I haven’t seen an Emerald Green 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass in a long time, maybe decades. We see a lot of green cars from the 1970s here at Barn Finds but this one stands out. This Cutlass can be found here on craigslist in Naperville, Illinois with an asking price of $4,300. Thanks to Eric P. for sending in this tip!
This Cutlass isn’t just a nice shade of 1970s green it has just 42,316 miles on it, according to the seller. It isn’t as perfect as the first photo may have looked, there is a bit of rust around the rear wheels and they say that the Emerald Green paint is below average. I’m not sure about that, for a 46-year old car, it looks pretty nice in the paint department to me. This car has a new windshield and they say that there is no door sag which is great for such an old car with such heavy doors. Hagerty is at $6,000 for a #4 fair condition 1973 Olds Cutlass with a 350 so this could be a nice buy.
It appears to have been jacked up a bit in the rear as per the legal requirements for any two-door rear-wheel-drive car that was owned by a teenager in the 1970s or 80s. The exhaust pokes out pretty visibly from the rear and that’s another thing that I would personally redo, along with the ride height. That’s just my personal preference for a more factory look. The trunk looks great with more than enough room for a couple of people to hide in when you take this car to the drive-in, if there are any drive-ins in your area?
1973 was the first year for the fourth-generation Cutlass and for what I’m assuming is an Illinois car, and one that’s 43 years old, I’m surprised at how nice it looks from the photos. I’d want to check it out in person or have someone locally inspect it. There is just the one interior photo above, unfortunately, but it looks great. The driver’s side of the front bench seat is a no-brainer to fix. There are no engine photos but it has an Oldsmobile Rocket 350 cubic-inch V8, Turbo HydraMatic 350 automatic transmission, headers, and a performance cam. Any thoughts on this green machine?
Seems like there was cutlass’s like this in every driveway back in the 70’s. But I don’t think I ever saw one in this color.
A neighbor had a brown and tan top/interior 73 Cutlass supreme back when they were new
Always loved this body style, and it seems like Oldsmobile made a million of these cars because they were literally everywhere back in the day. Great color, great car for a show, and a sure fire winner for just about everyone who sees it to say, “I had one of those” ! or “my parents had one of those !” RIP Olds…
When this car was new there were 3 drive-ins within a 20 minute drive of my house, with a total of 6 screens. Today there are all subdivisions with detached single family homes.
Yup, I had one within 4 miles, spent a whole lot of time there in the early 80’s. Now it’s an empty Walmart because they built a bigger one down the street. There’s still one about 20-25 miles away and my girl and I spend one night out there. I miss them a whole lot !
I’m crazy about almost anything that’s green-on-green, so I’d be driving the heck out of it while doing the work on it.
The reason why the doors on GM products of that era is that there is a “Steel Side-Guard Beam” inside it, practically a piece of highway guardrail!
I saw a collision between one of these and a Dodge pickup in 1975. The Dodge broadsided the Olds and left on a hook, the radiator against the fan. The Olds had broken passenger side glass but zero intrusion into the passenger compartment.
I had a ’73 4-door that my dad passed down to us kids. He traded in his ’70 Cutlass Supreme for it. Between the extra 500# this generation A-body had versus the ’68-’72s and the new emissions regulations, they were slugs. I kept it a couple of years and then sold it to buy another ’70 Supreme for myself…what a difference.
Never thought about that Dave, but you’re undoubtedly right. I pulled out of a parking lot with my ’74 and was absolutely pummeled, T-Bone style by a car going probably 35-40 mph. I didn’t have my lights on at the time, though I am not sure how relevant that was in this type of collision. And the girl who hit me was drunk, so there is that (it was ruled to be her fault). But I drove my Cutlass home. That said, it was a pretty wretched car nonetheless. Poor handling, braking, steering, and fuel economy. Power? Yeah like a gnat sneeze. Nice looking car though, I’ll cite that.
This brings back memories of my emerald green with white stripes and swivel bucket seat 73 442 amd my emerald green with white interior 73 Grand Am. Two of many i wish i would h ave kept.
Friend of mine had a 73 Triple black, it was a Supreme, had the smaller roof windows, nice car, loaded w options, ran great, it was 5 yrs old when he got it, during our Disco Days, great memories
I raced a ’74 Cutlass Supreme in a stock class in the 1990s. I won a few races with it ,but I finished a close second to this big ’76 Monte so many times it drove me crazy ! Years later I met up with the driver and he asked what I had in the car -When I told him the motor and trans were bone stock , he laughed – he had a 30 over 350 race motor in his car ! I didn’t feel so bad about being second after that.
I’m in the minority , but I always liked the Colonade bodies on the GM cars , and the 1973s had the cleanest looks due to the smaller bumpers.
Beautiful car
Nice ride. I would be all over it except that I already have one thirsty vehicle. Yes, some repairs need to be attended to. But, I really like it. Oh, boy! Don’t I wish!!
Are we back to every five digit odometer car claiming it has never turned over?
This is the best looking Collonade I’ve seen. Great colours. Tuck the bumpers and the looks are sorted.