Old Cars sat down with Becky Bauer of FPM Metals

FPM Metals, headquartered in Nebraska, is surely one of the oldest automotive-related companies in existence. It was originated by current owner Stephen Gasper’s father in the late 1800s and is run as a family affair these days — with Becky working for her father as sales manager, her mother Ruth working in the office, and brother Keith serving as vice president. “The company is up to the fourth generation being involved,” Becky notes.

The company is best known to car enthusiasts for its ability to deliver custom engine-turned metal plates and pieces for an endless variety of uses.

Becky recently put up with our “10 Questions” treatment.

Gerald Perschbacher talks on the secret purple Packards

In 1954, the Packard Motor Car Co. built a test run of five purple-and-white Pacific hardtops, a senior model in the Packard offerings for that year. This was initiated by request of Earle C. Anthony, Jr., a West Coast distributor and then-current board member for Packard based in Detroit.

Bob Tomaine waxes on affordable finds in Hershey

Taking $15,000 as the cutoff figure, the affordable vehicles are, indeed, out there, as proven by what was spotted on a walk through the flea market and car corral at Fall Hershey. 

10 questions with the ATHS

Don’t call the American Truck Historical Society (ATHS, www.aths.org) a club — it’s much more than that. The organization was founded in 1971 to “preserve the history of trucks, the trucking industry and its pioneers,” states the society. Sure, it also has a giant annual national convention where thousands of members gather around 1,000 big trucks, plus many chapter meets, proving the society enjoys camaraderie as much as any other vehicle organization. However, the ATHS is deeply focused on preserving trucks and trucking history by more than in-person meetings. It also boasts a library in Kansas City, Mo., filled with literature, technical manuals, books, contemporary journals, photographs and other artifacts of the trucking industry.

We sat down with ATHS Executive Director John Gravley to learn more about the organization he represents and what it’s doing to continue its mission of preserving trucking history.

Old Cars shares reader rides

Old Cars readers show off their sweet wheels!

Ken Gross speaks on the ‘Other Cheetah’

As chief judge of the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance, I always carefully check the applicant lists. This year, I was surprised to see an entry called a 1953 Cheetah. That was too early for a Bill Thomas California Cheetah, but I was pretty sure I knew what car it was. When the Cheetah was a no-show, I was very disappointed.

I resolved to track it down. Armed with a name and a phone number, I called the owner, David Pacqua, in Norwalk, Conn. He, too, was disappointed,  as he and his wife had hoped to have the car ready for Greenwich. He’d inadvertently fitted the wrong flywheel and the starter motor wouldn’t engage.

“Do you own John Plaisted’s old race car?” I asked. When he said, “Yes,” the memories flooded back.

Al Rogers catches up with Chrysler Turbine

We visited Jeff Stumb, executive director of the Stahls Motors & Music Experience in Chesterfield, Mich., as he prepared its 1963 Chrysler Turbine Car for the Hilton Head Concours d’Elegance. 

Chrysler Corp. produced its most famous turbine car from late 1962 to October 1964 as 1963 models. Bodied by Carrozzeria Ghia of Italy and final-assembled in Detroit, only 55 cars were built. Of those 55 Turbine cars, 5 were prototypes and 50 were built for public testing. Nearly all of them were finished in a paint color that Chrysler called Turbine Bronze that was complemented by a black vinyl top.

10 questions with Barry Lowe of Gatsby Autoworx

Barry Lowe is the founder and owner of Gatsby Autoworx. Based in Liberty, N.C., Lowe is an entrepreneur with a lifelong passion for cars, who turned his hobby of restoring classic vehicles into a thriving business with help from his nephew, Micah. Together, they create stunning custom builds and bring forgotten cars back to life, with a special affinity for rare prewar machines. He’s also a fun guy.

Recently, we caught up to him for “10 Questions.”

Gregg Merksamer gives us another helping of Weathered Wheels

“Weathered Wheels” hawk Gregg D. Merksamer always seems to make it a point to travel back roads and keep his eyes out for rusty relics. Following are a few of the “Weathered Wheels” that he’s come across in recent years that we haven’t had space to publish yet on these pages. We say, “Thanks again for the pix Gregg! Keep ’em coming!

Old Cars reader, Jon Wessel gives us the scoop on his ’68 Cutlass Supreme with W-31 power

My father was an Oldsmobile dealer from 1966 until the end in 2004. When I turned 16 years old in 1971, my first car was a 1969 Cutlass Supreme convertible off the used car lot. It was pale yellow with a black interior, bucket seats and chrome Super Stock I wheels. I was in seventh heaven. After a few months, it had to be returned back to inventory to be sold, but you never forget your first car.

In 2018, I decided to go back to my roots and find a 1969 Cutlass Supreme convertible. I actually did find a twin to my ’69 — it was even the same color combination — but the price was far more than I wanted to pay. During my search, a particular 1968 Cutlass Supreme hardtop caught my eye.

