Join this young couple as they take a test drive and make the purchase on a new 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass S.
We’ve probably all been there. You test drive a car, new or used, telling yourself the whole time that you don’t really need it—it costs too much, it’s more vehicle than you need, so on and so forth. But pretty soon you decide, after a little time behind the wheel, that what the heck, you want this car. That’s the angle in this sales campaign for the 1971 Cutlass S. Our hero spends the first several miles insisting to himself and his silent but patient wife that all he needs is basic transportation, only to fall for the style, features, and roominess of the Cutlass S.
For 1971, the Cutlass S was aimed right at the sweet spot between the base Cutlass and the deluxe Cutlass Supreme in pricing and features. For just $120 more ($3,142 total) than the base model, Cutlass S buyers received an upgraded interior in cloth or vinyl, deep-pile carpeting, and additional exterior chrome including louvered inserts on the hood. (As mentioned here, a 350 cubic inch V8 was also standard, although several hundred sixes were produced.) Body styles were limited to two, both two-doors: pillarless Holiday Coupe and pillared Sport Coupe, The strategy worked, as the Cutlass S was the best selling Cutlass model at Oldsmobile in 1971. Video below.
I was an Olds dealer tech back then (Olds Service Guild) and remember how great these cars were. Despite sharing many items with their other GM counterparts, the Olds still had a separate identity. We used to hand rivet brake shoes back then; the Cutlass had rivets, Chevelles were bonded. It saddens me to see how GM homogenized all the makes in later years which led to them killing Olds and Pontiac.
McG here. I came up in the GM service system in that era as well. I think we were especially fortunate as we learned to do everything. Relined brake shoes, rebuilt everything, replaced nothing. Alternators, starters, steering gears, engines, transmissions, rear axles, wiper and antenna motors. Even coded lock cylinders. It was a real automotive education.
Absolutely, and I was fortunate to have learned from the best. Later in 1971 they sent me to transmission school in Cleveland, but I got out of it in early 1972 for a career in industrial equipment. I was there long enough to do a couple cast iron Powerglides and learned not to rebuild a THM350 over a drain. (those check balls under the valve body were unobtainable for some reason); had to rob them out of a new car on the lot)
My dad was an old school guy who took his mechanic training from Uncle Sam during WWII, I watched him reline brake shoes and some of the other jobs you mentioned but he didn’t do automatic transactions or alternators but pretty much everything else though.
But I don’t want the Clear Coat!
Roger, McG here. WWII training manuals are some of the best technical literature ever written. They had a lot to teach in a very short time for a critical purpose. They didn’t put any ketchup or mustard on it, they got right to it. If you ever see any, check them out.
I bought my first car in 1963 and was an auto mechanic from 1971-2008. My first job was at a Chevy dealership and I remember those days when we rarely replaced anything but took it apart and rebuilt it. I got much more job satisfaction in those days than I ever got years later when we mostly just swapped parts. It always amuses me when I read about the car prices then and how some significant option or higher trim level cost about $100. Now every time I’m in a convenience store the guy in front of me in line is always spending more than that for cigarettes.
Rebuilding carburetors was good until they took the good stuff out of the Gunk- I recall being able to see the fumes distorting the air at the top of the pail. Corvair pushrod tube O rings would grow enormous in that stuff.
Buying new cars in ’65, ’66, ’67, and ’69 I never bought off the floor. Ordering a car by going through the option list revealed some items like a heavy duty cooling system for $10 extra or heavy duty battery for $6 more. I think many were standard on police cars.
In 1966 the Pontiac dealer in Medford MA, had huge wall posters listing every model and every option including “packages” with the msrp price. What a pleasure that was.
Love that body style Cutlass, especially the 442 models. Still not as seen as the Chevy Chevelle, but just as lovely if not more so.