The summer of 1978 was sure to be a disappointment. After all, previous summers had been truly memorable with two trips to Pittsburgh, a trip to Michigan to see my aunt, uncle and cousins, and days of swimming when my mom decided my sister and I needed to learn how to swim.
Come the summer of 1978, and in order to feel like we had done something exciting, I somehow convinced my parents that we should look at new cars, so I could tell all my friends that we were buying a new one. It would end up in the purchase of our next family car, a 1978 Cutlass Salon.
Now, Birmingham had a lot of car dealers that we could have visited but Bill Whitten was no longer on the list as the AMC franchise had been pulled. My parents had no interest in Datsuns, Toyotas, or Volkswagens so we were looking at domestic cars. We could have headed over to Bart Starr Lincoln Mercury to look at the new Lincoln Mark V or a Chrysler dealer to check out the new Chrysler Cordoba, but my parents chose to head over to Steel City Oldsmobile, located near the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
The main showroom was an older building and the new car lot was across the street. Walking into the showroom, I saw the perfect car for my parents. Sitting on the floor was a gold 1978 Oldsmobile 98 Regency and it was magnificent. The 98 was fully loaded with power windows, power locks, gold velour interior, gold vinyl top, a CB radio, and an electric moonroof. It even had a diesel engine so it would be fuel efficient. Who wouldn’t want such a car? Well my parents didn’t, considering the price was an astounding $10,000, and spending that kind of money for a car was out of the question.
Knowing how GM’s diesel engines had so many problems, it’s all for the best that they didn’t buy the gold 98, as it means I can cherish the memory of that elegant machine and imagine all the trips we might have taken in it. That said, they could have selected a Delta 88 sedan or the sleek Cutlass Supreme coupe, but my parents chose the new 1978 Cutlass Salon. To be fair, our Cutlass Salon was not as plain as the model in the brochure, at least on the exterior.
Yes, it was what Oldsmobile called Light Camel Beige, but it did have the Oldsmobile rally wheels and the sport mirrors on both doors. It had the required options of air conditioning, an AM/FM radio, and a tilt steering wheel, but no intermittent wipers. It also had a vinyl interior and a solid bench seat, which would be an issue in later years when I shot up in height. A deal was struck and our Matador was traded in for the Cutlass Salon.
Fresh from the success of the big cars, General Motors had launched a major redesign of the midsize cars, which proved to be generally very successful. However, the Cutlass Salon, and the corporate sibling Buick Century with their fastback styling, were not popular. My parents didn’t care about popularity, and they liked their new car. It was comfortable and got good gas mileage. The only drawback I saw was that the rear windows did not roll down, but setting that aside, I had the glory of being driven to school in a new car.
My dad was the office manager at Harbison Walker’s Birmingham location and, as such, had a nice office in the US Steel Building in Fairfield. He had a big desk and, more importantly, a speaker phone just like Bosley had on Charlie’s Angels. He also ended up with a company car as one of the salesmen left for a new opportunity just as his new 1978 Pontiac LeMans was delivered. Unlike our Cutlass, the LeMans had a traditional sedan shape. Dad’s boss did not want the car to just sit in the parking lot, so Dad got to drive it, which made us a two-car family. It was white with a blue interior and felt like it was the same car as our new Oldsmobile. To be fair, it was, but 10-year-old me did not know about platform sharing at that time.
That summer was also special as my father finally finished his degree at UAB. He had been pursuing his studies part-time while working full-time and having a family. Mom certainly helped him by typing his papers, but he worked hard and was the first one in his family to graduate with a four-year degree. Harbison Walker noticed his hard work as well and, in the spring of 1979, Dad got another promotion. This meant we would have to move from Birmingham to Brunswick, Georgia. My mom liked Birmingham, and she had made a home for us and had just started a part-time job at NCR, working in the accounting department. Both my parents were active in our church and had built up a great group of friends, so leaving was going to be hard. However, it was a great opportunity for dad’s career, and so we sold our second house, saw our furniture loaded onto a moving van. Then, we headed off to the Georgia coast.
Brunswick is the most western point on the Atlantic coast and is the main town by St Simons Island, Sea Island, and Jekyll Island. Today, it’s a major shipping point for cars from southern factories, but in 1979, the big industry included paper mills. Choosing a house meant finding a neighborhood that did not fall downwind of a papermill and so we found our new home at 180 Fairway Oaks Drive. The realtor who sold us our house lived just down the street from us, and she also drove a 1978 Chevrolet Caprice in light blue. Why couldn’t we have had one of those instead of the Cutlass Salon?