Bob Tomaine takes us back to 1911 for a recycled Brass Buick

With the progression of the automotive industry many of the older cars were left behind. Some of the lucky old cars became trucks. Whether orphans or just outdated, they had little to no resale value, and so a conversion made sense. In some cases, the conversions amounted to not much more than chopping off the rear half of the body and replacing it with boards. Others benefited from kits that could include everything from a cargo box or platform to a heavier axle. In between were those one-offs that didn’t always approach a cabinetmaker’s craftsmanship, but were well done and served their purpose without embarrassing their owners.

Manny Rein, of Mahwah, N.J., has a truck that fits perfectly into the latter category.

“It’s a 1911 Buick Model 21, which is a pretty rare model,” he explained. “ … It was a touring to begin with and somebody — I guess in the ’20s or ’30s — converted it.”

Mike Puma unearths a post-war electric piece of history

The 1959 LaDawri Conquest was saved by one if its engineers and only recently uncovered.

GE began the experiment at its DC Locomotive plant in Erie, Pa., around late 1957. The choice of the LaDawri Conquest to serve as the test mule for its system isn’t entirely known, but there are a few clues. Based on the documentation and Jim’s recollections of his uncle’s stories, GE was considering mass production of its own electric car. The company wanted a car that was lightweight and could serve as a second household car for shorter “around town” trips. 

These articles and a whole lot more can be found inside the January 15, 2026, issue of Old Cars.

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Scott Ulrich can confirm that his wife Annette was right. It isn’t always easy for a car guy to do, but Ulrich admits his better half had a better idea when it came time to pick a color for the 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme the couple was restoring.

“Yeah, there was a discussion,” chuckles Ulrich, a resident of Waunakee, Wis. “I wanted to paint it Viking Blue. I wanted a Viking Blue convertible. My wife said no we’re going to paint it the original color. And she won, and it’s the best decision we could have made! The rims are also painted that Reef Turquoise color, too. They are supposed to be an Argent Silver, or Argent Gray … and the body man said I don’t know how that’s going to look, so we went with the turquoise on the wheels. When I go to a national show I get dinged for not having the right color on the rims, and I don’t care. They look great. And then the white pinstriping, that’s not a decal. That’s painted too!” The cool color is probably the first thing you notice about the Ulrichs’ beautiful Olds, but it’s just a sweet car all around, regardless of color. The General Motors A body cars for the era had countless legions of fans, and for good reason. They had great lines, were great all-around performers, came in a variety of flavors, and could be loaded up with V-8 power if you wanted a muscle car with some sophistication.”

And if you wanted a really stylish convertible that you could drive every day, it was certainly tough to beat the Cutlass Supreme ragtop, the plushest of the Olds’ mid-size offerings and one that shared many of its parts and styling traits with its base Cutlass and sporty 4-4-2 siblings. It was another car owner’s longing for a 4-4-2 that actually paved the way for Ulrich to land his ’70 Cutlass Supreme, which at the time was still a work in progress. 

“I bought this from a club member that moved from Illinois up to Wisconsin and they found a 4-4-2 convertible that they wanted instead of this one and they talked me into this one because I was looking for a convertible,” he recalled. “This car was in the body shop when I bought it and it sat in that body shop for 3 years! In 2015 we had an Oldsmobile national show down in Brookfield [Wis.] with over 400 Oldsmobiles there and all my buddies were like, We gotta get [your car] out of that body shop and take it to the next body shop. So I found a guy in Waupun [Wis.]; TJ’s Auto Body. I like their body shop because they have restoration and they’ve got a regular body shop. So I brought it to them … Two years later in 2017 I got it back and won my first trophies!”

A Supreme Career

 Along with being a little more upscale, the Cutlass Supreme coupes had a slightly different profile than their base Cutlass stable mates. The base Cutlass had a fast-back style roof line, but the Cutlass Supreme had more of a notch-back look. The Cutlass was one of the few GM A-Bodies that could be had as a notchback, joining the Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Pontiac Grand Prix.

For 1970, the Cutlass Supreme came in three body styles: two- and four-door holiday hardtops (pillarless), and a two-door convertible. They came standard with a 350-cid two-barrel engine that produced 250 hp. A four-barrel 350 with 310 hp was optional for buyers who wanted a little more giddyup under the hood. The top dog in the engine lineup was part of the Code Y-79 SX option package, which included a 455-cid Rocket V-8 rated at 365 hp.

Other standard Cutlass Supreme goodies included Flo-Thru Ventilation, a deluxe steering wheel, custom sport seat, cloth or vinyl interiors and a fancier dash than the base Cutlass model. Bucket seats were optional, as was a center console with a floor-mounted shifter.

