If nostalgia is defined as "a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations", it's certainly not nostalgia that drives my interest in old cars like our bright and cheery, red on white 1975 Oldsmobile Cutlass here. Seeing that I want to go back and relive my childhood with about as much vigor as I have for my urologist sticking his jellied finger up my ass, it's my pure affection for these wonderful cars that fuels my interest in them and nothing else.
When I young, I wasn't alone in thinking these cars were "it" since they were immensely popular and for reasons that candidly defied reason. Back then cars like our lovely Oldsmobile here were the definitive American car. Big but not too big (everything is relative) and featuring styling that was slightly ostentatious if not somewhat benign, the Oldsmobile Cutlass in its myriad iterations was the car that everyone owned, aspired to own or the other manufacturers made knockoffs of. It was comfortable, familiar, handled easily, was simple to operate, made you appear as good as you were or wanted to be and looked great in the parking lot of the supermarket as well as the country club. Especially the oh-so-sweet coupes.
Crossover sport utility vehicles define us today as an auto nation and it's easy to see why - they're the most stylish vehicles on the road today; any practicality is but a fringe benefit. What's really interesting about not only this Oldsmobile Cutlass coupe but two-door sedans of yore and personal luxury cars like this Cutlass in particular, is that, again, they were immensely popular. Immensely popular despite being as inherently impractical as today's do it all CUV's are practical. Why was that? Because they were high automobile fashion. Also keep in mind the sport utility vehicle as we know it today not to mention crossovers hadn't been invented yet.
So, how did we get from there to this world we live in today where by 2021 experts say 84% of vehicle sales will be some sort of (loosely defined) truck? We can put the blame for this at the door stop of the Great Tastemaker, General Motors. For as much as GM designed and built a litany of stylish cars years ago that drove their market share to an absurd and monopoly like 60%, when they began to fail at producing automobiles that people wanted on a visceral level, they sought out vehicles that did regardless of whether or not they were produced by GM.
GM began to stop making cars people wanted in 1978 with the introduction of their downsized intermediate line that included our Cutlass here. With perhaps, maybe, the exception of the Chevrolet Malibu, everyone of GM's smaller intermediates missed their mark styling wise. Sales may have been strong at first but the awkward, quirky and homely cars quickly caught up to GM and sales dropped precipitously. Worst of all, their replacements were completely out of sync with consumer tastes greasing the rails for GM's eventual crash and burn. Seriously, as subjective as the answer to this question might be, can you name a single car introduced by GM in the last forty years that struck a chord with buyers the way the Oldsmobile Cutlass did prior to 1978? Note I said, "car". GM's done nothing right except build trucks people wanted for the last four decades.
I've been lamenting the demise of two-door cars for years now hoping that someday they'd return to their former glory believing that everything old fashion wise will soon be new again but I've seriously given up all hope. What with their impracticality and the number of really interesting CUV's available today, there's just no room nor need for them. What's left of coupes today are niche vehicles; wonderful, sexy, expensive niche vehicles that appeal to enthusiasts like never before but niche vehicles nonetheless. As if it makes a difference to me to be seen in what everyone else is driving. Anyway, does make you wonder about what vehicle type will dominate sales in the future like CUV's and trucks do today and the way cars like our 1975 Cutlass here did years ago.
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