Two older women who live in the next block have a nice menagerie of cars, my favorite being this Cutlass Salon Aeroback. It was part of my write-up on these unpopular cars here, but it’s nice to see it come out of the driveway and be used properly, like hauling an old…Studebaker wagon.
A Studebaker wagon?
Sure; Studebaker got its start building wagons, and became the largest wagon maker in the land. And here’s the proof.
More: CC 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Aeroback – We Don’t Want No Stinkin’ Fastbacks
Love the aeroback. There’s a brown one parked at a body shop near my parents house. Been there for years.
This was my first company car; 1981. Light yellow/beige. I didn’t know they even made a fastback Olds…..Only had it for a week and then got the Chevy 1 ton pickup…
A very early Studebaker at Harold Warp’s Pioneer Village in Minden, NE. Neat place if you can get there. About 300 cars among many other artifacts.
From the sign on the wagon. Sorry about the quality, these are phone photos I took a few weeks ago.
My first car was a 47 Studebaker and I think I would have better served by a wagon. Needed a running start to get uphill to the high school. Wagons were why they were the oldest car company in the US when they quit, or so I’m told.
Yup, established 1852. They advertised themselves as the oldest vehicle manufacturer in the world, if I recall correctly. They celebrated their 100th anniversary in 1952 by (among other things) supplying the pace car for the Indianapolis 500.
“Vehicle manufacturer” as in mass production ? The Celts already had wagons, hundreds of years BC.
But those weren’t all made by a single entity. And even if they were, Celt Wagons, Inc. is no longer in business
Celt Wagons Inc. was Studebaker’s forerunner. As in Studebecker, from the Hallstatt culture.
I wouldn’t have an opinion either way about the Aeroback but they called it a Cutlass.
Between the two, I think I’ll take the wagon.
During the first half of the 20th century, Studebaker Corporation amassed quite a collection of horse-drawn vehicles, both their own and others that were famous for various reasons. That was their original corporate historical vehicle collection. Quite a few of them are still on display at the Studebaker National Museum in South Bend.
Subbed to get the Studebaker comments .
A buddy of mine in Anacortes , Wa. has a 1935 Studebaker pickup truck cut down into a nifty if small trailer .
I don’t think he uses it any more but still won’t sell it to me .
-Nate
There was an Areoback sedan across the street from the church I attended in my youth. The older lady who owned it replaced it with a new Cutlass W-body coupe in the early 1990s.
I like the little aerobacks though they’re homely and at least in some cases POSes.
But what I really like to see is old cars and old equipment doing work, today.
I wonder how many TH250 M slushboxes that Aeroback has grenaded, or is its miraculous survival attributable to careful lady owners and gentle driving?
There were a few lucky souls who still got a THM350 in the A/G bodies.
My ’79 Malibu still has its original transmission at 174K miles. It was rebuilt once, probably sometime around 1993/94 at maybe 120K, but not replaced. I always assumed it was a TH250, though maybe it was also one of the lucky ones with a THM350 instead. I’ve heard they’re identical from the outside and I don’t have the build sheet..
For as bad a rap as that trans gets, there are still a decent number of downsized A-bodies on the road…
You beat me to the question re: THM 250. A buddy’s dad bought the Buick version, but in the same color as the featured Olds. I think the trans grenaded before it hit 30k miles. Didn’t see too many when they were new, although I did see one of the variants a few weeks ago in traffic.
Well speaking of careful owners & gentle driving; I`ve got a 78 GP with a 301 with the small THM that was bought new by a good friend who was a travelling salesman. This fellow was the most anal person I ever met as far as car care, maintenance & easy driving. He was the only person to ever drive this car until he passed & his widow gave it to me. It currently has over 150,000 miles on the original drivetrain and neither the motor or trans have ever been out of the car and both still function as new. I wouldn`t be afraid to drive it anywhere, but I am afraid to sell it because I know whoever buys it will knock the trans and/ or motor out of it. If that`s not fanatical enough It was also driven year round in Wisconsin for ten years yet is rust free.
Surely your referring to the Metric 200 transmission that was installed in many of these cars right up until 1987. The THM 250/350 were far better from what I remember and any A/G body that I owned never had a single issue with the later unit.
Just today I saw a Buick Century wagon of this vintage….the Buicks had such plain grilles when this style debuted.