Reef Turquoise was one of more than 20 original factory colors that were available on the 1970 Cutlass Supremes. A total of 10,762 Cutlass Supreme four-doors were built for ‘70. They weighed in at hefty 3,662 lbs. and had a $3,226 base price. As nice as they were, Cutlass Supreme sales actually dipped for 1970. Less than 27,000 were built in total among all three body styles. Just two years earlier about 54,000 were built for 1968, and production soared to more than 81,000 in 1971 and 130,000 in 1972. After a major restyling, nearly 246,00 were built for the 1973 model year. The Cutlass Supreme nameplate was a long-running fixture in the Oldsmobile lineup, debuting in 1966 and lasting all the way until 1997, when it finally ran out of gas and was replaced by the Intrigue in the Olds lineup. There are plenty of fans and car owners that would argue the model peaked in or around 1970 — a period that produced some high times and memorable cars for GM’s A-body lineup. 

A Gem Again

Ulrich admits he’s glad he didn’t know then what he knows know about how much effort it was going to take to get his Olds back to trophy condition. He knew the car had languished in a shop for far too long, and still needed some parts and cosmetic work done. But the problems were deeper than he realized. 

“I didn’t know about the quarter panels, I didn’t know about the trunk [floor]. I knew that I had to replace the hood … and I knew it needed to be painted and everything else,” he says. “I didn’t find out about the trunk floor until we were really far in. They had patched it up [previously] some way. At that point I just had to keep going. I said, ‘Do we have a choice? [laughs] ‘I’m so far in now I can’t go back.’ “It didn’t have any floors … rear quarter panels, trunk, hood door, door skin, little parts and pieces that didn’t come with the car… But with 1970s you can buy a lot of the parts and pieces. I think the only thing I couldn’t buy was the dash pad. They reproduce everything else. I belong to the Oldsmobile Club so a lot of the stuff is NOS stuff.”

Ulrich says one of his big scores networking with fellow members of the Oldsmobile Club of America and Oldsmobile Club of Wisconsin were the pair of rearview mirrors he landed for $250 . 

“It really helps to belong to a club. I try to tell as many people as I can to join a club, it’s easier to talk to people and easier to find parts,” he adds. “And once you get to know people, you find out car people are just great people.” 

Maybe the best news for Ulrich was that the car’s 350 V-8 was in good shape and didn’t need rebuilding, and the white interior had already been replaced and looked great. 

“The top was white and I had that replaced. The dash was OK, I just had to clean it up. I put a new chrome strip around the front part of the dash. And then one of the guys in our Oldsmobile Club told me to get silver pen from Hobby Lobby … I just used that and kind of colored it in where the silver was fading out. It worked great. We never rebuilt the motor, but we did take it out and put gaskets in it. It looked like one of the heads had been taken off and redone already.”

Ulrich says he has not been able to accumulate much for history or documentation on the car, other than what the previous owner had. As far as he knows, the car is as close to original and factory correct as he can make it — other than the color of the rims. 

“All I know is [the previous owner] bought it out of the Chicago Tribune, and it was kind of a rider/roller. That’s the way he bought it, and that’s the way I got it. It’s a non-air car, so there really isn’t any options. It had the white top, white interior. Crank-down windows … it was a low-option car,” he said. “Bench seat, two-barrel. It was probably some older lady or older gentleman who didn’t care about muscle, they just wanted a nice car.” 

Ulrich has seen plenty of other cars come and go from his garage over the years, including another 1970 Cutlass that he had for three years before he sold it. He’s still got a hot-rodded ’67 Pontiac GTO convertible for days he’s feeling rowdy. As much as he loved some of his other rides, and as much as he likes the GTO, the turquoise Cutlass Supreme has become his ultimate keeper. 

“Oh, I’ll have this one for ever. I’ve got way too much into it!”

Can’t get enough Oldsmobiles? Here are a few more for your reading enjoyment.

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“I have owned this car for 15 years, I am the third owner. Since I purchased it I have done the following upgrades: new NOS rear bumper, new gas tank, reworked the transmission, new interior from the Paddocks, Ram Air fiberglass hood painted & striped by my buddy Marty, and finally new Cragar Mags.”

“The car has all matching numbers. I took 2nd place in my class at the Oldsmobile Club of America nationals in 2010. I go to many weekly cruise nights. I live in Rhode Island. She is kept in a nice secure garage and cover all winter long. I have owned 7 Oldsmobile over the years.”

“OLDSMOBILES FOR EVER”

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Rick Glickman has been making an annual pilgrimage north from his Skokie, Ill., home to the Iola Old Car Show in tiny Iola, Wis., for about 35 years now.

