Junkyard Find: 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

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
Murilee Martin

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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  • Econobiker Econobiker on Feb 01, 2012

    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.

  • NoGoYo NoGoYo on Jun 14, 2013

    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.

  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
  • Carson D The UAW has succeeded in organizing a US VW plant before. There's a reason they don't teach history in the schools any longer. People wouldn't make the same mistakes.
  • B-BodyBuick84 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport of course, a 7 seater, 2.4 turbo-diesel I4 BOF SUV with Super-Select 4WD, centre and rear locking diffs standard of course.
  • Corey Lewis Think how dated this 80s design was by 1995!
  • Tassos Jong-iL Communist America Rises!
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