Right around the peak of Cutlass-mania in the 1970s, this is what an Oldsmobile 442 looked like. Based on the Cutlass S, it was only a shadow of its former self, but times had certainly changed. In those halcyon days of Oldsmobile history, under 10,000 1976 442s found suitable driveways. It certainly was the era of the brougham.
The ’76 edition of the 442 may not have sported ultra-chic opera windows, but it did have a sporty steering wheel. The white bucket seats and black appointments in this example are a classic touch. This 442 could have a 260, 350, or 455-cubic inch Oldsmobile engine, but it’s unlikely that it has the 455, because only a handful were sold in its final year. In 1977, the 403 replaced it. By 1976, the 442, like many sport packages, was more about appearance and handling. You got the special decals and “FE2” rally suspension.
An uncommon option in 1976 was the five-speed manual transmission, which one could order with the 260 V-8. Only 964 Cutlass S models were ordered with the overdrive, and our featured car is not one of them. The 442’s newfound secondary status is obvious in the brochure, where it’s buried at the bottom of the page, a mere option package for the Cutlass S.
The Supremes were indeed earning all the praise: there were two full-page spreads devoted to the Supreme and Supreme Brougham in the ’76 catalog. The padded velour split bench of the Supreme Brougham was a far cry from the 442’s bucket seats and console look that dominated the 1960s.
This proud surfer/owner echoed the thoughts of the time period; it just seemed like the market passed sporty cars by. Oldsmobile would hang onto the 442 name for a couple more decades, but they would never again produce anything like a ’70 W-30. However, let us not keep that from enjoying this ironic iconoclast.
I have to say that I like these a lot, and the ’73 Century in the background too! Did you take any pics of that Century (or the Riviera beside the Cutlass)?
No pics of the Century, sorry. For some reason this one just caught my eye. I have quite a few pics of that particular Riviera, as it’s a regular at Flint area car shows. It’s a GS with a 425 Dual Quad…neat car! Maybe someday I’ll do a CC on that one…
For all the sins the Colonnades committed, I have to admit in retrospect that GM did the best of all OEMs with the fixed quarter glass coupes.
Yes, I would own one of these, as we did own a Reliant coupe.
In my memory, the Supremes were everywhere, but the Cutlass S with its sloped nose was not seen all that often. Now, I kind of like the look of this one.
With cars like this and the 75 Fury Road Runner and the Starsky & Hutch Torino, no wonder everyone was going “Brougham” in the 70s. These cars did Brougham so much better than they did Sport.
The really odd duck was the Cutlass S sedan, which also featured this sloped grille.
I remember seeing one or two of those at the time, but I haven’t seen one at any car show or swap meet.
I owned a 76 white Cutlass S with the waterfall grill, it was my favorite… I ordered it with a 455! and fully loaded with swivel bucket seats too. The interior was green with white seats. I have been looking for my old olds for two years now, thing is I don’t have the vin number…
One Oldsmobile that I actually like, in fact I like them enough that I actually owned one for a short while. It was a much more seventies appropriate brown but it still had the white bucket seats.
I could like cruising in this with Blue Oyster Cult’s Spectres on the 8 track.In 1976 the only GM cars that interested me were the F bodies.
I like how you think 😀 . I used to cruise the streets of Cleveland’s West Side with “Some Enchanted Evening” blasting from the 8 track in my Pinto.
Speaking of 8 tracks, I always liked the way Olds dashes of this era gave you dual front speakers whether you ordered a stereo or not. It save the day for people who wanted tidy looking aftermarket installations. If you wanted a 2-speaker dash in most other GM cars, you would have had to change the whole dash, an impractical proposition.
As JP said, the slope nose was relatively rare. Supremes and Supreme Broughams ruled the road in ’76 and ’77.
I found the slope nose unattractive, as likely did a lot of buyers. I don’t think the squared out front looked any less sporty on a Supreme coupe with rallies, buckets and console. One thing was certain, you could order up these cars just about any way you wanted.