So it’s somewhat fitting that the Oldsmobile-loving Glickman found his favorite car — a 1972 Cutlass Supreme convertible — during a visit to the show nearly 20 years ago. Since then car and owner have been constant companions and neither shows any sign of an impending breakup. Glickman vowed he’ll be back again in 2016 with his Olds ragtop, which now shows more than 220,000 miles on the odometer.

Glickman already had a Cutlass when he stumbled across his ragtop. The one he owned wasn’t exactly what he wanted, and he wasn’t convinced he would ever find a car that would check all the boxes.

“I had a ‘72 Cutlass convertible that belonged to a friend that I went to high school with in Louisville, Ky.,” he recalled. “I had it for a while and it had a bench seat and I was always on the lookout for another Viking Blue bucket seat car. So one time we were walking around in the Iola Swap Meet with some friends who always come with us and somebody said, ‘Hey, there’s a Viking Blue Cutlass’… but I didn’t see it. I was looking around, and he said, ‘No, right in front of us.’ So I looked up and right in front of us was this sandwich board with pictures of a blue Cutlass on it. So I tapped the guy on the shoulder. I found out it had bucket seats and a nice console, air conditioning. I said, ‘Hmm … does it have a Sport wheel?’ And he said, ‘Not a Sport wheel, a Tilt Sport wheel!” I said does it have power windows? He said, ‘And locks.” I said, OK, I wanna see the car.

The two met up later so Glickman could look the car over, but he still wasn’t sure what to make of it. “It had bumper guards and trailer hitch and it looked OK, but it was dirty. I said, ‘What’s the deal?’ The guy said ‘I’m selling it for the guy who owns it. He lives in South Dakota and he uses it to haul airplane parts. He builds airplanes.’ The owner had purchased it from a peach farmer in California. He rebuilt it and drove it to Iowa — he had all the receipts for it and everything. And he saved all the original parts from the car. They were in the car in boxes in the trunk.”

Glickman remained a bit skeptical and wasn’t quite ready to write out a check — until he somehow convinced the seller to follow him all the way home to Illinois. “I said, ‘If you drive it to Skokie and let my mechanic look at it and he says it’s solid, I’ll pay you want you’re asking. I won’t negotiate.’ So he said OK and he had his mom follow him all the way to Skokie. It was a young guy, he drove it all the way to Skokie. My mechanic got in it, drove it around the block and said, ‘If you’re not buying it, I’ll buy it.’ So I paid him the money on the spot and that was it. I’ve had it ever since.”

Glickman’s attraction to the 1972 Cutlass Supreme provides a good illustration of why the cars were so popular — not only where they stylish, comfortable, well-built cars, but they could be everything from a hot performance car (for the time anyway), to a big family cruiser, and anything in between. The Cutlass Supremes often get lumped into the same conversations as their Cutlass and Cutlass ‘S’ siblings, but by 1972 the Supremes were their own series. The could be ordered as a big four-door Holiday hardtop on a 116-inch wheelbase, or as a two-door Holiday hardtop or convertible on a 112-inch wheelbase.

All of the Cutlass family members were popular with John Q. Public, and that was particularly so with the Cutlass Supreme two-door hardtop, which led company sales charts with more than 105,000 built for the 1972 model year. Trailing far behind was the Cutlass Supreme four-door hardtop at 14,955, followed by the convertible at 11,571 — which was still a respectable number during a time when new droptops were beginning to fade in popularity. In fact, it was the top-selling U.S.-made convertible in ’72.

Glickman’s convertible carried a base window price of $3,433 and came with the standard 350-cid, 180-hp V-8 and optional automatic transmission. For buyers looking for more gusto, the notchback hardtop could be equipped with the 270-nhp L75 455-cid V-8 and M20 four speed transmission. Less than 100 were apparently ordered that way.

The 1972 model year was the final year for a Cutlass convertible. The intermediate droptop did not appear again in the company lineup until 1990. Standard equipment included all Cutlass items plus a higher output 350-cid engine, a special die-cast grille, woodgrain dash treatment and strato bucket seats. Interiors were slightly fancier than in the Standard Cutlass models, with nice fabrics, the bucket seat option, center consoles and the Hurst shifter borrowed from the 4-4-2, which had been demoted to model option status. Standard tire size was F78-14 and buyers could opt for Super Stock II mag wheels, which were colored to match the body.

It no longer carries the trailer hitch, but Glickman’s Cutlass Supreme has picked up a few goodies over the years during its time in his garage.

“Within about 60 days I sold my other car for almost what I paid for this one, and over the last 18, 19 years I’ve been slowly re-doing the entire car,” he says. “The only thing I haven’t really done is the paint. I just keep buffing it out and buffing it out.

“But I’ve done a lot of work. It’s got a radical cam. It’s got an Edelbrock manifold. It’s got Postitraction, 3.42 rear end … I put the Hurst Dual-Gate shifter in. I put the Tic-Toc-Tach and gauges in. I’ve got blue tooth hands-free radio. It’s got the modern air conditioning and it runs like a modern car. It’s got Flowmasters on it, though, so it sounds like a big muscle car.”

