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The official introduction date is July 8, but Indianapolis Oldsmobile dealers didn’t wait.

The dealers put Oldsmobile’s 1992 Eighty Eight Royale LS sedans on display as soon as they rolled into town.

“I got them last week,” said Rick Brown, general manager of Dellen Oldsmobile. “There were only five, but they’re available now.”

The ’92 Eighty Eight is designed to coax back younger Olds buyers who had deserted the car in favor of more stylish makes. The typical buyer of the old Eighty Eight was at least 50 years old. With the ’92 model, the General Motors Corp. division hopes to drop that age bracket 10 to 15 years.

“We think it’s going to be just super for us in bringing in lots of the customers that we had before,” said Joe Myers, president of Collins Oldsmobile. “These are customers who may have defected to Buick. And we think we’re competitive with a lot of upscale models like the (Nissan) Maxima, the Infiniti G20, the up-line Toyotas.”

The new Royale LS is a full-sized, four-door sedan with V-6 power, front-wheel drive and room for six passengers. While the ’92 is a new design, certain key dimensions, such as a 110.8-inch wheelbase, have been retained.

Most important in attracting younger buyers is the car’s aerodynamic styling. “The (old-model) car had the same looks for too long,” Myers said. “It just lost the younger market.”

There is an adage in the automobile business — “You can sell an old man a young man’s car, but you can’t sell a young man an old man’s car.” — that about tells the story of the ’92 Royale LS, which features flowing sheet metal, flush glass, integrated exterior support componentry and a highly stylized interior decor.

Also, Olds hasn’t done too badly in the power-plant department. Under the hood is the latest version of GM’s 3800 V-6.

The engine incorporates a long list of advanced features.

The V-6 already had a stagger-throw crankshaft for smoothness. In this design, the crank pins attached to the bottom of the connecting rods are offset 30 degrees from each other to provide an even 120-degree firing order. Add to this a secondary balance shaft, and the V-6 is as smooth as a V-8.

In addition, a tuned-runner intake manifold, roller-type valve lifters, sequential-port fuel injection and a distributorless ignition system all go together to create a V-6 developing 170 horsepower and 220 foot-pounds of torque.

Yet the sedan is not one of those automobiles that will pass everything but a gas station. The fuel consumption rating is 19 miles per gallon in the city and 28 mpg on the highway.

Oldsmobile Division is just beginning to supply the Royale to its 3,000 dealers nationwide. “We’ve shipped about 7,000 cars to date,” said August R. “Gus” Buenz, Oldsmobile Division’s director of public relations. “In 1990, we sold 104,000 (units). But with this new one we’ll do better than that.”

In Indianapolis, Olds Division has Collins, Dellen, Ed Martin and Ray Skillman representing its products. In near by communities are Dave Mason, Jaggers-Harris, Pence, Classic and Kutche. These dealers and the rest of the division’s national body will be shooting to surpass the record 260,000 Eighty Eights sold in 1984.

“I’d have to say it (the Royale) will account for about 30 percent of our sales,” Brown said. “The Ninety Eight right now is doing about 30 percent of my sales. I think it now may come down a little. But between the two of them, I believe they will account for 45 to 50 percent of sales.”

“It used to be that the Eighty Eight was anywhere from 22 to 25 percent of our market,” Myers said. “And I think the car has a good shot at moving back into those numbers.

“It will definitely be our best seller, and be competitive in all aspects.”

The ’92 Royale LS is slightly longer than the Eighty Eight it replaces. Overall length is 200.4 inches, and curb weight is 3,485 pounds. The car also has more trunk room, 17.7 cubic feet vs. 16.3 in the ’91 Eighty Eight.

Ol dsmobile’s market res earch states that the division expects the car to appeal to two separate consumer groups. One will be customers in their mid-to-upper 40s. The other group will be more mature couples with active lifestyles.

“The price is running about $21,500,” Brown said. “And everybody who has looked at it has welcomed the change.”