1970 marks a turning point in so many ways, especially for GM cars and the Olds Cutlass. The last year for high compression engines, it also marked the end of the dominance of the sporty coupe. This Cutlass S Coupe epitomizes all that perfectly, so let’s consider this a farewell to the carefree sixties, before the coming dullness would be masked by the Novocain of “luxury”. The rise of the Supreme was at hand; the sporty Cutlass would soon be a distant memory.
The real (turbo) thrust of the of the CC Complete Cutlass Chronicles is to document the rise of the Cutlass Supreme Coupe to the top of the sales charts. This started with the first distinct Supreme Coupe in 1970 (see related post). But first it had to overtake this sporty Cutlass S Coupe, which had been the top seller in the F-85/Cutlass line ever since its arrival in 1962. Olds had successfully tapped into the shift away from sedans to sporty coupes, and would then lead the charge again with “formal” (Supreme) coupes. In 1970, this sporty Cutlass S coupe was enjoying its final year at the top of the Cutlass sales charts, so let’s give it its last hurrahs.
I’m obviously getting rusty on the grille details of vintage Cutlasses, because this particular car confused me briefly. Problem solved: it’s a 1070 Cutlass S coupe sporting a 442 grille insert and a W-30/W-31 hood with ram air intakes; a 442 wanna-be. Ok; not uncommon for cars of this vintage to sport a bit of confusing mix-and-match body parts.
This body generation started in 1968, with a rather different front end. This one here is a genuine 442, a former CC centerfold. Starting with 1969, Olds cultivated a new front end style that was only very slightly modified through 1972, and can be a bit of a pain to decipher.
The 1970 through 1972 coupes also got that little hump over the rear wheel opening, which I’m not too wild about. The unbroken rear quarter without any break into the roof was of course a gift from the ’66 Toronado, but it never seemed to go over that well, because Olds quickly found ways to break it up. Not enough visual interest, again.
These 1968 -1972 GM A Bodies were quite a departure from the norm, with the coupes now having their own 112″ wheelbase versus the sedans’ 116 inches. It was in the zeitgeist of that sporty coupe heyday, and certainly gave them a highly distinct profile and differentiation from their now ever-so pedestrian sedans.
No wonder the coupes sold so much better; no longer were they just a slightly glorified two door sedan/coupe. More than ever, the American sedan was being relegated to dull old-folks status. Ironic, since the soon-to-be most emulated car in America would be the Mercedes sedan. Figure it.
In 1970, Cutlasses still had a very healthy palette of engine choices, in that last year of high compression (in 1971, all engines had to be able to run on low-octane unleaded regular). You could get a 155 hp 250 CID Chevy six in your Cutlass S Holiday coupe, but only 729 buyers chose that combination in 1970. The standard V8 engine was the 260 hp two-barrel 350, but 310 and 325 hp versions were available too. And you could even order a 320 hp 455 in a non-442 Cutlass. The 442 had 365 hp and 375 hp (W-30) 455s on tap. A very formidable lineup indeed.
And the dull Jetaway two-speed automatic was now gone too, supplanted by the ubiquitous THM 350 (THM 400 with the 455). 1970 was the last year of unbridled cheap power, and a 3500 lb Cutlass felt pretty lively, as long as it wasn’t one of those 729 sixes.
I’ve talked about this before, but 1970 was one of those high-water years, especially for GM. The 1971 full sized cars were deadly (more on that soon), and the combination of the reasonable sized cars of 1970 with their superbly smooth and crisp power trains (thanks to the THM and unsmogged motors) made any of these cars, no matter how equipped, anything from a pleasant to very entertaining experience. The quality was still passable, the looks were timelessly good, and their steering and handling was now the best (or as good as any) in the (domestic) land, especially with a few ticks on the option sheet.
Personally, the handing over of the baton to the seventies Cutlass Supreme is hardly a moment of automotive glory; but then one tends to relate very heavily to the decade of one’s youth. I’d like to chalk it up to that, but I’m not finding a whole lot of conviction in that. So I’ll just try to pretend I was born ten years later, and muster some Supreme enthusiasm.
I’ve always wondered what really happened in 1970/71.
1. Oil prices
2. EPA
3. no leaded fuel?
4. car safety
5. CAFE
1971: The year Detroit died?
