Start with what the Oldsmobile Model A is: a car with NNN cuin, built from 1907, when a car was a rich man's adventure and every maker was a workshop. What it meant takes a little longer.
How it came about
The Oldsmobile Model A was a five-seater passenger car manufactured by Oldsmobile for 1907, replacing the Model S and succeeded by the Model M. The car had a water-cooled inline four-cylinder four-stroke engine installed at the front, which drew an output of 35 to 40 bhp (26 to 29 kW) from a displacement of 302 cu in (4,948 cc). The engine power was transmitted to the rear wheels via a three-speed gearbox with a gearshift lever on the outside right.
The brake pedal worked on the driveshaft, and the handbrake lever on the drum brakes on the rear wheels. Bodystyles offered were a 4-door touring car or a 4-door sedan. The touring car was available in gray, red and Brewster green, while the sedans were available in dark green or black, while either body style had a retail price of US$2,750 ($95,022 in 2025 dollars ). The standard items available with a full set of tools, two acetylene headlights, two additional oil lamps, a speaking tube for communicating with the driver, perfumery bottles, ashtray and silk trim for the passenger compartment The Model A shared much of its mechanicals and chassis with the Model H "Flying Roadster" also listed at US$2,750, available in either red or French gray.
The hardware
The engine is NNN cuin. On the scales it comes to NNN -. The wheelbase is NNN in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
In the Oldsmobile line-up the Oldsmobile Model A has a clear place: it replaced the Oldsmobile Model S; it handed the line to the Oldsmobile Model M; the factory was Lansing, Michigan (Lansing Car Assembly), United States. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Ford Model T, the GM (General Motors) Oakland Motor Car Company, the Daihatsu Daihatsu. Its Oldsmobile stablemates include the Oldsmobile 442 and the Oldsmobile 88.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the Oldsmobile Model A — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.