Oldsmobile 442 Sweetness

By Mark Weisseg

Should we go over the 442 again? The four barrel carb, the four speed, and the two dual exhaust. However, not all 442 cars came with those exact items, but the car was still called a Oldsmobile Cutlass 442.
This one is cool in that it is a convertible. Now, before everyone gets all wound up, back in the day the Cutlass was no big deal. Sort of family car. You could buy one with a 305 or 350. Yawn and double yawn. But, some saw through this boredom and opted for Momma’s big engines such as the 455.
That monster had a different hood, different suspension and interior and if you had one, everyone on the street knew it. Just like today, if you have one you would never drive it in the rain and you would treat it better than your first born. They even had a Hurst edition that was white and oh Lordy, that was special.

The Cutlass and the 442 stayed around quite some time but, as the mid seventies came along, the boredom set in.
I can recall a ’77 Cutlass at the time as many were sold.
I drove and repaired them and they were bland. But, it got worse as time went on as the car got smaller and the engine got smaller. Then, the later 442 was a joke. To put that 442 label on the late seventies early eighties cars was laughable. GM was throwing darts at an empty board and the cars sales were tumbling quickly.
You could not even compare or recognize the two cars at one point. But, the Cutlass in this picture is now a classic. It does not have the fire breathing engine but, not everyone wants a monster engine under the hood. I do but, some are happy with standard engines.
This classic Cutlass was a great car for quite some time before government regulations and lazy engineers let the car industry go into boring mode. That is why we desire the cars from the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s because they were special, of a special time, and it was before the boring cars of the 80’s and 90’s.

Essentially, as time goes by, all these cars that come from the muscle car period, all become special and collectible.

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