It’s a question that isn’t perfectly easy to answer in a short comment, and will be a continuous thread here with the CCCCC and other posts (tomorrow). Oil prices was not yet a reality.
In terms of true performance cars, insurance rates skyrocketed, and the gov.t was talking tough. Yes, the 1971 mandate to be able to burn regular unleaded took off the edge, as well as ever tightening emission standards.
It may have been more too: a cultural shift. The unbridled optimism of the sixties was killed by Vietnam, Watergate, etc… The shift to luxury cars was a reflection of a larger shift. Isolating oneself in a “luxury” car was a way to escape the many pains and uncertainties of the seventies; among other things.
Stay tuned; it’s a theme we’ll touch on repeatedly here.
Thanks for the feedback.
Am i right in saying gas prices were increasing but we didn’t get into the shortage until 1973? I know on the supply side there were increases in price but perhaps they got overshadowed after the boycott. Rather like 2004-2008 in the US, where gas prices crept upwards but didn’t shock anyone.
The insurance thing is new to me.
Baby boomers aging. Hmm. How many were buying cars? Was it actual behavior or that the marketing machinery only understood one thing — like the automatics of that era (sorry, slam)? I’m a little dubious there.
NASCAR and street cars: Sounds like the leaded gas thing may have been a bigger thing (compression).
I tend to blame everything on Nixon and the gold standard — which might have started to destroy everyone’s earning power — but clearly there is a lag there which you don’t see in car design.
Chrysler managed to push it out to 1972 (1971 was the last year for the 426 Hemi and 440-6pack) but basically I’ve noticed the same thing. I think you can blame all of the above, plus:
- Insurance companies were jacking up rates for young drivers and powerful cars.
- NASCAR banned the Hemi, which killed any incentive for Chrysler to keep selling a streetable version of it, and stopped R&D of comparable engines at F and GM.
- NASCAR and NHRA were both getting away from running modified factory cars and towards special purpose-built vehicles, so there was less incentive to offer streetable performance cars.
- In 1970 the earliest boomers would be turning 24, and starting to think more of family and career. There are endless stories of guys that sold their muscle car to pay for their wedding, mortgage down-payment, etc. or just to buy a more family-oriented vehicle.
snabster,
oil prices didn’t skyrocket until Fall ’73. The EPA was new in 1970, and the first Earth Day was 1970 as well. I remember a newspaper headline stating “we’ll run out of oxygen by 1990″ and my science teacher sermonizing “this is not the age of Aquarius (that 5th Dimension song was released a year earlier), it’s the age of mud, slime and crap”. In all fairness, there was a lot of industrial pollution but a few tweaks had cut auto emissions 80% per car from a comparable 1960 model (IIRC).
However the leaded fuel fraud was coming unraveled and somewhere in this time period it was announced that catalytic converters would be required on cars beginning in 1975.
Here’s a link to some articles about leaded gasoline:
http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/ethylwar/#nation
The figure I’d heard for a properly tuned car of that era with a catalytic converter was 99% cleaner than 1960.
There were legitimate health reasons for banning leaded gas, the whole thing was a fraud to begin with if the research at the link is believable. Apparently GM and Esso (Exxon) knew the stuff fouled spark plugs while it sickened anyone who inhaled too much of it.
CAFE standards came into play later in the decade.
The public was becoming more car safety conscious (Ralph Nader’s “Unsafe At Any Speed” helped raise awareness), more suspicious of corporate America, and insurance companies were making muscle car ownership (or as they were called back then, “supercars”) prohibitive.
Plus as Paul notes, the optimism of the 50′s and 60′s was well and truly over by 1970, and the muscle cars’ target age group was getting married and starting families. Call all this a perfect storm.
In addition, many new auto designs came out in ’71, and (IMO) they weren’t superior to the models they replaced. New full-size GM & Ford cars were bloated and poorly built, Mopar overhauled their mid-size line and GM & Ford had come out with “import-fighting” small cars – Vega and Pinto. The Pinto was crap on wheels but outstanding compared to the Vega – Paul has those stories well documented elsewhere on this site.
So for these and other reasons I’ve forgotten, 1971 was a turning point for Detroit. The only winners in this era were imports, and their long rise to dominance began at this point.
A footnote here is that the GM mid-size cars described here were all-new in ’68 and carried on thru the ’72 model year. They were good cars then and good cars now, as were the GM compacts, also new for ’68. These lines didn’t become craptastic until ’73 and later.
