Last night I watched the original The Evil Dead by director Sam Raimi. It was all the worst parts of a late 70s early 80s horror film. Good looking and bad acting young people heading for a little fun in the woods. A low budget project by a bunch of Michigan college students. Not even enough money to get tweezers for Bruce Campbell’s unibrow. The most interesting part was the appearance of Sam Raimi’s 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88. It would go on to make cameos in most of his movies.
In the remake, which I have not seen, there is a rotting Delta 88 in the woods that must be meant to be the original. But no! The blog Garrett on the Road does a fine analysis of early 70s Delta 88 fascia design to show that it is in fact a 1974 Delta 88 in the new film. Dun Dun!!
We were an Oldsmobile family after being a failed Ford family. Kids today might not know but every family had a car brand that they were associated with. The only way I could tell our Oldsmobile custom cruiser station wagon was a 1978 was because the grill had horizontal lines, different than a year before when they used vertical lines. That’s how they changed design for each model year in the 70s, they would just tweak a cheap plastic part or lens covering.
The real reason I watched the film was not to study bad 70s auto design, but I thought it would psych me up for my trip. Basically, I am going to be going out into the woods, hopefully to have a good time. Sure I’m not that young anymore and I won’t be accompanied by good-looking bad actors, but I’m sort of excited about being scared. All I watched as a kid were horror films and movies about cars like Cannonball Run, Friday the 13th, Duel, and Christine.
I just hope my car does not get possessed and turn on me or I’m joined by young good looking lovers who want to make it in the woods because that always wakes up the dormant super natural killers.

Photo credit: Telstar Logistics / Foter.com / CC BY-NC