| '79 Eldorado=GOOD, '82 Eldorado=BAD
I spent a lot of time behind the wheels of these two cars in the 80's, and my recollections are of two lovely highway cruisers that both looked beautiful, but had distinct differences beneath the surface.
The '79 Eldorado we had was silver with grey leather interior. First year of the new body style, and I think it had the Olds 350 under the hood. The car was a screamer with deceptive power. There was plenty of room in the back, and the passenger seat reclined which was really nice on dates, if you know what I mean. It cruised well at 80, but remember the speed limit was 55 at the time, so you had to be careful. If I had to pick any model year of this body style Eldo, it would definitely be the '79. Too bad it got totaled by an idiot in a 4WD Chevy truck that sat about 3' off the ground.
Then came a beautiful Burgundy '82 Eldorado with burgundy leather interior. This may have been the best-looking car of the 80's. Plenty of creature comforts, and it's just my opinion but I think that the '82 had a smoother ride than the '79. The problem with this car is that it was severely under-powered, and the computer died on it twice. I think I heard that it cost about $1400 to replace it. That's 1982-83 dollars, we were in a recession, and the car was out of warranty. It was replaced with a 1986 Olds '98.
I think from a 2005 standpoint, it will be easier to find an Eldorado in this body style with the HT4100 engine, and probably VERY hard to find a '79-'81 model in good shape. I would recommend an engine swap, which will be complicated by the fact that this is a FWD car.
Hope this helps somebody out. I'm saving my pennies to resurrect one of these babies someday. | 
