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

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]