R. E. (Bob) Brown Jr. of Sacramento, California writes:
I thought you might be interested in
a '62 that had some famous history to it. The attached picture
was taken in the fall of 1961, probably late September or very
early October. My father worked for Oldsmobile and was assigned
to the Washington D.C. office. Somehow, (the details of this part
are lost to time), it was made known to Oldsmobile that Jackie
[Kennedy] didn't like to ride in normal cars due to the fact that
her hats would hit the headliners. Open cars were not much of
an option due to the wind messing up her hair. This would have
been sometime late in the 1961 model year. Oldsmobile came up
with a solution and the result is what you see in the picture
below. I know that in the book "Setting the Pace", a
history of Oldsmobile, it shows a '61 convertible with this roof,
but that was what was used to mock-up the top, as both '61 and
'62 B bodies are the same above the beltline. If you look at the
picture carefully, you see that the roofline is raised about 2
inches above the original hardtop/convertible level.
My father went to Lansing and drove this car back to Maryland,
and he told us that he had to be careful because people would
not pay attention to their driving while they stared at the car.
He also said that Oldsmobile made at least 3 of these roofs, one
for the car, one as a spare, and one for an executive in the Lansing
home-office. He took us for a ride in the car and it was fun,
especially since it rained that day. Imagine sitting in a convertible
and not getting wet.
I don't know what happened to the car, but I can guess that it
wasn't used after November, 1963. I think it was a normal convertible,
you can see the boot covering the top in the picture, so it might
have been sold to someone without them knowing the history.
One last comment, that is my father in the passenger seat, with
a "cool" 10 year old me with the shades.
