Vehicle #2: Olds Cutlass 8/10

After the Pinto, I bought a 1976 Cutlass from a private owner in 1982 for $2400.  That’s $7900 in today’s money.

What a great car.  It had the 350 cu. in. Rocket V8 engine with a four barrel carburetor.  In modern terms, that was a 5.7 liter engine.  When I stomped on the gas, the car would kind of kneel down, then take off. 

By modern standards, the specifications are not extraordinary.  In the 50 years since it was built, cars have gotten better in so many ways.

The Cutlass was originally gray.  After a couple of years, the paint had faded and it was obvious that body filler had been used to repair rusting rear fenders.

Consider that.  A car that was only 6 years old had already had rust repaired.  My Toyota Tacoma is 13 years old, with no body rust at all.

I took it to Earl Schribe for a paint job and rust repair.  For $300, they did a pretty good job.  I added the red pinstripe decals.

That photo was taken as I left Ohio State for the last time as my friend Scott and I started a cross-country road trip.

Here is our trip map.

We went 11,000 miles in six weeks.  Gas was $1.13 per gallon, which would be $3.48 in today’s money.  There wasn’t much budgetary planning, just seeing people and national parks.

Once we left Chicago, the drive was super-boring, so we staged a photo of me driving at 70 mph looking at a Playboy and drinking a Michelob.

At the time, Montana didn’t have a speed limit on the interstate.  The rule was, “speed appropriate for prevailing conditions”.

At one point, I was driving at a 100 mph at 3 am through big sky country.  I looked in the rear view mirror, and didn’t see anything.  When it’s that flat and empty, I should have seen starlight in the mirror, but it was all dark.  I noticed something red and blue, just at the top of the mirror.

A cop had flown up behind me with his lights off.  I don’t know how close he was, but it seemed like he was 20 feet off my bumper.  I hadn’t let off the gas, but did put on the turn signal.  After my lane change, the cop hit the gas, and took off.  

Here is another photo of the Cutlass with some foreshadowing at my sister’s house in Utah.  That Toyota Sunrader would eventually be mine. 

My niece and nephew are posing as degenerates.  Traci is supposed to be saucy and Mike is a mean drunk.

I kept the Cutlass through grad school, but it was starting to look rough.  An engineer at Caterpillar should be able to do better, so in 1987, I signed it over to my little brother.

Here’s a photo with more foreshadowing.

At this point, my father owned the Toyota Sunrader that we saw in Utah.  Vehicle #4 is also shown.

My brother eventually scrapped the Cutlass.  The speedometer is on my trophy shelf showing the final mileage of 203,000 miles.