Maybe there is a statement here about why “Brougham” became so popular by the mid ’70s. In the Cutlass Supreme Brougham you could get an updated luxury interior that rivaled a Cadillac (better quality in several respects), manageable size, good performance and decent gas mileage (for the times) with the 350 V-8. It also cost a fraction of the Cadillac.
I had a sporty ’73 Supreme with the bucket and console interior, and a loaded ’76 Supreme Brougham. I enjoyed both cars a great deal – and appreciated that the ’76 offered a lot of differences to keep it interesting.
This is the car show near FIA, right?
Anyways, I’ve seen this car before:
Another pic:
Yeah, this was from last year’s Sloan AutoFair.
The ingredients to make one of these interesting were still there if you knew what boxes to check off, handling package, 455, swanktastic swivel bucket seats, performance axle ratio and posi, you could still have an intermediate that moved and handled with authority.
While true, it’s telling how few of them were outfitted in such a manner. The final 1976 442 with a 455 engine really was the end of the road for a ‘real’ Olds musclecar. In fact, one of the saddest features of these last, once-great cars was that the so-called gauge package did not include a tachometer but only replaced the oil and temperature idiot lights with gauges in the second dash pod.
The car with the gauge package in the photo has a non-stock Hurst dual gate shifter, hood scoops, and console-mounted electronic tachometer.
Not to mention, the “Tony Orlando & Dawn” 8-track cartridge!! 🙂
Cool, that’s my 442 with the 455. Only 1 of 143 made that year. The dual gate was a dealer install. The tach was added years after. Colour is original. I’ve owned this car for 36 years.
wow! that is awesome, I got rid of mine when it had about 76,000 k miles on it back in 83… mine was a Cutlass S coupe “76′ all white! I miss that car! your are smart for keeping yours!
Hi I am Ken from South Dakota. I am interested in a 1976 Oldsmobile 442. Tell me a little bit about your car. What is your asking price.
My e-mail is rauschken73@yahoo.com
605-2804966
Thanks
Converting my 1974 Vista Cruiser to floor shift with sport steering wheel. Was wondering if the “73-’77 sport wheel hub is supposed to match the color of the steering column. As far as I remember the ’73-’77 Cutlasses I’ve seen with a sport wheel, the hub matches the color of the steering column just like this photo. I know ’70-72 hubs were black regardless of the color of the steering column. I see you also have a blue horn cap. I have an extra blue horn cap that I’m not using and thought colored horn caps were for Omegas, and the newer Starfire cars. My interior is Buckskin and I’m using a black horn cap.
I quite like these slant-nosed Cutlasses. May have to do with the rarity–I can’t really remember ever seeing these anywhere except in photos (particularly Richard Petty’s 1979 Daytona winner, a ’77 model), though I’m sure they were around when I was a kid–but the look works for me and I far prefer the semi-fastback roofline to the Supreme roofline. And sure, they won’t challenge a ’70 as hs been stated, but with the 455 they wouldn’t be a slouch either. You’d pay at the pump, but no free lunch and all.
I do wonder if the slant-nose had an aerodynamic benefit, as they seemed to be widely used in NASCAR along with the Laguna S-3 variant of the Chevelle, or if it simply looked more slippery.
Growing up as a kid during the 70’s and 80’s I was always dumbfounded why more of these types of car’s weren’t ordered with bucket seats, center console, gauge package, suspension upgrade with rear sway bar, limited slip, rally or alloy wheels, upgraded rear axle ratio(if available) and of course a V8 engine in the downsized 1978-88 cars.
It always seemed to me that they had solid bench seats or were Broughams. Very few had buckets or the above items in any great quantity. It was almost always a crap shoot. Bench seat, V6 and maybe rally wheels. Or a Brougham with base instrument cluster, suspension upgrade and a V8 but little else sporty. If I could go back in time I would have had a much greater and more even mix on my new car lot as the right options could make or break these cars.