While these are different from every other intermediate car sold in the late 70s early 80s I guess I am in a very small minority when I say I like them….even admire them. My choice would be a 2 door model, though. Perhaps this pale blue or black. (I can’t decide between sporty or sophisticated. )
I certainly didn’t like the Aeroback Cutlass or Regal when they were new, but the photos actually make this one look good. Too bad that GM didn’t go all the way and make these true four-door hatchbacks.
Fun find!
These Aerobacks are rather homely to me, and it’s easy to see why they flopped. But still, I usually find love in my heart for weird and rare cars, and the Cutlass Salon fits into the ‘so bad it’s really good’ category for me. I think they are neat in the way that I think a Suzuki X-90 or Pontiac Aztek will be neat in a decade or two.
It’s kind of interesting to compare these to the shape of the Chevy and Pontiac X Bodies…I can see a lot of similarities (though the Xs were arguably better-proportioned and styled). And it’s really interesting to ponder what a smash hit the Citation was–at least until people realized all of their less-than-desirable traits–while the ’78 aeroback intermediates were such duds.
A bit of a minor quibble, but there were no Regal Aerobacks, just Centurys. Regal was formal roofed coupe for 1978 change.
Love these things, and it’s great to see this one actually being driven and doing some work. These are full-frame, not unibody, so trailer towing should be very much in their wheelhouse, so to speak.
The aeroback was such a strange styling decision. Would have made much more sense as a hatchback. But, like some others, the weirdness just appeals to me, and if I were ever to add a second A-body to my fleet, one of these would be just about perfect. Now if I could just get the first one back on the road…
I think it kind of fits in with a lot of throwback cues of the malaise era, ranging from the art deco style grilles on some cars, to the throwback to the fastback style here.
I always thought it would have made more sense to make the fastback models Chevys and Pontiacs, and the more conservative three-box sedans Oldsmobiles and Buicks. But what do I know?
Would this have made a good basis for a small Cadillac?
I thought Oldsmobile pulled off the aeroback coupes and sedans better than Buick did although I can see why they weren’t a big seller, at least Chevy and Pontiac gave us the formal 4 door sedan’s during the 1978-79 run.
I liked the Aeroback then, and in my opinion it holds its own today, especially when one considers cars like the Acura ZDX, Honda Crosstour and several large BMW fastback sedan/SUV things.
Always wondered why gm decided to go with his body style on the bucks and Oldsmobiles, perhaps we’ll never know.
What an eyesore. Who was responsible for this design, Mr. Magoo? Compare these with Giugiaro’s design for the first VW Passat (Dasher) and it’s no contest. The Aeroback looks like something my six-year-old nephew would draw. Strictly amateur hour.
Perhaps because of my European background, those actually look quite attractive – the American equivalent of the Rover SD1. An empty canvass for the creation of a mild-appearing pro-touring sleeper is what I see here… With the growing popularity of that generation A bodies, it would not be that difficult or expensive.
Wonder what the trailer is used for? The lumber and Corrugated metal lid is a quirky and perhaps top heavy quirk.
Wonder what is the reason for the different shades of blue on the body panels and if the interior leaks at all?
My mother’s aunt or my great aunt had a mint green 1979 4 door just like this with the Olds rally wheels up until about 2004 when she passed. That car had nearly 200k on the odometer with it’s original Olds 260 V8 and THM 250/350 transmission and overall that car served her quite well. I never liked the rear style but she always spoke well of that car. And always kept it in pristine shape and religiously serviced. The car went on many many trips to Florida after she retired during the late 1980’s hence the miles. Never knew where that car ended up after it was sold at the estate auction and I never saw it again.
I love that this one is the powder blue of a leisure suit of the era.
I photographed a same-color ’78 Cutlass Salon (below, on the left) back in May 1992 in Flint, Michigan’s east side, over by AC Spark Plug. Contrasted with the condition of the feature car, the one in my picture below was already a beater at 14 years old – likely long before.
As ugly as those aerobacks were, they were beautiful compared to the hideous and misshaped Malibu which looked fat, thickbodied, truncated, and then featured that aero-robbing front end.
I never understood how GM could build the Monte Carlo, Cutlass coupe, and Grand Prix where they almost looked normal and then had boogers like the Malibu and Aerobacks.