“I love Cutlasses. I think in ’72 this was the most popular car — like the Camry was later. Everyone loved these cars and everyone has a story,” laughs Glickman. “It’s, ‘My mom had one, my aunt had one,’ whatever. Everybody either had one or knows somebody who had one.”

Show us your wheels!

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If you’ve got an old car you love, we want to hear about it. Email us at oldcars@aimmedia.com

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The post Car of the Week: 1972 Olds Cutlass Supreme appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Dale Noble gets to repeat himself a lot when he takes his 1970 Oldsmobile out in public. Most people who lay eyes on the car have never heard of an Olds SX, and even fewer know what a “W-32” car is. And it’s a fair bet that almost none of them have ever seen a combination SX/W-32 convertible like Noble has. Heck, even Noble has never seen another one, and he’s looked hard for such car. So he often has a fair bit of explaining to do when he shows up at collector car gatherings.

“I’ve had it close to 20 years. I’ve found only one other W-32 convertible, and that was over in Europe,” says Noble, a resident of Portage, Wis. “Otherwise, I have never seen or heard of one … I’ve taken it to some Nationals and local shows and people know the car, but I’ve never talked to anybody else who’s ever seen one. Even amongst the Oldsmobile Club, this is the only one they know of in the country.”

Even if it wasn’t rare, the cool triple-black Cutlass would still stand out. It’s just a great-looking machine with big power under the hood that still fooled insurance companies who didn’t realize it was a 4-4-2 in sheep’s clothing. What’s not to like?

Oldsmobile debuted its Cutlass Supreme intermediate model for the 1970 model year and it received a warm reception. For buyers who wanted to spice their cars up, the company offered an SX package that included several 455-cid V-8 engine options, special badging, TH400 transmission and a few other bells and whistles. It all added up to a refined muscle car that was meant to be classy and more understated than many of the wilder alternatives that were springing up on the market.

Just how hairy your Cutlass or 4-4-2 or SX was depended on which boxes you checked. The W-32 option was the middle offering of the three 455 power plants and reportedly produced 365 hp, although figures vary depending on the source. It was only offered on cars with the W-32 engine. The SX was sometimes called a “poor man’s 4-4-2,” although they were almost the same car, with the same profile, lots of power and great handling for a performance car.

Production records from the time are a bit fuzzy, but reportedly about 860 W-32s were built for the 1970 model year. There is no official breakdown of how many were coupes and how many were convertibles, but Noble did some of his own math and made some educated guesses. “What I did is take the 4-4-2 and I looked at the percentages of convertibles vs. hardtops and kind of did the same thing with W-32 and it comes out to maybe 50 or less that would have been convertibles, but there is no way of knowing that for sure. I have only found the one other W-32 convertible in Europe. Otherwise I have seen or heard of another one like mine (with the W-32).”

Noble is certainly proud of his SX, but it took him quite a while to figure out exactly what he had. He bought the car from his brother, and neither understood the car’s rarity until Dale tore into it a bit. “My older brother decided he wanted to get a collector car and he found this body shop guy who had this Cutlass as his own personal car … We saw it and it was a beautiful car and I knew it had the 455 in it and the SX symbols on it, but at that time I didn’t know it was a W-32. So he bought it in ’85 for I think 3,500 bucks [laughs]. He didn’t have to do a whole lot to it, and then he decided to sell it and I bought it from him maybe 15, 16 years ago.

“I rebuilt the motor, and had the car repainted and put a new top on it and a few other things. And when I rebuilt the motor I checked out the numbers on the block and found out it was a hi-performance 455 and the only cars they put that in was 4-4-2 or W-32. That’s when I knew how rare it was.”

The W-32 that was shared with the 4-4-2 featured a four-barrel carburetor, 10.5:1 compression, a hotter cam and bigger valves. Noble’s drop-top was also optioned with the dual gate shifter, air conditioning, cruise control, power windows, power seats and power locks, and Tic Toc Tac. It also carries the cool Outside Air Induction (OAI) Ram Air hood.

Noble has done what he likes to a call a gradual “frame-on” restoration of the SX over the years. He was forced into repainting the car a few years back and has made a hot car even hotter with some engine tweaks. 

“A couple years ago a neighbor kid threw a ball through the window and just about every part of the car had scratches on it,” he said. “The insurance company paid for it and we had it stripped down to bare metal and painted … It had hardly any rust on it at all. I had a new top done on it. The interior was done by my brother years ago — probably 20 years ago. I put new carpet in it and I’ve rebuilt the motor to stock appearing. It’s putting out close to 500 horses, but you can’t tell by looking at it. I had the heads ported and polished by Joe Modello when he was still alive. The intake was ported and polished, the exhaust manifolds were ported and I had higher-compression pistons put in. It was bored .30 over. It’s got a bigger cam in it. Joe Modello also put bigger valves in it, too. It’s a really a nice motor now. If you look at it, everything looks stock. You can’t tell anything is different.”