I loved Brunswick and thought it was cool living by the beach. Certainly, our family in Pittsburgh thought so as well as my dad’s parents, my Opa, and various aunts, uncles, and cousins came to visit. Our house was behind the 14th fairway of the Brunswick County Club, and our neighbor built a little bridge over the tidal creek that was between our neighborhood and the club so he could walk over every day and play golf. We had palm trees, sunny weather, and a mild winter. What’s not to love?
Well, my parents hated Brunswick. My dad hated the sand that he claimed was tracked into the house. He hated the humid summer. There was only one Lutheran church, and they were not completely at ease with the congregation. My mother was lonely as she had left her friends behind in Birmingham. Living in a small town can make it challenging to make friends, especially as a new transplant. It might have helped had my parents played golf, as they could have joined the country club and made some friends there. In the end, a corporate restructuring just over a year later meant we were moving back to Pittsburgh. Moving back meant that our Cutlass Salon got to make a second, and permanent, trip to Pittsburgh. We had traveled north to see everyone for Thanksgiving, 1979, and no, we did not stop at South of the Border either time. My parents sold the house in Brunswick, saw our furniture loaded onto the moving truck, and we headed north in the fall of 1980.
The 1980s were not kind to Pittsburgh or our Cutlass. The steel mills were starting to close, and unemployment was rising. Harbison Walker made the brick that lined the blast furnaces, so if the steel mills were closing, then they didn’t need the brick. My dad got laid off in November of 1982, as did many others. We were fortunate, as my mother had a full-time job as a benefits manager at a company, but it was still a financial and emotional hit for us. Many were not so lucky and lost everything. I didn’t like living in Pittsburgh. I hated the cold weather in winter, and I missed the beach in Georgia.
One day, my dad went to help his parents with something and was driving home when a woman didn’t see him and made a left turn into the side of the Cutlass. Both doors were smashed, and the frame was bent. Dad was fine, the woman had no insurance, and the car wasn’t totaled. It would have been better had it been totaled. Our insurance was on the hook to repair our car, and they kept approving repairs as they found more damage. The Cutlass was repaired, but it was never right.
In early 1985, Dad found a new full-time position at a new company, and we got to stay in Pittsburgh. Since the job was out by the airport, my parents needed to buy a second car, so they added a 1985 Mercury Topaz coupe to the fleet. By default, that became the family car, and I got to take over the Cutlass in my senior year in high school. I had a part-time job and needed to drive, so I got to drive to school in my senior year as long as I drove my sister to school. Kim liked that, as she didn’t have to wait for the bus, and it made it easier for me to hang out with my friends.
By the time I graduated high school and was heading off to college, my parents added another car for my mom’s commute. The Cutlass was officially my commuter car, and I was off to Duquesne University to study pharmacy. It was all perfect until one Saturday, I heard this funny noise, and then the engine stalled. I was able to restart the car and got to the next traffic light, where it stalled again. I was on my way to work and finally made it there. I called my mom, and she had the car towed to our mechanic. The engine threw a rod. I can imagine the frustration my parents felt at that moment–a son in college and now a dead car.
In the end, they replaced the engine, and we ran the car for another year until the fall of 1987. By then, I had realized pharmacy was not for me. I transferred to the University of Pittsburgh, which saved a lot in tuition, and I started working full-time at the public library. It allowed me to save some money and buy my own car as the Cutlass was rusting away. My parents gladly gave me the Cutlass as a down payment on a new car, and off to the dealer we went. I traded it in for a brand new car, and the Cutlass was sent to the budget lot. I got $900.00 for it, and they tried to sell it for $1,200.00.
Interestingly, someone also traded in a light camel beige 1978 Oldsmobile station wagon, and so both sat side-by-side for many weeks. I have no idea what happened to our Cutlass, but they kept cutting the price in the hope of selling it. When it had $1,000 written on the windshield, it disappeared, so perhaps it found a new owner. In the end, the Cutlass served us well, and it gave me the chance to get my first car. That story is next week’s.
