to one issue: we aren’t 100% confirmed as to what engine is in here. Most sources say that it’s a supercharged prototype of the 3.5L “ShortStar” V6 that is pushing out 315 or so horsepower, and we believe that’s the most likely case, but some sources claim that it’s the 4.6L NorthStar. Whatever is under the hood, for a larger sedan from 2000, 315 horsepower was good enough to drop a jaw or two, and unlike other hot-rodded W-bodies from GM, the transaxle, the 4T80E, was well up to the task of taking the power. Add in the one-off Borla exhaust and you wind up with a show car that has the promise of going as well as it looks.

Now, I can already hear the cries of “no VIN, not street legal, why bother?” Easy…getting a state-issued VIN tag isn’t that difficult. Remember the “Push Me, Pull Me” twin-engined Citation that GM sold in the “Save Our Ass” sale? It’s registered, plated, and street-legal. So long as you can convince your local DMV that the Intrigue meets crash regulations (don’t see why not) and emissions regulations (which might be a little more difficult) and you can talk your way through it all, there’s a good chance that you can get this thing road-worthy in short order. It didn’t save Oldsmobile, but the Intrigue SV deserves to be saved…from both obscurity and from rotting inside of a museum somewhere.

eBay Link: 2000 Oldsmobile Intrigue SV Concept