Of course, once he got the engine done and running right, Noble just had to take it to the track and see what it was capable of. Was there any choice?

“I got a 14.149 with street tires, so I was pretty happy with that,” he chuckles. “That was pretty good. I’ve since then had the carburetor rebuilt quite a bit. I actually have a different carburetor on it now. I only [raced] a couple of times, just to see what it would do.”

The odometer on the black Olds shows 112,000 miles. There were about 85,000 on it when he bought the car from his brother, so Noble has been averaging a little under 2,000 miles a year. “The car is just a lot of fun to drive,” he says. 

“My wife and I, we take it for a cruise and go out for golf and dinner and a relaxing evening. We have a lot of fun with it. It’s kind of like driving in a parade. It rumbles pretty good!”

Noble admits he is still pretty “fussy” when it comes to handling his favorite machine, but he’s not exactly worried about breaking anything. He’s more worried about passing a cop doing a high rate of speed than he is overworking the Olds.

“I really like it because you can step on it and it really moves with authority,” Noble concludes. “I like getting into it once in a while. I turned 62 here last month, but I’m still young at heart.”

Show us your wheels!

If you’ve got an old car you love, we want to hear about it. Email us at oldcars@aimmedia.com

Ever wonder what your classic ride is worth? Old Cars Price Guide is now online! Check it out and join to get the unbiased and real-world pricing on classic cars. You get pricing anytime, anyplace on your phone, tablet or computer.

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The post Car of the Week: 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme SX appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

It took about 37 years for his “baby” to officially became full grown, but it was definitely worth the wait for Ken Rinear.

Rinear bought his 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme convertible back in 1996. At the time, the car was strictly for kicks, and the Perkasie, Pa., native had no aspirations of doing anything with the car beyond keeping it running and enjoying some top-down cruising in the summertime.

It’s funny how plans change and goals get adjusted when a guy gets infatuated with the car, however. Sixteen years later, Rinear has pretty much reinvented his Olds twice, turning it from a “decent No. 3 driver” to a top AACA award winner, then remaking it again as a biceps-flexing 455 “SX” muscle machine.

Along the way the car has served as the model for a Danbury mint replica, carried Miss America pageant contestants and even gotten its own nickname from the other car guys who know Rinear and his Olds. “Everybody knows it as ‘Baby.’ That’s what it’s called. Everybody calls it that,” Rinear laughs.

Rinear says that handle was hung on the car when he took the Olds to Thornton Classics in Bethlehem, Pa., for some work not long after he bought it. The Thornton shop specializes in high-end muscle machines, particularly Olds 4-4-2s, and there always were a lot of big-block GM cars in the vicinity whenever Rinear was around. “I told them it was the baby brother of all those big-blocks,” he said. Rinear took a lot of razzing about not having a big-block in his Cutlass Supreme, but he was not about to mess with the factory 350 that was still in the car. He had other ideas, and over time they all came to fruition.

“I never planned to do a frame-off restoration, but little by little, I re-did everything,” he says. “I kept doing a little here and there, and then I had a little accident with it and busted it up and had to replace a door and fender, and that’s when I got it stripped and repainted and decided to put everything back together the way it was supposed to be.” 

That included painting the wheels correctly, putting wide oval tires on the car, replacing the exhaust with the factory correct equipment and detailing the car from top to bottom. Rinear achieved his AACA First Junior award in 2002 and advanced all the way up to Senior Grand National honors in 2006. By that point, the car’s Pearl White interior had been redone, new seat covers, convertible top and door panels were in place, and a working factory 8-track player had been added.

“Everything on the car was pristine,” Rinear said.

The car’s resume continued to grow in 2003 and 2004 when it was selected to carry Miss Michigan and Miss Missouri in the Miss American Pageant Parades in Atlantic City. The pageant has since been moved out of Atlantic City, but Rinear has been able to continue his parade duties in the annual Miss New Jersey parade.

The crowning moment for the car may have come when the Danbury Mint called the Thorntons looking for a 1970 Cutlass to copy. The Thorntons passed along Rinear’s number.

 “I was in my office in Warminster one day in, I guess, ’05,” he recalled. “I had bought one or two of the Danbury models, and I get a call one day from them and I figure, ‘OK, they’re probably trying to get me to buy a few more models.’ Well, they had gotten the phone number and called Troy Thornton and he told him if they wanted a Cutlass convertible, call Ken. So a lady came over and saw it and a couple weeks later they came and photographed car … They probably spent three or four hours photographing the car and taking video of it and measuring everything. Then when they came out with [the model], it was a limited edition and only 5,000 were made. I didn’t get paid anything, of course, but I got a couple of the models for free. The only bad thing was I had pleaded with them to keep it red, but they had done a 4-4-2 convertible in Rallye Red, so that’s why the made the model Twilight Blue.”

