The William White 1950 customized purple Olds

My buddy William White was ahead of his time! He customized a 1950 Oldsmobile similar to the purple one in the picture below and we won Drag Races in Ardmore, Oklahoma City Fairgrounds, Wichita Falls and several other towns. William lives in Lone Grove Oklahoma now and I don't know what became of this beautiful creation.
This is the color and model 1953 Olds that I owned in the fiftys
This picture shows an almost identical customized 1950 Olds that William White owned in the fiftys at Madill, Oklahoma
Introduced in 1949, the full-size Oldsmobile 88 was produced until 1999 and became the top-selling line for twenty-four years. Produced in Wentzville, Missouri, and both Flint and Lake Orion, Michigan, the Oldsmobile Eighty Eight was a representation of an image. Especially during the beginning three years, the Oldsmobile 88 was one of the best performing automobiles. This was most likely due to its small size, along with the lightweight and advanced over-head valve high-compression V8 engines. This engine was originally intended for the larger, more luxurious 98 series.


Named to complement the already existing 76 and 98 series, the 88 which was considered to be the grandaddy of musclecars of the 1960s was first introduced in 1949, and utilized the 76's platform with a newly added large and powerful Rocket V8 engine. Popular duriing its time, the Eighty Eight inspired a popular song 'Rocket 88' and a popular 1950's slogan, 'Make a Date with a Rocket 88'. The rocket was eventually adoped as the Oldmsobile logo during the 1960's, though the 88 name continued to remain in the lineup until the late 1990's.


During the 1950's several updates to the Eighty Eight included a one-piece windshield unit as the replacement of the two-piece windshield with the addition of the Holiday Hardtop to the Oldsmobile line. At the same time, a three-speed manual transmission with column shift also became available as a ‘delete for credit' option to the Hydra-Matic automatic transmission. After the 1950 model year, the six-cylinder 76 lineup was dropped entirely as the Eighty Eight now outsold the previoius line.