@chas108:
I’ll admit that I haven’t followed your link to leaded gas articles, but the reason lead was originally added to gas was the coat the exhaust valves so they would last longer. Then it was found to behave as an octane modifier, so higher compression engines were feasible. With the removal of lead, high octane gas was not available for awhile.
The chemicals that were eventually used to replace lead have their own disadvantages, both in terms of health and pollution. Also the lead coating on piston crowns and combustion chambers would flake off after it reached a thickness of about 1/16″. The newer chemicals will build-up in the combustion chamber over time, eventually causing hot spots and higher CR that will lead to destructive detonation in older engines.
Not exactly. Lead was added to boost octane rating, not coat or lubricate valves. As compression ratios went up so did risk of detonation. By 1958 some oil companies were formulating 100+ octane auto gasoline from what was used to make 115 octane aviation gasoline, alkylates and lots of lead. This allowed detroit to sell cars with 10:1 and higher compression ratios.
GM, being biggest and under attack, decided to lower compression ratios and promote unleaded fuel first, as a sop to environmentalists. I found rebuilding engines run on unleaded did not have excessive valve wear and were much cleaner internally. Lead deposits sometimes caused exhaust valves to stick open and burn.
100 octane leaded aviation gasoline is still made, but maybe not much longer. A true substitute has yet to be developed.
Ok, a common misconception by young car fans is that the Oil Crisis/CAFE/High gas prices started in 1970, NO! Not until 1973, when OPEC cut off supply. This was when the 1974 cars came out and far from the muscle car era.
Pollution controls and saftey were prime reasons for end of super cars. Unleaded gas was also part of Clean Air Act.
CAFE was not enacted until 1975, starting with 1978 model year.
I’ve posted the follow before but it was a 1972 Cutlass that inspired my own personal “car craziness.”
First memory is of my father’s 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme coupe, it was 1979 I was about 2 years old. My father had just finished washing and polishing it in our two car garage. Someone had carelessly failed to fasten the screen door between the house and the attached garage and I pushed my way through, clad only in a diaper. The summer sun was strong, the floor was wet, the sun hit the puddles on the concrete and lit up that silver metalic paint until the car (litterally to my young eyes) “glowed.” From that day forward I was sold on the version of the “American Dream” that Detroit was selling. I would fondly think of that day when 16 years later toiling in that same garage washing, waxing, chrome polishing the 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham sedan that my father had passed down to me. Some of my classmates didn’t understand why I put a chrome tip on the exhaust pipe, why I would sit and listen to the 307V8 idle, blip the throtle to hear the Quadrajet almost “giggle” or why I cared that it had a posi-trac, but I knew and that was all that mattered. I’m still trying to get back to that place.
My first Cutlass (my 2nd car)? Looked like this. But it brought my V8 RWD chrome dripping dreams to life.
Dan, you’re going to want to repost this in about an hour or so…
That’s ok, everybody will see it anyway. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that your site traffic is up greatly the last few weeks.
Dan, I meant in terms of the next CCCCC post, which will be up in an hour or so. I’m doing a CC double bill today.
I knew what you meant Paul. I just meant it was ok for it to only be here. I’ll talk more about my 1987 when you post that generation.
And I’ll be right there with you waxing nostalgic over my old ’87 Cutlass Supreme Brougham too…
And here’s my old `71 Cutlass S.
In addition to the `71, I have owned an `80 Cutlass LS 4D; `81 Cutlass Calais; `87 Cutlass Supreme Brougham 4D; `83 Custom Cruiser; and a `84 Delta 88 Royale.
My father had a 2 door Cutlass (possibly with the 455??) when I was a tiny kid. All I remember about it was the dark vinyl interior and how it kept overheating on trips to the point where it was traded for a metallic gold Plymouth Fury after less than a year. The only thing Mom remembered is that a mechanic told her it was the biggest engine available for that car.
1970? I feel that the 1972 models were the last – at least in pillarless hardtop coupes. I never understood the faux-luxury then coming into fashion. Was it because the hardtops were going away and the OEM’s knew that a pillared sedan would never be accepted as “sporty”? Personally, my last favorite GM of that ilk was the 1972 “Heavy Chevy” option on the Chevelle. I never cared much for all the horsepower, as I was/am too cheap to want to feed it, so I didn’t care about the de-tuned, smog-choked engines. With the pre-1973 models, you could have a “dog”, performance-wise, but who cared? It looked sporty! That’s all I cared about, too. Always have been just a “cruiser”. Nice to comment about a CAR!
