3rd Aug 2004, 09:37
I have an 88 classic - and I'm terrified it'll be stolen, but I never found it slow or clumsy. In fact I am considering another car because it and my last car - an '85 delta 88 keep getting me speeding tickets and racing grudges I can't afford.
-Karly, MA.
21st Oct 2004, 19:22
87' Cutlass Supreme.
Great car to the thieves!!!
I've had two stolen in the last two years..
And just like I have read, mine too was stolen a month after I purchased it (the first one, which was equipped with the hard to find auto moon-roof).
The second thief enjoyed waiting for me to customize it with 20 inch rims..
Word of advice, if you buy this great classic, you better sleep in it!!
28th Oct 2004, 16:53
I have a 1987 Cutlass Supreme, Whin I bought it it had 102,000 miles, I don't know if it is some kind of special addition or anything, but it has t-tops bucket seats and the shifter is on the floor. The engine is a 3.8 v6. You can reach me at olds_77_88@yahoo.com.
22nd Apr 2016, 13:56
The 307 was too gutless for this car to be fast or agile. It made an honest 140hp and was useless past 3600 RPM.
22nd Apr 2016, 21:44
Take the 307 out and replace it with a 350 or 403 Olds, and back it up with a turbo 350 automatic. A simple, direct bolt in swap that takes about a day.
23rd Apr 2016, 13:56
Totally agree about the 307. Prior to 1985 the 307 was not a bad performer, for its time anyway. Nothing with a carburetor manufactured after 1973 performed very good, and the 307 was comparable to the Chevy 305 and the Ford 302 with a carburetor in that regard.
If you race a 1984 Oldsmobile 98 with a 307 and a 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass with a 307, assuming both cars are in decent running condition... although a good 700 pounds heavier, the 98 Regency will wipe the floor with the 1987 Cutlass. Both are comically slow by today's standards, but the Cutlass will be noticeably comically slower.
Oldsmobile (more than likely with GM and CAFE's gun pointed at their heads) retweeked the cylinder heads in 1985 with even smaller exhaust and intake ports. The result was an engine that could barely breath above 3000 RPM. Adding a faster rear axle was pointless, as that would just bring the engine to the point that it can't breath even quicker. Since most of the buyers of these cars were either elderly or well to do parents with kids, I'm guessing not a lot of people did any "spirited" driving on their test drives at the dealerships. With that said, outside of the Buick Grand National, virtually nothing built in the 1980s priced less than $50,000 was even close to being quick; the Mustang GT and even the Corvettes were a disgrace during this time.
Oldsmobile's cylinder head and combustion chamber design was quite efficient and dare I say "unintentionally" mother earth friendly for its day, meaning it was the last GM V8 allowed to use a carburetor, all the way to the bitter end in 1990.
Rather than spend the money on a decent fuel injection system, GM used this to their advantage to screw its customers over; they even had the nerve to dump this boat anchor into the even larger full size Cadillac Brougham and a lot of the full size station wagons until 1990.
It's quite a shame too; with a short stroke and decent sized bore, the 307 and even its wimpier 260 cube little brother could have really been something back in the day, if only they had fuel injection and decent cylinder heads.
GM screwed up another golden opportunity a decade earlier, rushing the Oldsmobile 350 diesel to production without doing nearly enough research and development... well I guess the unlucky 1978 to 1980 customers ended up being the R&D team, because by the early 1980s after GM finally worked most of the kinks out, dealer lots could hardly give them away, let alone sell them.
The 307 was probably the only engine to LOSE power in the 1980s, when everyone else was busy rebuilding, innovating or replacing the wheezy engines that were brought on by the 1970s fuel crisis. If you compare a 1987 Cutlass to a 1987 Ford Thunderbird with a fuel-injected 302, the Olds is a laughing stock as far as acceleration. Most of the domestic and foreign V6s on the road by the late 1980s now had electronic or multiport electronic fuel injection, and could easily humiliate an Olds 307 no matter how heavy of a car they were pulling.
It's no secret American car makers and GM in particular had a "too big to fail" attitude until recently, and the 1980s GM was a prime example. They didn't take Honda, Toyota, and Nissan seriously, and it really bit them where it hurts, in the wallet. I look back at things like vinyl tops with opera lights, fixed rear windows in the Cutlass sedans from 1980 to 1987 (and its Regal, Malibu, LeMans small Bonneville cousins), barren instrument panels with only a 85 MPH speedometer and fuel gauge, 90% of the cars with column shifters... and I have to wonder what they were thinking? The 70 and 80 year olds weren't going to stay that age forever.
24th Apr 2016, 21:39
In fact column-shifters were far superior to the silly between the seats shifters one sees nowadays. Obviously they allowed for a larger more comfortable bench seat, or even in the case of two large chairs in the front, there are better uses for the space between, like cup-holders, armrests, storage, etc.
Who knows what people are thinking nowadays with these between-the-seats-deals? Maybe they think they're being sporty or that they're going to shift the automatic wildly while driving.
25th Apr 2016, 02:46
The Cutlass sedans from '80 - '87 were good sellers. Higher sales than any of the import brands you mentioned. I remember seeing them all over the place. It's not like they were bad cars either. We had an '81 with close to 300,000 miles. Even today you see a few here and there. So what if they had column shifters, the bench seats (especially in the Brougham) were very comfortable and vinyl tops with opera lamps gave them a formal look... Opinions vary I guess.
25th Apr 2016, 13:45
I prefer bench and column too, but the '83-'84 Cutlass with the Hurst package and 3 lightning rod floor shifters were pretty cool.
25th Apr 2016, 18:12
A shifter belongs on the floor by the transmission; the US was really the only country to hang onto this gimmicky ridiculous fad for decades and decades. Almost no one rides 6 to a big sedan anymore. Some reasons column shifters and bench seats have been done away with:
To comply with safety and crash test ratings. It is more expensive to manufacture lap/shoulder restraint systems for a third center passenger in front.
Bucket seats, when bolstered properly, are far more comfortable than bench. The "lazy boy couch" mentality of "oh I'm so comfortable I'm sitting on pillows riding in my underpowered 1983 cadillac" is actually quite bad for your back and posture. Buckets that are not too firm but still supportive will keep you much more alert and less fatigued.
Modern technology. Some people bring electronic gadgets just to go shopping, they need room to plug them in. A third passenger in front gets in the way of useful storage.
Like it or not, bench seats have gone the way of the mechanical typewriter. Even the cheapest pickup trucks today are pretty much bucket designed though they still seat 3 on the "split bench" part.
30th Jul 2004, 13:39
I just bought a 1987 cutlass supreme 2 door. I bought it from a friend. I don't know much about a cutlass, but it is a very strong and reliable car. I bought it for only $200. What a deal!.