The Rallye Red and Twilight Blue were among the more than 20 original factory colors that were available on the 1970 Cutlass Supremes, which again occupied the top rung of Oldsmobile’s popular Cutlass lineup. The Supreme nameplate was introduced in 1966 and for 1970 was built with GM’s A-body and was competing with ever-growing personal luxury car segment.

The Supremes were offered as two- and four-door holiday hardtops and as convertibles. More than 26,000 Supremes were built for the model year, but only 4,867 of those were ragtops, which carried a base price of $3,335.

Unlike some of GM’s other midsize offerings — namely the Monte Carlo and Grand Prix — the Supremes had much in common with the base Cutlass offerings and shared many of the same body and chassis pieces. The most obvious design difference was in the roofline; the Supremes had a notchback profile while the base Cutlass series had a sloping fastback design. Under the hood was a 350-cid four-barrel V-8 that produced 310 hp.

The Supremes were a little fancier inside than their base Cutlass siblings, and buyers could get either Strato bucket seats or a notchback bench in front.

If you wanted to rev up your Cutlass Supreme and impress your friends at the track, you could dial up the “SX” package, which basically turned it into a 4-4-2 in disguise. The Package included the W-32 455-cid, 365-hp big-block, Rallye suspension, cutout rear bumper and a different dual exhaust.

Rinear finally began to warm up to the idea of a big-block when his original engine began having problems after it had turned over 100,000 miles.

“The piston rings on one piston all broke,” he said. “I have a buddy, and he’s not a fan of small-blocks, and he’d say, ‘Look, you’ve got all the awards you can get, it’s time to move up to a big-block.’ So I did all the research on W-32 option, and that’s what I had them do. I always wanted to get a big muscle car so I told him to do it … I don’t call it a clone, I call it an upgrade. I had them take the motor out and put the new motor and correct trans in there… When it was done it was 100 percent factory-correct ‘SX’ W-32.”

The car has a much different personality and feel these days with the jumbo engine. Linear jokes that it’s also a lot thirstier, but he doesn’t seem to mind. It hasn’t stopped him from rolling up 6,000 miles since the 455 was installed. He figures there will be a lot more on the way, too.

“With that Code OG trans — which is a Turbo 400 with a higher stall converter … it has a lot firmer shifts and shifts at a lot higher RPM, so that’s going to affect your mileage,” he said. “Of course, the power is unbelievable … The 8 miles a gallon can be a little tough take. I’d say I went from 13 to 15 mph with the 350 to 8 to 10 with the big-block. But if I’m only driving 2,500 miles a year, ah, I just budget a 1,000 bucks a year for gas. I don’t worry about it!”

At this point, after years of tinkering and upgrading the Cutlass Supreme, Rinear admits there isn’t much left he can do. He’s thought about putting a dual-gate shifter in it, but he’s not sure.

 “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” he concluded. “Most of the time, I just put it in drive and just cruise.”

The idea of ever parting with the Olds and possibly starting over with a new car isn’t particularly appealing, Rinear says. Car and driver long ago formed a bond that’s pretty close to permanent.

“People would think I’m was crazy if I ever sold it,” he said. “It’s a part of my life. It’s a part of my family. And the car’s got personality. The only time it ever acts up is if I start talking about selling it!”

Related Story:

Another great 1970 Cutlass Supreme

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Peter Guidera saw thousands of Oldsmobiles come and go from the lot during his 30 years as an Olds sales guy. The vast majority were probably more memorable than the unremarkable 1970 Cutlass Supreme Guidera took a shine to. At the time, the car was 16 years old, was headed for a trade-in on a new car, and seemed to be destined for maybe another year or two as somebody’s “beater” before its days on the road were finished.

But Guidera saw something in the sturdy, comfortable, working-man’s holiday sedan back in 1986. Even though the car had never been babied, it wasn’t in terrible shape. And Guidera didn’t see many ’70 Cutlass Supremes on the road at the time.

He figured the car needed a fresh lease on life, and he decided to provide one.

“It was a nothing car — a $100 car,” he recalled. “When I appraised it, it was like I closed my eyes and forgot about the what the body looked like, and just thought about how great the car ran. I had to have it.

“I knew everybody else would give him $100 for it, but I wanted it so I gave him $500 trade for the Ciera they were looking at.”

Little by little, Guidera, a resident of Whippany, N.J., began to give his Cutlass Supreme a makeover. Fortunately, the car didn’t need any major work. The original four-barrel 350 ran great. The interior was in excellent shape, and the original vinyl roof was plenty good.