Related CC reading:
CCCCC Part 9: 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon – We Don’t Want No Stinkin’ Fastbacks
Vintage Review: 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass 4-4-2 – Right Number, Wrong Car
Excellent entry. The Cutlass caught my eye in your lede photo as it’s a twin to the one that I finished up my driver’s ed course driving in 1978. Somewhat parallel to your family’s story, I started driver’s ed with a fleet of AMCs (Hornets, in my case) but those were mostly replaced by several Cutlass Salons while I was in the course. I too found the Cutlass a better ride…except for that rear window issue.
I enjoyed your telling of how your parents were not enamored with Georgia after leaving Birmingham. It’s interesting to reflect on a child’s take on relocation versus their parents. The kids likely see most such things as just part of the inexplicable adventure of childhood, while their parents’ adult take on the situation can be less happy. In my family, we faced a similar thing moving from the DC area to North Carolina when I was about 10. My parents’ disappointment at what they felt was a forced exile was palpable to us kids. It was a happy day after about 4 years when we were finally able to return to DC. But for 4 years, they had little good to say about NC.
Back to the Cutlass, it’s amazing to me that the dealer you traded it to attempted to sell it for $1200 as a 10 year old car (in 1987), that had been in a serious accident (that seems like it SHOULD have totaled it…) and was on its 2nd engine. It’s doubtful that anything similar would be offered today, even on the “budget lot”. What a clunker.
Your thoughts about parents vs children when moving made me think. My family moved from Long Island in 1958 to New Jersey. From New Jersey to Catonsville MD in 1962. Farther from family. From Catonsville to the San Fernando Valley in 1966. All due to my father’s promotions at Carnation. He did fine as he was an outgoing sales person wherever he was. My mother was your typical stay at home Mom till Catonsville where she started to go to college classes. I can see why now as that move was a bit tough as Maryland was a “southern” state compared to New Jersey. Neighbors were a bit stand offish. We were northerners. A car pool mother threw me out of her car, one day, when she started in on my mother’s New York personality and I told her to shut up. There was a later confrontation between the two of them and that neighbor met the tough as nails Bronx personality of my mother.
TBH is wasn’t thrilled about moving to the San Fernando Valley in 1966. Yet when a wife of my father’s friend picked us up, to show us Santa Monica, changed things for me. I saw the beach. Yet we left there for San Diego in 1968 which I really, really loved. She moved again to the Bay Area in 1972 and that would be the first time, in her life, to really set roots down for 30 years. Six locations in 14 years for her, or anybody, can be tough.
I loved this from start to finish – such great story telling. I could imagine each scene as I read about it.
I can understand and relate to the feeling of having differing opinions from others about a move. It sounds like you had really enjoyed your time in Georgia, where your parents hadn’t at all.
Reading about the ’80s and how they had rocked Pittsburg and your family’s finances reminded me a lot of being a kid in Flint in the ’80s when all the GM factories started closing. Flint would never ry be the same.
Very much looking forward to your next entry.
Interesting story, and I like your writing style!
From the time I was a kid, and even to this day, I like driving/riding around with my window down. I would have been sore as heck if my parents bought a car that I, being relegated to the back seat, couldn’t put my window down.
I’m always a bit fascinated by how mobile so many Americans were (that mobility has gone down in recent decades). This just wasn’t as common in Europe, obviously, although of course we left and others did move too. But not as often.
I hated Towson, MD after we moved there in 1965, and split as soon as I turned 18. I did learn to appreciate many aspects of the Maryland area, but never really felt at home there.
I grew up in Toronto, and my experience was that families did not move as much in Canada. The population of Canada is about one tenth the size of US, and there are not as many big cities, so there were not so many locations for branch operations.
Great story. Having grow up in the ‘80s in the other great former steel town in PA (Bethlehem), this resonates. My first experience with Pittsburgh was in the fall of 1990, on a Pitt college tour. What is remarkable is that even by 1990, the city was transitioning and recovering. My parents and I found it to be a friendly city. It’s now an incredibly vibrant and livable town. Thankfully, Bethlehem has had a similar renaissance, on a smaller scale.
Since I’ve never heard of a Oldsmobile engine throwing a rod, but have heard and seen many Buick V-6’s throwing a rod, can we assume that your Cutlass had the Buick V-6?
It was a V-6, but I couldn’t tell you whether it was a Buick V-6. Power was decent enough, as I recall.
