The Oldsmobile Cutlass was once the best-selling car in the United States, topping the sales charts in 1975 and 1976, but the Cutlass name spiraled down into incoherence and, eventually, irrelevance during the 1980s. By 1985, there were three unrelated vehicles bearing the Cutlass name: the Chevy Celebrity-based Cutlass Ciera, the N-body Cutlass Calais, and the G-body Cutlass Supreme. The last of the three kept rear-wheel-drive (and at least the possibility of a V8 engine) through the 1988 model year. Here’s a G-body Cutlass Supreme from the last couple of years of production, spotted in a San Francisco Bay Area self-service yard.
I’d like to say that this car has a rampaging V8 under the hood, but it’s the 3.8-liter Buick V6 that became GM’s most versatile engine starting in the 1970s. This engine was rated at 110 horsepower in 1987. Buick was getting 276 hp (or more) out of a turbocharged version of the 3.8 in the Cutlass Supreme-sibling Regal GNX in 1987.
There’s plenty of blue velour and plastic “chrome” in this car’s interior.
Extremely fake wood? Of course!
Nearly every GM car of the late 1980s has the sagging-headliner problem. Fortunately, you can use thumbtacks to keep the cloth from dangling into your eyes while driving.
These cars are still popular among drag racers today, but the sedans are heavier than coupes and so rough 4-doors tend to get scrapped. The other midsize rear-wheel-drive Detroit cars that competed with the Cutlass Supreme didn’t last much longer; the Dodge Diplomat‘s last year was 1989, while the Fox-platform Ford LTD hung on until just 1986.
Oldsmobile quality. Feel it!
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