For the GM A-Bodies, strictly speaking, yes. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact turning point for the whole industry, but then 1970 was the last year of the sixties decade, if one is counting properly, that is.
I was a kid in the early 1970s, but, as I remember it, the old muscle cars didn’t have the best image by that time. Yes, they were fast, but many “respectable” (read – young marrieds with children, or middle-age middle-class and upper-middle class people) didn’t want any association with the “greasy juvenile racer” image, or stigma, that these cars carried. The “faux luxury” image gave middle-class folks the chance to buy something that was distinctive and “respectable” and not overly expensive.
GM and Ford also played up the association of their intermediates with the Eldorado and Continental Mark III and IV. These cars were still viewed as prestigious in many areas, while not being as stuffy and formal as a regular Cadillac or Lincoln.
My parents and the parents of my friends were all solidly middle class…none of them would have been caught dead in a Road Runner or a GTO by 1971, but a Grand Prix, Monte Carlo or Cutlass Supreme would have been looked upon with envy.
If you bought a personal luxury car in the 1970s, it showed that you had some dash and flair, as you placed as much importance on style as function.
After 1972, my parents bought a succession of Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight sedans as the “family car.” The family up the street bought a brand-new 1978 Thunderbird. My father carpooled with the father in that family.
When I said how much I liked the Thunderbird, and wished that we could have a snazzy coupe, I remember my dad answering, “Why would we buy a car like that? The car costs as much as our Olds, but the back seat has much less room! And the trunk is so small! What is the point of that car?”
I tried to explain…but he never understood!
Until 2000, I had a 1972 Cutlass Supreme Holiday coupe. It was a dark green, with a light green vinyl top, and a 350 V-8 (dual exhaust, four-barrel carb). That car was very handsome, and the Rocket V-8 had that distinctive Olds rumble, although the “handling” (if that is the proper word) suggested that all of roads in Michigan were die-straight interstate highways. It was one tough car – the drivetrain was one of the best of that era.
According to John DeLorean’s book, the rot had set in at GM before 1971. Several ominous trends that had been in place since the late 1950s really began to manifest themselves in the product by the early 1970s.
GM’s relations with the UAW had never been good, but there was a very nasty and long UAW strike in the fall of 1970. GM ultimately gave in to several of the UAW demands that would prove to be unsustainable over the long haul. The strike left many of the workers very bitter, as the rhetoric was quite heated (which is ironic, considering the bruising that the union would take after 1979). Several road testers of that era commented that the build quality of GM cars suffered in the wake of the strike (particularly the Cadillacs).
It could also be said that, by 1970, GM had been so successful, for so long, that management really did believe Americans would buy whatever GM produced, no matter how poor the build quality, or how many corners were cut (the Vega would soon prove that one – it was initially a successful car in terms of sales). It didn’t help that, by the early 1970s, Chrysler offered no real competition, AMC was too small to present any threat, and Ford had become much more conservative in its product development efforts.
The dominance of the finance men at the top also had an effect. It was in the late 1950s that finance men began dominating GM top management, and by 1971, the unfortunate results were becoming all-too-apparent. Bunkie Knudsen had said that, in the late 1950s, he became alarmed when GM’s top management said that the goal of the corporation was to keep up the price of GM’s stock. To Knudsen, this was backwards – if the corporation built great cars, the stock price would take care of itself. He was, of course, ultimately proven correct. GM was on the way to discovering this for itself in 1971. It would take 30+ years for GM – and the nation – to realize that Knudsen was correct.
I worked for my father in his one-horse body shop from about 1973 until 1983, so I got to see a lot of cars from that era up close and personal. There was a considerable difference between these cars and the Colonnades that replaced them. Not so much in mechanicals, since the suspensions and drivetrains were mostly carryover, but in body integrity and materials. These older cars rusted less, and the plastics and adhesives used were higher quality. Most telling is longevity. I have a couple of these in my neighborhood that are daily drivers; there is one Colonnade that is a rusting driveway queen. Reading the other posts here, it seems that there’s a fair consensus that GM invented “decontenting”, if not actually the term, in these years.
