I continue to improvise on a theme of jalopy.
There’s a short street near my apartment building, just a block long, on which this particular 1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass 442 was parked, dutifully shifted on alternate-side parking days, between 2014 and 2020. The owner, a gray-bearded man of advanced middle age – one *might* even say elderly – lived above the Dunkin’ Donuts, and alternated between this Olds 442 and a powder blue Volkwagen Super-Beetle of slightly earlier vintage but equal or greater hydrous ferric oxide content for most of four years until the Beetle disappeared in 2018.
I pointed the car out to my older son every time we walked past. “There!” I would exclaim. “That is an Oldsmobile CUTLASS SUPREME FOUR FOUR TWO.” And then I would quiz him. We talked about whitewall tires and eight cylinder V-bank engines, crankshafts and overhead valves and carburetors, and – since I confirmed by VIN this had a 403 –
I would emit my best imitation of a V-8 engine, and then we would go on our day happy that a forty year old car was still there to be enjoyed in 2017, 2018, and so on.
I rarely heard the 403 in this car though. Just once, when I saw the owner and a friend with the hood up and bush mechanic kit sitting on the sidewalk on a warm autumn afternoon. There was that V-8 burble. I got a brief sketch of the car’s history – he was not the original owner, but had purchased the car in Queens Village in 2013, in much better condition.
Like the owner, the 442 inexorably decayed.
When I think of “Four-Four-Two” I think of a young Sandra Bullock identifying a red 1970 442 to Sylvester Stallone in the satirical action film “Demolition Man” – a growling muscle car able to go toe to toe with the gracile electric cars of the future – Los Angeles in 2032. Oh, that car went up for auction in 2011.
Cars evoke memories from youth, I guess.
This 442 was not that red car. Neither the one in the 1977 ad, nor in the 1992 movie. It was just old and tired and falling apart.
 Laminations of rust on the bumpers, and elsewhere.
Evidence of at least one collision. The left flank wasn’t *so* bad.
Another left rear quarterpanel dent.  But oy vey. Â
Factory from this vantage! Or not.
Filler no no bondo here just honest ochre-in-waiting. Let’s zoom that right rear pillar?
No the other side.
And towards the rear.
And now it’s gone.
The marque weeps.
This is a car that once upon a time I would not have spent two seconds looking at. Now, I pore over these pictures and would do the same if I came across the car in person.
And I agree with Moparman that it is a sad thing to see a car that has been well cared for to exist far beyond its original intended life only to be pressed into normal use so that it resumes the normal deterioration cycle that there is (usually) no coming back from.
This is one colonnade that I always thought looked good. It’s always sad to see the inevitable deterioration of a once prized vehicle. I guess it goes hand in had with the acceptance (or in some cases, denial!) of growing older, and the fact that everything has a limited lifespan! 🙂
8Comments don’t seem to be posting, hope this one doesn’t replicate! 🙂
I agree that these were good-looking cars for the times. Good looking… but that’s it. Though in full disclosure, I do think the Colonnades overall were pretty well designed.
But the screaming 442 graphics are the ultimate in name debasement.
I’m always amused at how The Club seems to find its way onto the cars least likely to be stolen… or am I wrong and rusted-out ’77 Oldsmobiles are near the top of thieves’ most-wanted lists?
Even with all the rust and signs of age, the colonnade Cutlass will always be an attractive car. This particular Cutlass is not Supreme however; that denotation only applies to the ones with the more upright roofline, opera windows, and a squared-off waterfall grille – all in the personal luxury coupe style. The 442 is based off the less-expensive Cutlass S with the curvier, faster roof profile and rounder grille.
Cutlass Supreme:
These cars are easy to break into, and easy to steal. It’s prone to theft, not because it’s a desirable car, but an easy car to steal. I could see someone stealing it, simply because they have nothing better to do. Although, I wonder if the would-be thief would remember to pump the gas pedal to prime it, and even then, possibly have to get out and set the flap in the carburetor just right, because the automatic choke might not be working so well nowadays?
I have sort of mixed emotions about this car. On one hand, it’s sad to see it in this state, a shell of its former glory. But on the other hand, it’s nice that it’s still around, rather than having long since been sent to the junkyard. That black/gold color combo is really sharp, too.
A real NYC street brawler here. Not much to look at now but still a pretty damn tough survivor and, without much to lose, not one to mess with.
Title fixed now. Thanks.
Kind of trivial: the VIN begins with a ” 3 ” and ends with a ” 3 “. Also, I don’t know when it changed, but at one point the first number of the VIN was the year the car was manufactured. Then at a later time the first number was changed to signify the country the car was built in with ” 3 ” being Mexico.
