My Favorite Ride: This 1966 Olds Delta 88 used to be a parade car

ELLETTSVILLE — Two years ago, I wrote two columns tracking the history of a certain 1966 Oldsmobile Delta 88 convertible.

"The one Pete Dunn bought new for his wife, kept 14 years or so, then sold to Marion Jacobs for $350," a May 2021 column said. "The one Jacobs' son, Jonathan, drove in high school during the 1980s. The old car that eventually got parked in the garage, where it was forgotten, obscured by storage boxes stacked on the trunk and hood.

"The car Bob Lowers caught a glimpse of while painting at Jacobs' daughter's home a few weeks ago and bought on sight, then got running for the first time in decades."

Last month, my boss at the newspaper asked me to check out a situation in Ellettsville. I'm a news reporter who covers mostly crime and goings-on of various kinds; this car column is a side gig I took on more than 20 years ago.

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We had heard from readers that something was going on at the edge of town. One lane of Ind. 46 was closed, and workers using heavy equipment were clearing land around a man's house. People were curious.

So I drove to Ellettsville, parked downtown and walked west on Main Street with my reporter's notebook and camera until I found the site. A man inside the house saw me and came out the front door.

"What's going on?" I asked, introducing myself.

"Thank God someone's come to find out about all this," he said, taking my hand. Then my name registered, and his anxiety eased. "I know you. You're the one that wrote about my Oldsmobile, remember?"

At first, I didn't. Not that I've written about that many Oldsmobiles, but I couldn't place him or the car. We hadn't met in person before that, and I didn't know the man's name when I approached his house that day.

He led me to where his garage had been — it had violated town codes and had just been razed by the workers. "The car was parked right there. They towed it away and it's down at the town hall parking lot," Lowers said.

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We kept talking, and I remembered the car. Burgundy, Delta 88, Pete Dunn, Marion Jacobs, his daughter Lucy. It all came back to me as we stood where the car once was parked.

For those of you new to the column or who, like me, forgot about this car, a quick refresher:

The late Pete Dunn bought the car new as a gift for his wife, Barbara. There's a picture of her behind the wheel during Bloomington's 1967 Fourth of July parade hauling her husband, who was running for city council that year.

The convertible was then driven by their children in high school; it once served as a junior class float in a homecoming parade.

In 1980, they sold the car to Marion Jacobs, a well-known pillar of the Ellettsville community. HIs son recalls driving the car back then, before it got parked in the garage for good.

After Marion Jacob's death in 2020, his daughter Lucy was trying to figure out what to do with her dad's classic Delta 88. She contacted me.

"You are so well connected in the historic and classic car community," Lucy Jacobs said. "Maybe you would know someone interested in this former beauty?"

Bob Lowers was doing some painting at Jacobs' house not long after that. She lamented the future of the car, and mentioned the crusher at JB Salvage.

Lowers put down his paint brush and went out to the garage, where the dust-coated car was located amid old political signs.

"He took one look and said, 'Wow! I'll take it.' He didn't even look under the hood," Jacobs said. "He said it was love at first sight."

A collector of old things and a man who appreciates cars or yesteryear, he bought the Delta 88 and hauled it home.

Jacobs had told him the motor was frozen up, done for. But Lowers and his brother tinkered with it a few hours and got the car to start. He called Jacobs to let her know its days on the road weren't over.

Lowers kept the car parked in a garage structure he had built onto his house. Turns out its construction violated town codes, which led to its demolition by the town in April.

The town returned the car to Lowers. It's sitting where the garage was, partially concealed by a tarp, future unclear.

Have a story to tell about a car or truck? Contact My Favorite Ride reporter Laura Lane at [email protected] or 812-318-5967.