Were I to create an image which celebrated two of the dumbest things I’ve ever done, it might look like this: A picture of me on the phone telling a girl named Cathy that I couldn’t go out with here because I was “taken,” (turns out I wasn’t), while I was holding a stock certificate for an upstart medical-device maker called Quantech. Long story short: Cathy had fun that summer, I did not, and Quantech tanked faster than a lead-wrapped alewife tossed off the end of Navy Pier.
1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon
Now, this tribute to bad mistakes would have been created after the fact. But, what if, say, General Motors division Oldsmobile were to accidentally celebrate two if its greatest bonehead moves in advance of knowing how awful things were going to turn out?
Well, Olds did, and this ad is a testament to that abject failure.
The Ad
Aeroback
Seen here is a magazine ad for the 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon which celebrates two tragic General Motors missteps: The “Aeroback” fastback body style, and the deeply flawed GM diesel engines of the late Seventies and early Eighties.
In a nutshell, when GM redesigned and downsized its midsize “A-Body” cars (Buick Century, Chevrolet Malibu, Pontiac LeMans, and Oldsmobile Cutlass) for 1978, company designers elected to treat Buick and Olds coupes and sedans to the Aeroback treatment. The fastback design was meant to evoke a degree of European sophistication to a lineup of otherwise formal-looking models. Also, as automotive aerodynamics had become a topic of discussion in period buff books, and the rakish GMs seemed—sort of—cutting edge.
Now, if you feel the car pictured looks a little awkward, you are not along. The Aeroback look proved to be incredibly unpopular, tanking sales to a shocking degree. You can read all about the sales impact of the Aeroback cars here. But, suffice it say, the design move was an unmitigated disaster.
Oldsmobile Diesel
It’s possible that we’re far enough past GM’s first large-scale experiment with retail-level diesel implementation that not everyone knows the story, but understand that The General poisoned the diesel waters for itself and other carmakers for years to come.
In short, GM’s diesel engines, rushed to market as a response to public demand for better fuel economy—and arriving just in time for the 1979 Energy Crisis—were expensive engine options, ran like crap, and proved to be incredibly unreliable.
One problem was the use of undersized head bolts in the engines, the other was the lack of a proper filter/water separator in the fuel system. The first issue led to complete engine failures, while the latter fuel-pump failures. Something of a self own, GM’s diesel cars drove up demand for diesel fuel. As a result, the quality of diesel fuel available nationally suffered, and GM’s diesel-powered cars, unequipped with proper fuel filtration, suffered from fuel-pump and fuel-injector failures.
And, making this ad additionally ironic, the version of GM’s problematic diesel engine used in the Cutlass Salon was offered for just one model year, and only in GM’s midsize cars.
Rare Cutlass
Also of interest, if only for its obscurity, the ad notes the availability of a 5-speed manual transmission in the Cutlass. Should you ever encounter a Cutlass Salon Aeroback equipped with the self shifter, take some pleasure in the car’s incredible rarity. Note that that rarity is no indication of value.
I’d like to think that the brass at GM have a sense of humor about things like this, and that a giant, poster-size, print of this ad hangs in the C-suite main conference room. And, maybe now, you feel a little better about the two biggest mistakes you ever made at the same time. Odds are, GM has you beat.
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1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon Pictures
(Click below for enlarged images)
