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The name stays the same, but the car has undergone extensive change.

Olds has kept the well-recognized 88 moniker, but dressed its full-size,front-wheel-drive four-door sedan in new sheet metal for the 1992 model year.

Styling now somewhat resembles the Infiniti Q45 from Nissan. If youstrain your imagination a bit, you`ll see some Jaguar, too. Obviously looking something like other cars is more important to Olds than being unique. It`sthe opposite theory of guilt by association. It`s called success by copying.

The belief is that if you look like other luxury cars, folks will thinkyou have a luxury car equal in image to your rivals. Remember when Ford put a Mercedes grille on the Granada and tried to make people think it was a Benz?Ironically, Ford broke from the clone technique when head designer JackTelnack brought out the radically styled Taurus and Sable in 1986. If memoryserves, a lot more people have been driving a Ford than an Olds lately.

In giving the 88 a new appearance, the designers also chose to give itabout 3 inches added length, all the better to provide a touch more rear-seat room to accommodate your legs, and trunk space to handle a set or two of golf clubs.

The 88 is a member of the General Motors H-body trio, which has undergone major change for `92. The Pontiac Bonneville and Buick LeSabre are the others. The 88 is offered in two versions, the base 88 Royale and the top-of-the- line 88 Royale LS.

The focus on the Bonneville is performance as evidenced by fancy SSE andSSEi names, a 205-horsepower supercharged V-6 engine, traction control andmounds of decorative plastic cosmetics added to deck lid, fenders, wheelwells, doors and grille.

With the 88, Olds concentrated on luxury. You notice it when you leavethe light and the 170-horsepower 3.8-liter V-6 accelerates more smoothly andquietly than in the Bonneville. For even smoother yet peppier off-the-linepower, some will argue that rather than upgrade the 3.8 V-6 to 170 horsepower for `92 from 165 for 1991, Olds should have gone a step further and offered a 200-horsepower multivalve V-6. If we had to pull a car full of people ortravel through hilly terrain on a regular basis, we`d want a few more horsesunder the hood, too.

Others will be content that the 3.8-liter V-6, teamed with its 4-speedautomatic transmission, is rated at 18 m.p.g. city and 28 highway. Weobtained 31 m.p.g. during a 200-mile stretch of highway driving. That`s a lot of miles for a little gas in a big car.

In coming up with a new 88, Olds loaded it with luxury accouterments. The 88 Royale LS we test drove featured a standard driver`s-side air bag and anti-lock brakes; front-seat head room so spacious you can wear two hats, one ontop of the other, without touching the roof; dual sunshades so you can blockglare front and side at the same time; and dual cupholders that pull out from a center arm rest that also hold s cassettes and coins.

Also, the adjustable shoulder belts only require sliding the plasticholder to reposition the belt so it doesn`t rub your chin or neck; radio andair/heater controls in the steering column make for easy use; a trunk-release button is positioned on the dash; the spare-tire jack and assorted hardwareare housed in a plastic compartment in the trunk, where they`re easy to find and use; the outside temperature reading is constantly flashed on the dash so you needn`t wonder if it`s 105 degrees above or 10 degrees below.

However, considering the LS is the upgraded 88 and Olds is the GMdivision from which you expect a little bit extra for the money in terms oftechnology or innovation, we wonder why Olds simply didn`t add a passenger-side air bag as standard (not even available as an option until `94).

Traction control, which keeps wheels from spinning when accelerating just as anti-lock brakes keep them from slipping when stopping, is a mere $175option on the LS. If traction control is $175 at retail, the cost to GM has tobe a fraction of that amount. If Olds wanted to be recognized as an innovator it should have made traction control standard.

Then, too, why not include an on/off button on the steering-wheel hubradio controls and not just volume/seek; and follow the lead of Ford and putan arrow on the fuel gauge pointing to which side of the car the filler dooris located to remove any doubts when you pull in for petrol; and why not aninside fuel-filler door-release button?

Also, why offer the time-saving automatic door lock/unlock and deck-lidopener key fob and then position the “deck open“ button between “doorlock“ and “door unlock“ so that more often than not, rather than lock orunlock the doors you end up popping open the trunk.

Small things, to be sure, but considering Olds has been fighting foryears to re-establish an image, these little items seem important.

We also found the suspension overly stiff for the top-of-the-line LSversion. Too much road harshness was fed back into the wheel and the driver`s seat, more than you`d expect from a car built on a 110.8-inch wheelbase inwhich occupants should be far enough removed from such physical distractions. It was odd that the suspension failed to totally cushion up and downgyrations yet did a better than average job in holding the vehicle in placeduring lateral maneuvers. The suspension held the car relatively flat incorners and turns even at speed. Olds` decision to upgrade tires to 15-inchradials from 14 inches on the `91 contributed to the road holding.

The 88 Royale starts at $18,495. The LS we drove starts at $21,395. Those prices are up substantially from 1991, by $1,300 on the base model and by$2,600 on the LS. Olds says the prices are from $280 to $770 lower because it added $1,580 in options on the base model for only $1,300, a $280 “savings“ and $3,370 in options on the LS for only $2,600 more, a $770 “savings.“ Oldsshould be put in charge of balancing the federal budget.

Standard equipment in addition to the items mentioned above includes airconditioning with rear-seat ducts, cruise control, front and rear mats, dualpower mirrors, low-oil indicator lamp, AM/FM stereo with cassette, clock,power antenna, power door locks, power brakes and steering, tilt wheel, power windows, tinted glass, intermittent wipers and all-season radials.

The test car added option package 1SC, which included automatic air-conditioning controls, cornering lamps, rear-window defogger, power seats,the steering wheel radio/air-heater controls and low fuel/oil/coolant/washerfluid indicators. Aluminum wheel covers with locks ran $274, and a body accentstripe cost $45. The total with options ran $22,866 plus a very hefty $555freight charge.

The 88 is covered by the Oldsmobile Edge warranty, which allows buyers to return the car for any reason within 30 days or 1,500 miles.