Junkyard Find: 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme
Published: October 15th, 2018
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Oldsmobile has been gone since 2004, which makes it hard to believe that the Olds Cutlass spent most of the period from the middle 1970s through the early 1980s as either the #1 or #2 best-selling car in the United States. For 1979, the Cutlass came in second place (behind the Chevy Caprice), and thus these downsized A/G-body fourth-generation Cutlasses once crowded North American streets.Now, most are gone, but this primered ’79 Cutlass Supreme coupe nearly made it to age 40, ending its days in a Denver self-service wrecking yard.
Someone took the first steps to creating a lowrider out of this Cutlass, installing small-diameter wire wheels and doing some bodywork, but the car never made it to true show-quality level.
Still, someone wanted to buy it. Unfortunately, this car failed to be rescued and is now crusher-bound.
Engine choices for the ’79 Cutlass ranged from adequate to horrifying. This car has the base engine, a 4.3-liter V6 rated at 115 horsepower. There was a 4.3-liter Oldsmobile V8 as well (105 horsepower with gasoline power, 90 with diesel… but you didn’t want the diesel). Just to confuse matters, a 160-horse Chevrolet 305 V8 was added to the Cutlass mix for ’79 ( leading to lawsuits later on).
During the late 1980s, I took a lot of road trips in the wagon version of this car: a Custom Cruiser. I recall it being underpowered but very comfortable.
No cassette or even 8-track player, but at least this car’s original purchaser opted for the AM/FM stereo radio.
You’ll find one in every car. You’ll see.
The upholstery looks pretty good, but that didn’t save this Supreme.
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Those who want style, value, and good gas mileage choose Cutlass Supreme.
If you like these junkyard posts, you can reach all 1500+ right here at the Junkyard Home of the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand!
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, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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Sgeffe and Carlson, you are both correct! When I was young and the car was in my family, I felt the 260 had "the power of a V6 with the gas consumption of a V8". In a way, it did--rated at 110 hp vs 105 hp for the base 250 Chevy 6-cyl (or the 231 V6 in later years). However, 30 years later, having owned several cars, with generally good luck, I appreciate the SMOOTHNESS of our old 260 V8, and the DRIVEABILTITY---unlike the road tests in Consumer Reports, or even the car mags, of 'surging, hesitating, stalling repeatedly when cold" of the malaise era, this car always started right up and ran smoothly, regardless of weather. So, if the 260 was THIS good, how much better a 350 Olds would have been....
Really a shame. My guess is that the engine and/or transmission simply wore out. It's got the Olds 260 V8 (very common in these), likely mated to the horrific THM200 transmission. In 1979, these things were as common as Camrys are today. A friend of mine had a '78 coupe, with the 260, and another friend had a '78 fastback 2-door. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the mileage on it really is 99,773.6. I'll bet the THM200 bit the big one.