In over twenty years of vehicle ownership, I’ve tried my hardest to own different vehicles. For the most part, I’ve succeeded, with the exception of an entire Chrysler line of vehicles, the 1977-79 Chevrolet full-size coupes, and G-body Oldsmobile Cutlasses. In fact, the Oldsmobile Cutlass was the first car I owned multiple copies of: my second car was a 1978, then we bought a 1979 parts car, then there was the other 1978 that was family-owned that I narrowly missed acquiring and the 1985-ish car that belonged to an Army buddy that I often was driving around. The G-body Cutlass line for the most part came with upright, classy but unpretentious styling, a reasonable powertrain selection and a nicely optioned interior. No wonder Oldsmobile subsisted off of the nameplate for decades…it was cars like this that sold time and time again.

Now, to be fair, none of my Cutlasses were anything to crow about. My 1978 belched steam clouds, the parts car got picked cleaner than a Thanksgiving turkey, the missed 1978 had rust to deal with and the 1980s car was a beater in every sense of the word…reliable, but seriously worn just the same. But even still, I always look at these cars as the best choice of their era. Then Miami’s own Captain Honesty comes along and gets his hand on one of the first of the downsized G-cars for his own testing. He skewered the Fox Mustang, he demolished the Fiat Strada…but how did he like the Cutlass?