Rare Rides: A Pristine 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon, Shift-It-Yourself Edition

Corey Lewis
by Corey Lewis

Hearing the Cutlass name inspires visions of 442, of color-key rally wheels, or perhaps thoughts of tacky aftermarket ruination and glittery paint.

This grey fastback sedan doesn’t often come to mind, but perhaps it should. Presenting the 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon. Likely, Olds called it Salon because you can fit big hair into it.

Or not. The history of Oldsmobile’s Cutlass was a long one, and by the 1978 model year the midsize nameplate was in its fifth generation. As it was the late Seventies, downsizing and saving fuel was the name of the game. For its fifth edition, Cutlass lost six inches in wheelbase and offered considerably smaller engines than just one year before.

Cutlass still rode on GM’s A-body, but it was a lighter, leaner, shorter variant. Designed to handle several body styles and engines, the new A focused on flexibility. Seven other vehicles aside from Cutlass utilized the new A-body, representing cars from Buick, Chevrolet, and Pontiac. The base engine for Cutlass was the 3.8-liter Buick V6, but customers could get their hands on larger engines, including the 5.0-liter Chevrolet 305 V8. Two diesels were made available for buyers who were into that sort of thing.

At the start of its new generation, the Cutlass family included four separate lines: Supreme, Salon, Cruiser, and Calais. Supreme and Calais wore more traditional formal roof styling in sedan and coupe styles, while Cruiser represented the five-door wagon. Salon was the alternative choice. Split between base Salon and upmarket Salon Brougham, the new name brought fastback styling to the table. Two- and four-door options made up Salon offerings, and the A-body went in a new direction.

Customers spoke with their wallets. All other Cutlass offerings were immediately much more popular than either of the Salons. The sedan was the first model dropped from the new Cutlass line, living only through 1980. A year later the Salon coupe followed suit. Oldsmobile continued with a wide variety of Cutlass models, splitting the lineup between front- and rear-drive varieties in 1982. Ciera switched to front-wheel drive on a brand new A-body platform, while Supreme stayed sporty on the rear-drive G-body.

Today’s Rare Ride is a simply stunning 1978 example of the Cutlass Salon. With the Olds 260 V8 (4.3L) and a five-speed manual transmission, the Salon had just 34,000 miles on the odometer. We say had there, as this Salon asked $10,000, and was listed for a short time before being sold.

[Images: seller]

Corey Lewis
Corey Lewis

Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.

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  • Ltcmgm78 Ltcmgm78 on Jun 08, 2019

    The ratios didn't seem to be spread unreasonably. I must admit that I never saw another 2.3L Fairmont with a manual transmission again. I took the car to Germany when I was assigned there. The fastest it would go on the Autobahn was about 75. It caught fire in my driveway one morning. Had a leaky fuel line going into the carburetor and the ignition coil lit it up one morning when I was trying to get to work. Cooked everything under the hood. Took the insurance check after it was totaled and bought a 1985 SAAB 900 Turbo sedan.

  • Ltcmgm78 Ltcmgm78 on Jun 08, 2019

    I remember seeing the news footage of the Horizon steering wheel swinging from one direction to the other. I never tried to replicate the issue. Keeping my hands on the wheel seemed to dampen any possible ill effect. Driver in the video turned the wheel to full lock left and let go of the wheel. It cycled far back to the right and back to the left again.

  • Lou_BC I pulled over into a road side rest stop once because the rain got so bad that I could barely see. Several other vehicles followed. As I sat there in my F150 watching, a Corvette wailed by. How could they not feel the vehicle hydroplaning? The steering on my heavy truck with excellent tires felt numb.
  • Lou_BC Maloo GTSR W1
  • MaintenanceCosts E34 M5 3.8. Not sure there has ever been a more charismatic engine than the S38B38.
  • 28-Cars-Later Sadly, fewer motorists bothering to buy insurance [because they are unwanted illegal aliens] will likewise be used as an excuse to raise rates on those that do.
  • Ajla Maybe not a "dream", but I'd be happy with a Buick sedan
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