Junkyard Find: 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham
Now that we’ve looked at the corpse of a GM product that flopped in the American marketplace, let’s exhume an example of a GM product that sold like crazy: the Middle Malaise Era Olds Cutlass.
The downsized ’78-81 Cutlass didn’t sell quite as well as the previous generation, but it was still a solid showroom performer for The General. You could even get a 442 version!
These cars, close relatives of the jillion-selling Malibu, retain some popularity with the gangsta-style crowd, though not as much as the “box Caprice.” Clearly, these wheels weren’t enough to tempt an auction buyer prior to this car’s last tow-truck ride.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Grandparents had a green w/ white half vinyl top with matching green interior. I think that that is one of the biggest losses to the old ways- crazy car interior colors. Now it is black, grey, or tan(ish) due to parts commonalization. You used to be able to get floor mats in red, blue, green, black, brown, and clear- now just grey, tan, black and clear and funky designs on black.
I've never seen a pre-shovel nose G-body Cutlass, but I did find a fiiiiine 1976 Cutlass Supreme Brougham for sale today! http://s257.photobucket.com/user/rockmanDX3/media/100_0558.jpg.html Sorry folks, but you can't have it. I NEED this car.