“I parked it for two months, and when I went to start it, it started right up,” Guidera said. “Working at the dealership made it easier to do the little mechanical work, and it didn’t need much.

“In 1990, I had it painted its original color. The vinyl roof is original, and the interior is original. It’s in amazing shape and the car only has about 77,000 miles on it. Mostly what it needed was just sanding, painting and that was it. The quarters were rusted out underneath in the back and where the vinyl roof meets the trunk — these things were famous for that. Water gets under there and starting to bubble up … But the rest of the car wasn’t all that bad.”

“Everything [is original] except for the steering wheel. I got one like one the ones they had on the old Firenzas in the ’80s. I put that on because I always liked that steering wheel.”

The Cutlass Supreme was a long-running staple of the Oldsmobile lineup, lasting from 1966 until 1997. The cars were generally positioned as the plushest of the Olds’ mid-size offerings and shared many of the parts and styling traits as their base Cutlass and sporty 4-4-2 siblings.

For 1970, the Cutlass Supreme came in three body styles: two- and four-door holiday hardtops (pillarless), and a two-door convertible. They came standard with a 350-cid two-barrel engine that produced 250 hp. A four-barrel 350 with 310 hp was optional for buyers who wanted a little more giddyup under the hood. The top dog in the engine lineup was part of the Code Y-79 SX option package, which included a 455-cid Rocket V-8 rated at 365 hp.

Other standard equipment included Flo-Thru Ventilation, a deluxe steering wheel, custom sport seat, cloth or vinyl interiors and a fancier dash than the base Cutlass model. Bucket seats were available as an option, as was a center console with a floor-mounted shifter.

Aside from being a little more upscale in most areas, the Cutlass Supreme coupes had a slightly different profile than their base Cutlass stable mates. While the base models had a fast-back style roof line, the Cutlass Supreme had more of a notch-back design.

A total of 10,762 Cutlass Supreme four-doors were built for 1970. They weighed in at hefty 3,662 lbs. and had a $3,226 base price. For some reason, Cutlass Supreme sales dipped markedly for 1970. Less than 27,000 were built in total among all three body styles. Just two years earlier about 54,000 were built for 1968, and production soared to more than 81,000 in 1971 and 130,000 in 1972. After a major restyling, nearly 246,00 were built for the 1973 model year!

Guidera wasn’t really thinking about the car’s relative scarcity when he decided to buy it. He was just savvy enough to spot a keeper when he saw one.

“Mine’s got the 350 four-barrel, which was an option back in ’70,” noted Guidera. “It’s got air-conditioning, power steering, power breaks, AM radio and that’s about it. The wheels are Super Stock II’s, which would have been standard on a 4-4-2.”

By the time Guidera decided to buy a Cutlass Supreme as a hobby car, he had a long history with the marque. He was an Olds guy as far back as he could remember. “Oldsmobile was my favorite car growing up,” he said. “A ’54 Olds was my first car. Then I had a ’60 Super 88 convertible that was my first new car. My dad got it for me when I was 18 years old.

“I hooked up with a Ford dealer in ’62 to sell Fords, and then in ’63 I probably made the biggest mistake of my life — I sold my convertible! My god, I think back to those days and I can’t believe I did that.”

Guidera shutters a bit when he thinks of almost making a similar choice with his Cutlass Supreme. The car wasn’t exactly for sale back in 1989, but it almost changed hands anyway.

“This was back before it was painted. A guy comes into dealership and wanted to buy it … I could have sold it for $3,000,” he said. “I agreed to sell it to him and he comes in a couple days later with bank check for $2,500. I got mad and said, ‘No, it’s 3,000 or nothing.’ He left and I never tried to sell it again.”

Guidera estimates he’s only put between 5,000 and 6,000 miles on his Cutlass Supreme in the past 24 years. A few of those ticks came on the drag strip, however, where his sedan came up short in timed runs against his other pride and joy — a 1969 Vista Cruiser station wagon that he bought new. “There are a couple of race tracks near where I live in New Jersey, and we had it to Englishtown and it did 18.2, 18.3 [seconds] at about 79 miles an hour. The station wagon did 17.9 at 81 miles an hour. That wagon will take the Cutlass, probably by a nose!”

Guidera still takes the Cutlass Supreme on an occasional cruise and heads out for regular summertime joyrides. He has displayed both his wagon and Cutlass Supreme regularly at car shows over the years, and says the affection others have for the cars seems to grow every year.

“My cars, both of them, there are just none of them around, and I like it that way,” he admits. “People come and admire the car and say, ‘We’ve never seen one like this!’

“I’m really into Oldsmobiles. They’ve always been my favorite cars. I’ve got my two cars, and I’m loving it.”

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The post Car of the Week: 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.