These are the only Colonnade ‘sporty’ coupes that sold OK. The GTO and Chevelle SS only lasted for 1973, and the Buick GS died after ’75, with low #’s that year. The ’77 Can Am was a non starter, Pontiac killed it after building only 1000 or so. Some say it was to sell more Gran Prixs.
The 442 package rode the Cutlass sales wave and saw many on the streets in 76-77. With a 403 in 1977, it was a nice cruiser.
According to Jim Wangers, the Can Am was killed because it shared the dashboard with the Grand Prix. In 1977, Grand Prixes were selling as fast as Pontiac could build them. There was also a problem with the tooling for the Can Am rear spoiler, which delayed production.
These factors made it easier to simply pull the plug on the entire project.
It didn’t hurt that the Firebird Trans Am was also selling well, and receiving lots of free publicity thanks to Smokey and the Bandit, which was the second-highest grossing film of 1977. Pontiac didn’t really need a second “image booster” in 1977.
There was the Grand Am and Laguna too, which didn’t really pop, but they did last a few years, sort of as the upscale muscle-intermediates. The CanAm was done in by the breaking of the spoiler mold and the Grand Prix dash, it seems as if Pontiac just wasn’t that interested in the CanAm. probably it was 1977 and there was a new A-body around the corner.
Pontiac was selling every high-profit Grand Prix it could make in 1977, so the Can Am was probably viewed as a somewhat unwelcome distraction.
Although this 442 was but a shell of its former self, at least it met its end as the intermediate Cutlass it always was. Not so the GTO, which suffered the ultimate indignity of ending its life as a Ventura II.
Thanks for sharing this article. I read with great interest. I enjoyed the photos too. Oldsmobile was selling a lot of Cutlasses back in that era. I remember Brougham, Salon and 442. Salon become more of the international touring car. It was also a changing era too. Luxury was more the emphasis.
Although I like this, I prefer the 1973 442 much more, especially with the 4 speed Muncie and the 270hp 455 with K heads and dual snorkel air cleaner.
I bought my Cutlass S coupe new back in 1976. all white with white swivel bucket seat, green dashboart and pinstripe too. 455, V8 I miss my car and wish I still had it! I will look for pics to post that are better than this one here..
My 442 has the 455 engine, THM 400 and swivel buckets, center console, dual exhaust, dome reading lamps, gauge package, clock, outside temperature indictor, sport steering wheel, intermittent wipers, cruise, tilt, the Canada only catalytic converter delete option, RWL tires on SSII wheels. Because it’s a 442 the FE2 suspension (with rear sway bar) was included. It also has the AM-FM 8 Track Delco stereo radio with the factory 4 speaker set up with a white interior and blue trim (dash, carpet, package tray, kick panels etc). The car was a factory order. Dealer installs include a 3:42 posi, dual gate shifter, X & Z exhaust manifolds and an aluminum Olds W-455 intake, all available through the parts dept. back then. The hood was added by me along with a W27 rear axle cover years later, and a Nascar rear spoiler. The original hood and trunk are wrapped and hanging in the garage. The SSII wheels have never been painted and the interior and weather-stripping are original. Price for this car as optioned in 1976…was over $8,200. Although these later 442’s couldn’t match the HP of the 1968-71 versions, it could easily out handle them on winding mountain roads.
I owned one of those 1976 442 silver abd black with a 455 swivel buckets amfm 8 track powersterring and brakes it had everything on it but that hood you have not as much horespower but enough to out run all the cops i was 19 at the time when i bought it wished i would have never sold it looking for one now
Here’s my 76′ Cutlass 442. 260 V8 with a 5 speed. Original motor and transmission. 42k miles, not alot of power but a great cruiser! Remembered seeing one as a kid, loved the shape and couldn’t resist when I found one for sale. With such a small number made it’s a great and hard to find classic.
I bought the 76 ,442 for $300.00 dollars from a medical student. It had well over 100.000 miles on it. It had the Rocket 350 under the hood. It was a fantastic car. I drove it to El Paso from Houston twice. The 350 was great on gas especially on the highway.