Cohort Classic: 1987 Cutlass 4-4-2 – Bittersweet ’80s

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– Posted on February 10, 2024

Photos from the Cohort by nifticus392.

Unwittingly, I’m being thrown into 1980s GM-Oldsmobile history thanks to the Cohort. Last week, it was a Cutlass (Ciera) in Mexico. Today, it’s a 1987 Cutlass 4-4-2. Maybe the most desirable of the Cutlass breed from the ’80s?

Admittedly, this is a bit of a hard subject for me to tackle, especially a 1987 find. You see, for all effects and purposes, I was going through many changes that fateful year. Not least, a good amount of GM-shock therapy, ending with the G-Body Cutlass becoming -somehow- my chosen pick of the company’s offerings. Not without effort, that is.

In hindsight, ’87-’88 were also fateful years for the marque once the RWD Cutlass ceased production. One could even argue that was the point the brand died for good.

So, how did I, a Puerto Rican teenager, manage to find some love for the rolling-dinosaur that was the mid-80s RWD Cutlass?

As I’ve mentioned before, I spent 10 years away from American cars after my family moved to Central America back in 1976. A Civil War later, and with no help of the yet-to-be-available internet, I returned to the US territory of Puerto Rico in 1987 to a much changed automotive landscape. It was quite the time warp. I had left the island with images of cool Chevelles, Malibus, and Pontiacs roaming the island, each with presence and style (through some trick on my mind, I tended to remember more the ’60s models). Not quite what I found on my return. It only took a few days to realize that coping with 1980s GM was gonna take some doing.

Pontiac J2000, Buick Skylark, Oldsmobile Firenza; from top to bottom.

 

I had grown into a firm ‘Team-GM boy’ from an early age, so looking through car sale ads in Puerto Rican newspapers was a dismaying exercise. What I mostly saw from the General were generic-looking small sedans with interchangeable beaks, in what seemed an endless parade. My mind raced: What had happened during my absence? Did these people forget how to style cars? 

Even Fords looked better. A heretic idea I thought would never enter my head (And nothing I would ever admit to my Mustang-loving brother).

Swift change is never easy to assimilate. That being the case, could I find some love, somewhere, anywhere, for any GM car at the time? After all, it was all going to be platonic. I was still years away from actual ownership. Resisting change, while trying to be a contrarian (teenage spirit!), I passed on the Firebird and Camaro as “too obvious,” and never warmed up to the 1980s Monte Carlo. Squinting some more, the G-Bodies Regal, and Cutlass appeared into focus. Thanks to the Grand National, the Regal was getting a good deal of press at the time. A close candidate.

However, the Cutlass hardly got any coverage anywhere. Why the lack of love? With contrarian thoughts playing in my head, the Cutlass got the choice, with words more or less like:

  • Well… I guess if I GOTTA pick one, it will be you!

Of course, even without reading much about them, the styling of the G-Body Regal and Cutlass betrayed them as old. But both models looked better than most of GM’s contemporary stock, and I wasn’t quite yet ready to dump the old love.

So the ’81 shovel nose Cutlass got the nod for my ‘sure-whatever’ love. Still riding the 108′ wheelbase of the ’78 downsize, the G-Body Cutlass had gone through quite a bit to reach me with its ‘aerodynamic’ face. Not that I knew any of that then, but it had been quite the rollercoaster as I learned later. The ’78 Aerobacks could be considered a ‘jump the shark’ moment if that Diesel episode hadn’t occurred around the same time. That damage done, the very-Seville ’79 update mended matters, though not being terribly distinctive. For all effects, the ’81 shovel nose did give the cars more personality.

Puerto Rican buyers loved the Cutlass as much as those on the mainland did, as it was an incredibly common car. Especially in Supreme form. Of course, Chevrolets, Pontiacs, and Fords were more common than Lansing’s products. But Oldsmobile did carry the cachet of a car for professional folk and was quite popular with government workers.

The one Cutlass I remember most belonged to my high school Geometry teacher, who had a close eye on me as I was one of few students who could tell a circle from a square (harder than you think for some of my classmates). Indeed, I have always been grateful for her attitude and disposition towards me in those months of 1988, in a transition that proved harder than I expected. (Uprooting a teenager, hardly leads to welcome changes, you know?)

She was, appropriately, a sharp dresser, and ran our school’s Honor Society Chapter. I did see her a few times arriving at school in her Cutlass, a Supreme of course. Hers, was a shovel-nose, wearing the ever-common metallic brown, crowned with a vinyl top, and rode on Super-Stock wheels. I can just see her, with her perfectly coiffed blonde hair, wearing her sharp lilac blazer, arriving to school in her Supreme looking all-dignified.

However, it didn’t take long for me to realize that while Oldsmobiles were commonplace, their mention was a conversation killer around young folk. Speed, or the illusion of it, at accessible prices, was in the air instead. RX-7s, 1.8 RWD Corollas, CRXs, and so on; were the topics of interest.

If American cars came into the talk, it reverted to 1970s and 1960s iron; and it made sense. For little money, a late ’60s Chevelle or Skylark could be purchased and properly fixed up. A 20-something errand boy at my Mom’s office had just done that. The rumble of his ’69 Chevelle, as he pulled away after work, is something that still lingers in my head to this day.

But enough of memories. In regards to today’s 4-4-2 find, this ’87 sample is close to the end of the RWD Cutlass era. It’s easy to pin the model year, as it carries the composite headlights made available for ’87. That same year, the 4-4-2 moniker made its last appearance on an RWD Oldsmobile, moving 4,210 units.

The 4-4-2 moniker had actually gone through quite some hoops during the ’80s, not unlike GM itself. After fading for a few years, it reappeared in ’85 on the Cutlass. It carried a 4-barrel carbureted 307CID V-8, with 170 HP available at 4,000 RPM. Performance was not quite ground-shaking, with 0-60 in 9.5 secs, and a quarter mile time of 16.6 seconds at 83 MPH. Suspension made use of higher rate front and rear springs, plus a larger diameter stabilizer bar up front, and an additional one at rear. Shifting was solely automatic. (Did you expect otherwise?)

After the 4-4-2 faded out in ’87, the RWD platform remained around one more year as the “Cutlass Classic,” a corporate way of spinning ‘old’ as something nice sounding. By that time the W-platform FWD Cutlass had arrived and the brand’s identity was muddier than ever. But honestly, I wasn’t paying attention. Nor was the rest of the public. From 1.05 million units sold in 1986 to about half of that in 1988. And falling. There was to be no dead cat bounce for the Lansing brand. Instead, as Car & Driver predicted while reviewing a rinky-dink ’85 Calais, the brand eventually died almost on cue as if by design.

Don’t kid yourself. I don’t go to bed dreaming of Oldsmobiles; Cutlass, or otherwise. But when I play in my mind with the 10 cars or so I would stash in my garage when my Crapcoin investments payoff, an ’80s RWD Cutlass sometimes makes an appearance. Would I enjoy owning one? Doubtful, as that would probably take some work on my part. It would probably end up being a rather bittersweet experience. Not unlike my 1988-89 High School years, or Oldsmobile’s 1980s decade. From the sweet highs of million-plus sales to the bitterest end foretold by decade’s end.

 

Related CC reading:

CCCCC Part 12: 1982 Cutlass Supreme Brougham Coupe – A Classic Death