We can probably blame Chrysler's LeBaron convertible of 1980's infamy for Oldsmobile coming with a convertible Cutlass Supreme for 1990. Our subject here is a model year 1993 "Cutty" convertible I found on Facebook Marketplace with just 138K on its thirty-year-old analog ticker, asking price $3,000. That ask knocked down from $4,000. Something's too good to be true here. This makes my stomach hurt too much for me to inquire about it.
Oldsmobile's Cutlass Supreme and corporate siblings Buick Regal, Pontiac Grand Prix and later Chevrolet Lumina were all new for 1988 and were built on GM's new front-wheel-drive GM10 chassis or platform. Prior to 1988, they were all rear-wheel-drivers. Oldsmobile was the only division to offer a convertible GM10.
There's not enough ribbon in my figurative typewriter to split hairs over what went wrong with the GM10's (aka W-body). As far as I'm concerned, much went right as I had five of them from 1990 through most recently and adored them all. Google "GM10" or "W-body" to get your chalice's worth of hyperbole about them. The Good, The Bad and the Indifferent. If you read carefully through the lines, you'll find much of the issues with them wasn't the cars themselves but circumstances surrounding them. Namely, foreign competition.
GM10\W-body fan I am, I never warmed up to these odd little ducklings. Actually, they're not so little. Roughly 200-inches stem to stern and some 72-inches wide, their footprint is actually larger than the cars they replaced and a lamb's tail or two from the same size as the lordly 1964-1972 models. In fact, these cars were the first "upsizing" of a model GM introduced after 1977. Happy Days were, at least as far as I was concerned, back again.
My time spent behind the wheel of one was pleasant enough. Amply if not softly sprung with more than ample scoot from its 3100 V6 but it was hardly sporty. Not that it was intended to be a rocket. It was a boulevard cruiser with all of the foibles inherent in most convertibles. Particularly domestic drop tops.
Aside from the car looking lumpy with the top up, the oddest or biggest foible about them is what appears to be a roll bar - that's not a roll bar. It's so Oldsmobile didn't have to come up with a separate door handle design because on GM10 coupes the handles were in the B-pillar; they were phased out with subsequent updates. That hoop offers no structural support or roll over protection and if they didn't cap it off it would look even more bizarre. Might also be a safety hazard for folks getting into and out of the vehicle.
Oldsmobile pulled the plug on the Cutlass convertible after 1995 replacing what was once the best-selling nameplate in America for model year 1997 with a lightly disguised Chevrolet Malibu sedan. That last Cutty went to cornfield after 1999, the entire Oldsmobile division following suit after 2004.
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