The Yeb-Mobile

The first car I drove, when I got my much-coveted driver’s license, was an Oldsmobile Delmont 88. I believe the year of the car was 1967 (don’t remember for sure). I began driving it in the summer of 1974.

Sometimes people will try to correct me and say, “Dan, don’t you mean Delta 88?”

And the answer is, “No, the model was the lesser-known Delmont 88.”

My older brother, Cam, and I shared this car. But since we hung out together a lot and had the same group of friends, that didn’t really create any problems.

The car you see in the photo (which I found online) is a 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88.

When my dad originally bought the car it was dark, like the car in the photo. For some reason, I even remember what Oldsmobile called the color. It was Midnight Blue. Sounds exotic, huh? It almost looked black but it was actually a very dark shade of blue.

When my brother began driving the car, a year before me, he took the car to a place called Earl Scheib. This was a company whose niche in the market was low-priced car painting (with a strong emphasis on the “low-priced” aspect). An Earl Scheib paint job didn’t cost all that much…but it didn’t look all that good, either. A little bit of paint on the car windows was part of the “Earl Scheib” charm.

Cam—in a stroke of pure genius—had the car painted a very bright, almost fluorescent, yellow color.

So…imagine the car you see in the photo, but in a very bright yellow.

It was easy to find in a parking lot.

Cam’s nickname—for reasons that cannot be divulged due to national security purposes—was “Yeb.” So the bright yellow Oldsmobile Delmont 88 was christened: “The Yeb-Mobile.”

We had many, many fun adventures in the Yeb-Mobile. I would detail some of those adventures, here, but once again “national security” comes into play. 

And frankly, all of those adventures were enjoyed by people who are now respectable, senior-ish adults…so “mum’s the word.”