I love a good story about a car returning to life and I love a good cheap-car find story, so naturally I was a sucker for this one. It doesn’t hurt that I almost bought a virtually identical car in high school, either. A big Oldsmobile B-body wagon made as much sense as me running back and forth to work every day after school, all twenty-two miles, but what can I say, if the brown and wood-paneled Olds had run better, I would have dropped the coin. This  1984 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser is a great Craigslist find…for the average shopper, it’s a derelict land whale of a wagon, fake wood wrap, horrible wire hubcaps, and all. Raise your hands if a B-body wagon has suddenly started to look like a good idea after twenty-odd years of being too much car for any one use? Thought so.

So what’s the real cost of this machine? A set of tires, enough fuel to run out the old and turn the output clear, and a battery. That’s all it took for the Olds 307 to kick into life. The wheels still suck, the bumper fillers are still AWOL, and there’s still some dents to knock out and deal with, but for a car that’s still well under a thousand bucks total investment, this is how you start a good cheap car build…find a vehicle that is no longer wanted, bid low, and work smart when you begin piecing the beast back together. That minimum investment has turned into a parts hauler or, once the running gear is proven to be OK and the brakes are inspected, the perfect long-distance cruiser that isn’t an SUV!