Start with what the Oldsmobile Model S is: a car with NNN cuin, built from 1906, when a car was a rich man's adventure and every maker was a workshop. What it meant takes a little longer.
The story
The Model S was the first four-seat passenger car produced by Oldsmobile in 1906, offered as a larger alternative to the Model R Curved Dash runabout that appeared in 1901. The advertised price was $2,250 ($80,625 in 2025 dollars ). It was Oldsmobile's first four cylinder car and took the top level marketing position above the Model L and the entry-level Model R. It was one of the last independently developed products before they joined General Motors in 1908, and competed against Buick, Ford and other automakers at the time.
It was built at the Oldsmobile factory in Detroit and developed by Frederick and Angus Smith, whose father Samuel L. Smith was the primary investor, and R. E. Olds had left the company due to an argument with Oldsmobile Board of Directors.
What is underneath
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.
Its place in the line
In the Oldsmobile line-up the Oldsmobile Model S has a clear place: it replaced the Oldsmobile Curved Dash; it handed the line to the Oldsmobile Model A; 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 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, the Bugatti Type 8. Nearby in the Oldsmobile catalogue sit the Oldsmobile 442 and the Oldsmobile 88.
Owning one today
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Oldsmobile Model S has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.