Oldsmobile spotted

[98SVT - was 06GT]

This is the first one of these I've seen in the wild. The local Olds club was at Cars & Coffee with many 442s and this.

[deathsled]

A rarity.  I wonder why it never took off.  The body styling looked pretty decent.  Maybe arrived too early or too late?  Timing is everything in this life.

[tesgt350]

A rarity.  I wonder why it never took off.  The body styling looked pretty decent.  Maybe arrived too early or too late?  Timing is everything in this life.

I would bet that, if it had a Ford Motor, it would have taken off big time.

[98SVT - was 06GT]

A rarity.  I wonder why it never took off.  The body styling looked pretty decent.  Maybe arrived too early or too late?  Timing is everything in this life.

I would bet that, if it had a Ford Motor, it would have taken off big time.

They were too much money and had too many compromises to be successful. Somebody has built one as a Coupe with a Ford engine. CS had planned a coupe.
Shelby had several of the CSX5000 ones that he used to pay off peoples contracts when he fired them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_Series_1

[crossboss]

I have to correct your title: Oldsmobile POWERED car spotted.

[98SVT - was 06GT]

I have to correct your title: Oldsmobile POWERED car spotted.

Tha is the only thing all the cars have in common? Despite initial claims that the car was entirely built in-house, much of the production run was overseen by General Motors with much of the components used from their parts bin, including the powerplant. - During production, Venture Corporation purchased Shelby American. The purchase included the rights to the Series 1 model after a subsequent bankruptcy by Venture Corporation, Carroll Shelby's new company Shelby Automobiles, Inc. purchased the Series 1 assets for pennies on the dollar. Included in the asset purchase were sufficient components to produce several more complete Series 1s.

[Side-Oilers]

These look better without the over-the-top stripes, IMO. 

I drove the prototypes, and then got the first magazine drive of the pre-production car, back in 1999.  It wasn't ready for prime-time yet, and the GM parts-bin interior left most everyone cold.  The taillights look like they came out of a trailer supply catalog...because they did.

(Trivia: The front side market lights on the Gen 1 Viper were also trailer parts. Gotta save money wherever possible, on low-production cars.) 

The normally-aspirated engines were pretty weak. Not much low-end torque, because it was tuned to high rpm to get a decent hp number. Shelby's guys quickly developed a supercharged version for our top speed shootout in '99 or 2000. That made a big difference, but the cockpit ergonomics were still quirky, and the pedals so crazily far offset to the left that at least half the time you hit the brake, thinking it's where the clutch ought to be.

But, the car did handle like a proper race car. Decent ride quality, too. A bit over 1.0g lateral grip in an era when 0.9g was a big deal.

With the supercharged engine and another year of development, it would have been a much better car. But, the MSRP ramped-up quickly, due to delays, bad business decisions and internal problems, and pushed the car out of the smart-buy-supercar bracket. 

[427heaven]

It was a weird time in automotive history when Indy cars had to run stock block engines and OLDSMOBILE was on a big push for name recognition. So there was an OLDS AURORA once upon a time, and they were using its engine supposedly... it sounded very strange when they went by and they were not much in street trim either. The entire promotion appeared to be a flop along with Saturn, the PT cruiser the odd rod PROWLER and a host of others. Poor name recognition could not make it to be something.