Wasn’t the start of all this when Ford hired the “Whiz kids” after WWll? All beancounters and efficiency experts, essentially. I worked for a company who’s sole objective was to keep the stock price up and provide a return on investment. How did they do it? By selling off the company divisions and assets piece-by-piece, until our division was sold to another company who was drowning in debt. Follow the money. I have stated in previous comments on TTAC that, culturally speaking, the 1960′s really ended with American combat involvement in Vietnam in 1972, which coincided with the changes in auto design for the 1973 models, and definitely by March 1973 when the first oil shock hit and gas jumped 7 cents per gallon. Shocking, indeed. I was in the service and I noticed, felt, whatever, some sort of major change occurring in the US, definitely in the air force for the reason above. The military was rapidly changing, too, and wasn’t the service I had joined in 1969. Truly the end of an era and so true it took all those years to do in the domestic auto industry. I do remember that strike Geeber mentioned and what a game-changer that was. It lasted three months, I believe. Geeber, I always appreciate your contributions of historical knowledge! I know just enough to be dangerous!
I almost spewed my very late nite snack when I opened this page, the 70 in the photos is very similar to my 72 442. It was the same exterior color (Aztec Gold), and the same interior color scheme, but I had the bucket seats and the console like the Cutty Supreme in the next post. Mine had the 325 HP 350, along with the THM 350 an absolutely excellent drivetrain. Once I got the cheapsh*t tires off of the car, the front and rear sway bar equipped suspension handled like a dream. Weird thing on my car; front drum brakes. I bought mine used in 1982, I kept the car for three years, alongside my POS 81 Mercury Capri RS Turbo and then my POS 84 Pontiac Trans Am. The 1972 car had the reliability, space and speed the other two cars did not. I sold the car after my out of warranty T/A drove me to the brink of insolvency and additionally getting a job 35 miles from home. 12 MPG city and maybe 20 on the freeway weren’t getting it done. I have never had another car that I felt so confident in.When people say that they don’t build them like they used to, generally I agree that it’s a good thing. But if GM could build cars like this again, they’d own the world.
I can definitely attest to the quality of the 1970 GM lineup compared to what came later. We had a 1970 Buick Estate Wagon that my dad purchased as a demo just as the ’71 models came out. He took the ’70 because it was well-equipped (first car we had with A/C, power windows and power seat) and because he felt it was a nicer car offered at a good price. Right on all counts, as we kept that car nearly 20 years with all six children learning how to drive in it. As the youngest, I retired it when rust caught up with it.
Later, he acquired a ’70 Chevy Malibu 307/Powerglide hardtop with its nose smashed in, hoping to change the front clip and get a cheap 35,000-mile car. Unfortunately we had to switch out a bent frame as well with one from a ’68, and that was what did it in, as that frame rusted out while the body remained solid.
The doors thunked, frameless glass and all. Much better than the ’77 Pontiac LeMans 301 we bought new, and the handling was comparable, though the tall rear end and 350 tranny on the Pontiac gave better gas mileage. Build quality on those ’73-77 cars certainly sucked, but enough goodness from the previous models carried over that all of them were the hot tip for cheap transportation well into the late 1980′s, especially as gas prices dipped as low as 68 cents per gallon from a high of $1.15 or so. Keep in mind I was making about 4-5 bucks an hour at various part-time jobs while in college, so being able to fill a tank on two hours’ pay was nice. Costs me that right now.
One weak link, maybe due to our own neglect, or maybe due to the lack of separate coolers, was that the cars ate transmissions, be they Powerglide, THM 350 or 400. Each went through at least a couple, but we rebuilt them ourselves. Easy in, easy out.
The Pontiac immolated itself at 231,000 miles after a fuel pump leak caused an engine fire. And yes, we seriously considered rebuilding it from the wealth of cheap parts out there.
The author says he can hardly tell the model years apart from 68-72, but I can in a blink of an eye.
Fastback coupes were fading in the early 70′s and one reason was visibility. Also, many CS coupe sold to former big car buyers who didnt want the flashy fastbacks.
And yeah, GM quality took a hit. My Grandma loved her ’69 Electra, but her ’73 C body rattled and dripped parts. Also, she said the ’69 “jumped like a bunny” from a stoplight. My then teen uncle loved to borrow the ’69, but he called the 73 a ‘plastic fantastic’.
I also miss my parents 1970 Monte Carlo, was solid tank compared to later mid sized cars.