1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass S - Stuff of Legend

By the time I became of driving age in the early 1980's, cars like this 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass S had become all but the stuff of legend. And I wanted one. Bad. What with their style over substance design, delightful and excessive sheer bulk (if you bought into that age old bigger is better axiom like I did at the time), rear-wheel-drive and big, (relatively) powerful V-8 engines, compared to the tiny, soul less, front-wheel-drive, four-cylinder golf carts that were new back then, the good old days certainly looked pretty good. Especially if you were a young car wonk like me. I found this on Facebook Marketplace for sale down in Akron with an asking price of $11,500. 

Leave it to Bud Lindeman and his delightful "Car and Track" series to put these cars into proper perspective. Bud and his crew pull no punches with their assessments, and with a couple of exceptions, found glaring faults with the cars and in his estimation, the cars were as good as they used to be. Including this 1973 Olds Cutlass S in this short film that looks quite similar to my Facebook find.   

Oh, how they beat on these cars. My favorite trick maneuver or "test" is the "reverse spin" where the driver has the car pegged full tilt in reverse then somehow swings it around a full 180-degrees. I'm not sure what the point of this was nor am I sure General Motors intended any of their cars to do such things that would make Hal Needham proud. Fun to watch though. Lindeman notes the set up on this '73 with the "4-4-2 suspension" is a lot softer than previous 4-4-2's had been. 

You could get the 4-4-2 suspension package on any Cutlass two-door in 1973. That meant heavy-duty front and rear sway bars and heavy-duty rear upper control arms. There was also a 4-4-2 appearance package that got buyers the then usual, and somewhat trite and cliched, decal and badge package denoting your car was more than just a run-of-the-mill Cutlass. Personally, I like the idea of a sleeper like the car Lindeman and his team wreaked havoc on. 

The poster of the Facebook Marketplace ad for this '73 Cutlass S doesn't mention if this car has the 4-4-2 suspension or not but for sure, it's got the to-die-for "swivel buckets" that in Lindeman's film he claims are very comfortable. Their official name was, "Swing-Out-Strato-bucket-Seats". 

The point of these things was to allow easier ingress and egress for rear seat passengers although they allowed minimal adjustment for the driver and front passenger. As someone of average height, at best, my time with a Swing-Out-Stato-bucket equipped car left me feeling as though I was always looking up and over the dash. 

These Swing-Out-Strato buckets also gave easier access for mom to her cute as a button munchkin. Note, no child seat and although you can't see it here, there was a shoulder harness for the driver and front passenger. Not that anyone used them back then. I'm surprised mom here doesn't have a cigarette in her hand. These buckets were only available on 1973-1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass S and Chevrolet intermediate coupes including Chevelle Malibu's, 1973-1975 Laguna's and of course, the belle-of-the-ball, the Monte Carlo. 

The bulk of my time in one of these was when I'd joyride my cousin's Cutlass S she'd leave in my parent's garage when she'd be off on one of her weeks-on-end, globe-trotting traipses. Wish I could say I got into Tom Cruise, "Risky Business"-like escapades but I didn't probably for no other reason than the car wasn't "all that". Much like Bud Lindeman points out in the above film, whatever emissions plumbing her car had on it, it really slowed the thing down. So much so that I thought the car had something seriously wrong with its engine. Technically it did, it was called "early and primitive emissions control systems". 

NADA average retail value on this is $11,950 so someone's done their homework. That also means you'd waste your low balling the seller. You can find these for less, but they'll need work. Up here in northeast Ohio that mean lots of work and good luck finding a body shop that fixes rust. This one looks pretty tight save for sitting too high and perhaps needing at least a buff-out. You'd probably spend more than what you'd spend on this fixing up something less expensive. Put some money aside to get some real tires too.  

Despite my misgivings about my cousin's Cutlass, I still remember really wanting something just like it. If not her car. After all, there was probably nothing wrong with her car that some tuning couldn't fix. When it was time for the old "e-check", set it back to factory specs.