1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme

Old cars fascinate me. They constantly present me with new challenges and charm me in ways I never thought they possibly could. They come from a time when regardless of how opulent or utilitarian they may be, an extraordinary amount of attention was paid to quality and detail, and this faded red 1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme is no exception.

The only thing I like more than an old car is an old car with a story, and this car's is a bit more interesting than most. For starters, it is the 4,714th Cutlass off of the assembly line for this model year. According to the build sticker on the driver's door, it was made in September of 1976; so early in the run that its VIN number is not completely consistent with either solid 1976 or solid 1977 models. Research on a few reputable Oldsmobile sites yielded that it is a 1977 VIN number with the 1976 body designation for a Cutlass Supreme sedan (29 as opposed to 69). Another oddity would be the fact that although it is an ultra low-options car, somebody felt it fit to order the Rocket 350 V8, complete with the optional four-barrel carburetor. Although I'm not able to trace the car to its original owner, everything about it screams fire chief to me, right down to the colors. This car is red with a white steel roof and red cloth interior. It has manual door locks, manual windows, a vinyl headliner, AM radio only, and is air conditioning-delete. Steel wheels and the small Oldsmobile Rocket dog dish hubcaps are also suggestive of an earlier life of civil servitude, as does the fact that the car has traveled only 77,000 miles in all this time. In fact I'd almost be willing to place money on the fact that the first decade of this car's life was spent puttering around some rural town from boiler inspection to boiler inspection while not racing to the scene of a blaze. Oh the stories she could tell if only she were able to talk.

You're probably wondering how I came to own this strange car, and its story is again a bit more interesting than that of your average old clunker. Like me, after its initial life of being used as the local fire chief's car or whoever its first owner was, you should not find it too much of a stretch to picture an unshaven blue-collar guy from a blue-collar Pennsylvania steel belt town wearing his denim jacket and pumping his fist along to whatever Bruce Springsteen song happened to be on the radio at the moment. I'm talking as blue collar as blue collar gets. If The Deer Hunter were set in the late 80's as opposed to the late 60's, this would have been the car playing chicken with the old Brockway 360 as opposed to a 1959 Cadillac Series 62. Sounds completely plausible, right? Wrong. This car came from Idaho.

Twenty-nine years ago, this car was sold at an Oldsmobile dealership that probably had an inventory of only a half-dozen cars. It hardly ever left town and was meticulously maintained. Some time in the early 90's, an old lady who may or may not have been its original owner passed away and willed the car to her two sons who kept it in a barn for the next ten years. One day in late 2003, the car was pulled out of hibernation and put in the front yard of one of the sons with a For Sale sign on it for a nominal sum. They claimed with a new battery and fresh gas she would turn right over. After a few weeks went by, a price was negotiated, hands were shaken, and the old Cutlass ended up on a used car lot in a town called Lewiston. It ended up in the hands of a scary goth kid who used it as a daily driver for the next year and ten months. During that time he drove the car from Idaho all the way out here to a town in Massachusetts not far from my own where he lived with his aunt and uncle while attending college.

I came to know about the car when my friend Silvester, who lives about a half mile down the same road the car was on told me one night about an older faded red Oldsmobile sedan for sale in the neighborhood. He egged me on into checking it out that November night and now I'm glad he did. We called about the car on a Tuesday and was informed by the scary goth kid that he was moving out to Washington state that Friday and would not be able to take the car with him under any circumstances. Even worse was the fact that if the car was not sold by the time he left, he seemed quite sure that it his uncle would send it to the crusher in short order. It was then finalized in my mind that I would have to purchase this car no matter what, to save it from a cruel and untimely fate. An Oldsmobile Rocket 350 with 77,000 miles on it is barely broken in.

How could I, as a car nut and General Motors fan, see a vehicle in this shape with such wonderful patina and these simple, elegant lines, from its perfect pair of waterfall grilles to the sculpted rear bumper and extensions, and beveled taillights complete with Oldsmobile Rockets, on a crisp fall afternoon in New England and not feel moved to action? To have had the opportunity to save this car and not taken it, only to find myself reunited with it months later at a local junkyard when I noticed a familiar-looking faded red sedan crushed under the weight of a rotted out early 80's Ninety-Eight Regency some kid stuffed into a telephone pole, was a scenario I was not prepared to wrap my head around. The Idaho title was signed over to me for the sum of $230 and she was all mine. As I pulled out of the long driveway with the car, its former owner gave me a nod and cracked a smile knowing that his car would live to see another day.

This very afternoon, due to space issues, a needy friend, and the desire to play with and save more cars from their untimely death, I transferred ownership of the Cutlass to my friend Dan. Another old car enthusiast, Dan will restore the car to his liking as he uses it as his daily driver, ensuring that it will be around for many more years to come.