When I first clicked on this article I thought it was just an older, dirty Oldsmobile. Then I noticed the ragged look to the bottoms of the doors. This was once a fairly beautiful car, now it truly is someone’s beater.
It makes me remember that I need to take better car of the outside of my cars.
At first, I thought this might have been a ’76, but it turns out that the previous year’s 455 was replaced by the 403 for 1977. Still better than the 350 (or, worse, the 260 V8) but I’d much rather have the earlier 455 car.
GM used this VIN format from 1965 to 1980 (with a modification in 1972 to add a specific engine code)…the first digit indicates the division, while the sixth digit indicates the model year. Ford’s pre-1981 VIN format did tie the first digit to the model year.
3G37K7M138413 can be read as “Oldsmobile division, Cutlass S, 2-door pillared hardtop, 403 cubic inch V8, 1977 model year, Lansing, Michigan assembly plant, 38413th vehicle planned for production.”
Re: the first number division designation. It looks like:
1 = Chevrolet
2 = Pontiac
3 = Oldsmobile
4 = Buick
5 = ?
6 = Cadillac
7 = ?
8 = Saturn
T = Truck (Chevrolet)
C = Truck (GMC)
Any idea what a first ‘5’ or ‘7’ might have been used for? I’m going to guess a 5 might have been for the old LaSalle since it would fit between Cadillac and Buick. But I have no idea what might have ever been above Cadillac to use the 7 (I’m going to guess that Hummer got an ‘H’). Maybe 7 is what they used for military vehicles.
“5” was used on the GMC Sprint and Caballero through the 1977 model year (although proper, “truck”-type GMCs used T). “7” was officially “GM of Canada,” and appeared on Canadian-specific Pontiac models. Chevrolet trucks were “C.”
Don’t know what happened to my comment; at first it didn’t post, now it seems to have disappeared!
I don’t know what’s going on with the Spam filter this morning. I restored your original comment early this morning, but then like you said, it disappeared. Your later comment is restored above, time-stamped at 4:39 a.m.
Just compare that typical 1970s GM quarter window cheap plastic trim, or what is left of it, with the high quality die cast chrome plated quarter window trim on my 1977 Thunderbird.
Yeah, but the better-styled Colonnades didn’t have that very cheesy little extra window.
Those two passenger side tires must have met thousands of curbs all over the city. . . .What wondrous tales they could tell.
So sad to see such a rare ride crumbling. Feeling like a moth eaten old thing myself this morning I feel even worse about the “Olds”..lol
The ad states it could have been had with a 5 speed transmission. That’s news to me.
Only with the standard and very weak-chested 260 V8.
Ugh. Never mind.
My dad owned an ’80 Cutlass Supreme with that engine. It was a real slug. I can’t imagine it trying to move a Colonnade.
I had a 76 Pontiac LeMans with the 260. Adequate, usually, as long as you didn’t ask it to do anything heroic. Not suitable for anything with a 442 on the sides.
Mecum Auctions says there were only 114 ’77 Cutlasses built with the 5 speed. Apparently this was the Borg-Warner T50 which was mostly used with 4 and 6 cylinder engines, although it also found itself mated to a (likely small number of) Chevy 262 V8s. It couldn’t handle anything with more torque.
I miss the days when GM would bother certifying a drivetrain that only sells 114 units per year. And this was just a regular option that could be specified on almost any Cutlass, not some special limited-edition package.
Some forget about the Cutlass S/base Cutlass fastback body style, thinking all Cutlasses were the Supreme coupe*. Also, forgetting the Cutlass sedans and wagons.
*Some claim the “Cutlass Supreme coupe was #1 car in [whole decade] the 1970’s”. Nope.
I guess that I like slanted lines. This car has both the long fastback and a canted back grille! Even the tail lamp panel leans forward. The colonades were big enough to have some presence, the smaller replacements though very popular, looked a bit shrunk at least in the early ’80’s. These cars have the same problem that the F bodies had. The big, unsupported window that got floppy with age and the long weatherstrip/window seals which aged quickly and leaked.
The decision to allow a car to devolve into a daily driven beater must be a strong commitment by the owner. Even if I didn’t fix the dents and repaint, I’d at least be treating the exposed and rusty metal with a rust encapsulator and touching up the paint with a spray can. I would be sealing around a leaky windshield and back window to keep the water out.
My thing with old cars is to preserve, maintain, and improve, at least a little. Though I have had a couple of cars repainted, I prefer to maintain the original paint as long as possible. For one thing, they’re only original once, second, it’a lot cheaper.