I was in the market for a used car in 1987. I had tried several cars in my price range (about $1000). I couldn’t find one I fit in? I’m freakishly large so it was a pretty high order. I stumbled on a 1979 Oldsmobile Gutless Salon 2 door. It was very used up & a third hand car. I fit in it. I had a friend look it over & he found atleast $300 in repairs if I did them myself with his help. They wanted $1200 for the car. I offered $600. They were highly insulted. I guess in their mind it was worth $1000 everyday of the week. Once I pointed out all the repairs needed to make it road worthy they softened a bit. We struck a number in the middle at $900 cash.
By the time I got plates for it & insurance I was able to drive it home. Made an appointment with a garage I trusted. I drove it up to him & when I got to within a few miles of his shop the oil light started to blink on & off. I was immediately worried? Was the motor going to crap out before I got there? Everything was fine & all the repairs were done at a tune of $500. Now I had wheels. I noticed no window cranks for the rear seat like you mentioned. It was a bare bones car. Blue with a tan vinyl interior. No A/C or radio. It had rear window defrost. That was a requirement in my state for cars. My wife coined it the “Hot Box”. I filled a 45 gallon trash can with all the garbage & cleaning of the interior. Full ashtrays, dog hair through out, French fries, empty cigarette boxes & cellophane wrappers. A package of Easy Wider rolling papers. It was finally clean. The floor, dash, door cards & ceiling had cigarette burns. Not a great start for a non smoker.
I drove that car for 7 years. Met my wife with it. Moved in together with it. It was always a commuter car, it served me well. It only had power to half way on the accelerator. Beyond that it just roared louder without more power to the wheels. It had the infamous 231 V-6 with the soft cams. I didn’t know that until well after I owned it. At 140,000 miles it threw a rod on the way to work. I ironically just changed the oil too. I was able to drop my wife at work & drive to work. I added more oil as it was down 2-1/2 quarts. After work I picked her up & we drove home. We made it. I parked it away from the house knowing full well the engine would be locked up the next day. And it was.
Having spent passenger time in every generation of this car going back to the 1961 F-85 wagon of my early childhood, I found these cars a terrible downgrade from what had come before. I dated a girl in the mid 80s who had one of these she had gotten from her grandfather. I drove it a couple of times (and replaced a starter) but never liked it much. The A body downsizing did not go as well as the B/C body downsizing of the prior year.
You dredge up lots of memories of the industrial midwest of those years. International Harvester closed a major plant in Fort Wayne, which hit that city hard. I was in college in Muncie Indiana then, which lost multiple industrial employers. It (and nearby Anderson) were heavily dependent on GM, and neither has really recovered since losing all of it.
It’s so sad for many of the towns around Pittsburgh. When the steel mills closed, those towns died, and you’re right, they never recovered.
Thanks for a great story, wonderfully written about a variety of experiences. I’ve barely moved around in seven decades on this planet. We’ve been in our current community for fifteen years, so I think of it as my hometown now, but I was born less than 100 miles away and this is the furthest from home I’ve ever lived. I didn’t even move out of my county of birth until I was about 25, and then just one town over the county line.
As for Oldsmobiles, not a brand I’ve had much experience with either. Perhaps a few FWD Cutlass/Ciera rentals, a Quad4 Alero rental while our Toyota was in the body shop, and a Cutlass Supreme loaner of this 1978+ generation, an overnight dealership loaner. The A/G Supreme, in full-Brougham guise, was actually my favorite.
What part a the “burgh” did you reside in? Like so many cities, the pandemic rather “k o’d” the downtown. So little pedestrian, traffic at any/ all, times a day.
Grew up in the now, “infamous” ,city an hour north of “Pgh”.
Brother , sister in law got the same “Cutlass” ((tutone yellow/gold)) new in “78”.
Drove it a few times. Was a pretty good ride. Front seat was a “bench” though; messed up the “a/c”‘s getting to rear seat. They had it till “84-5ish”.
So we lived in the North Hills in the Town of McCandless and, to my grandparents who lived in Wilkinsburg and Greenfield, you would have thought we had moved out to the country. My parents wanted us in the North Allegheny school district.
I was shocked when I discovered GM had decided they could shave a few pennies by having fixed rear windows on four door sedans .
I consider this unsafe not to mention how miserable it was to sit back there in a non AC equipped car .
That anyone no matter how poor/broke/cheap would actually step up and pay for this abomination saddens me .
Sea side living is always a mixed bag, not on my list .
Nice story, looking forward to the next installation .
-Nate