My Favorite Ride: Remembering a 1946 hot rod that is so much pink

I promised an update this week about a cool two-tone 1961 Oldsmobile I photographed in 2011. I wrote about the car five years later after finding a forgotten image of the sedan on an old photo memory card.

I'm pretty sure I took the picture at a Sunday afternoon street show in downtown Nashville. Readers back in 2016 helped me identify the car from a picture snapped from behind.

Steve Knott nailed it when he ID'd the car not as an Oldsmobile Delta, nor a Dynamic or Jetstar 88, but as a top-of-the line Olds Super 88. He provided evidence: the extra chrome trim circles on the upper half of the rear taillight lens. Some of my readers are well-versed in automotive knowledge and details such as this.

While Laura was out sick:Where is this 1961 Olds Delta 88 now?

After tracking down a few dead-end leads, and contacting a few Brown County car people, I still — seven years later — have been unable to identify or locate the owner of this beautiful car. No one claims to know it.

A closer look at that picture reveals a California license plate, so maybe the car was traveling through the Midwest and went on its way after a stop in scenic Brown County. Surely not; that's a long trek for an old car like this. Hmmmm. Mystery remains.

While looking for more pictures of that 1961 Oldsmobile, I found photos I took in the summer of 2013 of a pretty spectacular car I wrote about 10 years ago.

I remember turning a corner and seeing the powder-puff-pink convertible just parked there in the shade at the Thursday night cruise-in at Hardee's on Bloomington's west side.

These 2013 pictures were on the photo card after a series from Rose's Diner the week before it closed: homemade lattice-top fruit pies cooling on the counter, a waitress juggling three breakfast plates, a chalkboard listing the $5 salmon patty and mashed potatoes lunch special.

The pictures taken after the ones of the pink car captured 4-H pigeons and other fowl being judged at a county fair. I'm not sure which county, since back then I traveled the local summer fair circuit, writing a feature story from each one.

Since many of you readers weren't around a decade ago, I thought I'd show you that car. I wrote a column about it that explained its owners' reluctance to buy the car because of the pastel pink paint.

Does anyone know what it is? Jerry and Pam Davis, are you out there? And do you still own this beautiful, albeit so pink, automobile? Let me know.

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