Junkyard Find: 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham

by Murilee Martin

Updated: February 25th, 2016 Published: January 24th, 2012

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.

#1970s #1979 #1979OldsmobileCutlass #Brougham #Cutlass #Denver #DownOnTheJunkyard #Junkyard #JunkyardFind #Malaise #Oldsmobile #MalaiseEra #OldsmobileCutlass

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 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.

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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.

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Recent Comments

Alan Well, it will take 30 years to fix Nissan up after the Renault Alliance reduced Nissan to a paltry mess.I think Nissan will eventually improve.
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Alan My view is there are good vehicles from most manufacturers that are worth looking at second hand.I can tell you I don't recommend anything from the Chrysler/Jeep/Fiat/etc gene pool. Toyotas are overly expensive second hand for what they offer, but they seem to be reliable enough.I have a friend who swears by secondhand Subarus and so far he seems to not have had too many issue.As Lou stated many utes, pickups and real SUVs (4x4) seem quite good.
28-Cars-Later So is there some kind of undiagnosed disease where every rando thinks their POS is actually valuable?83K miles Ok.new valve cover gasket.Eh, it happens with age. spark plugsOkay, we probably had to be kewl and put in aftermarket iridium plugs, because EVO.new catalytic converterUh, yeah that's bad at 80Kish. Auto tranny failing. From the ad: the SST fails in one of the following ways:Clutch slip has turned into; multiple codes being thrown, shifting a gear or 2 in manual mode (2-3 or 2-4), and limp mode.Codes include: P2733 P2809 P183D P1871Ok that's really bad. So between this and the cat it suggests to me someone jacked up the car real good hooning it, because EVO, and since its not a Toyota it doesn't respond well to hard abuse over time.$20,000, what? Pesos? Zimbabwe Dollars?Try $2,000 USD pal. You're fracked dude, park it in da hood and leave the keys in it.BONUS: Comment in the ad: GLWS but I highly doubt you get any action on this car what so ever at that price with the SST on its way out. That trans can be $10k + to repair.