FIFTY YEARS AGO, IMPORTS WERE FIRMLY ESTABLISHED in the U.S. market. Not just sports cars and VW Beetles, but even at the luxury end of the market. In February 1973, R&T had comparison-tested three of these, the BMW Bavaria, the Jaguar XJ6, and the Mercedes-Benz 280. Capable sports sedans all, their average as-tested price was $8550; figure around $61,000 in today’s dollar.
GM had responded with three suitably optioned mid-size sedans, the Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon, and Pontiac Grand Am. The Olds (R&T called it the “most European” of trio) was $5560 price-as-tested, a 35-percent discount on the foreigners.
Thus, R&T’s obvious question: “Just how much like a European sedan is it?” Here are tidbits from the magazine’s April 1973 issue.
This and following images from R&T, April 1973.
Styling Moderate; Size Not. “If the Cutlass styling is moderate,” R&T wrote, “its size is not. It’s nearly 18 ft long and weighs well over two tons—that makes it some 2 ft longer than the cars it supposedly emulates.”
R&T conceded, “The car does, however, lay several ideas and features from the continent over what a traditional, volume-produced U.S. full-size sedan (yes, full-size; 213 in. is full-size). It has manual adjusters for the front seats, a column-mounted dimmer switch [not the traditional floor button] and really good outward vision, and underneath there are radial tires, disc front brakes (virtually standard on domestic cars now anyway) and suspension that attempts to combine a good ride with respectable handling.”
Accommodations. R&T wrote, “We usually find domestic sedans sadly lacking in driver comfort… because the seats are too soft, don’t support one well enough for a long trip without fatigue and force one into a bolt-upright seating position. The Salon breaks the pattern with firm, astutely contoured front seats and adjustable backrests. They are the best seats in a U.S. car to date….”
The magazine was less impressed by GM’s separate shoulder and lap belts: “One has to be an absolute belt addict to put up with its tendency to swivel on the main buckle and get twisted. Such a belt meets the letter of the law but not the spirit.”
“The back seat,” R&T noted, “is roomy and can carry three adults in reasonable comfort—as it well should in so large a car. The trunk isn’t commensurately capacious: though it looks large its shape is awkward and it holds only about 14 cu ft of box volumes—more than the Jaguar XJ carries but less than the Mercedes 280.”
American Pluses. “Two items relating to the Salon’s interior,” R&T recounted, “are typically American and typically excellent: the heating-ventilation-air-conditioning system and the FM stereo/AM radio.”
I can recall well into my days at R&T (starting in 1979) that this superiority continued.
The Salon’s (optional) outside thermometer.
The oddity of an optional outside thermometer, positioned just below the left exterior mirror, was “fun to watch,” R&T noted. Though earlier it had already cited “a list of minor options that only a U.S. car salesman could read with a straight face.
European Behavior? The magazine had high hopes for the Salon’s over-the-road handling and brakes. “We were disappointed,” R&T wrote. “The Salon’s ‘handling package,’ as they say in Detroit, is a middling one, not so stiff as that of the Cutlass S but stiffer than the standard Cutlass system and possessing a real anti-roll bar the standard car doesn’t have.”
The magazine’s analysis continued: “The Salon’s ride is disturbing: too much like that of the U.S. sedan of old…. What the Salon does is to float badly over gentle undulations at moderate to high speeds—enough, we think, to give some people motion sickness—and bottom quite easily on large bumps and dips.”
Though not cited in the text, the data panel’s single handling evaluation in those days was a skidpad posting of 0.671, in comparison to the BMW’s 0.702, the Jaguar’s 0.737, and the Mercedes’ 0.679. (Slalom evaluations were yet to come).
“Brakes are another failing,” R&T discovered. “The disc/drum combination gave the (measured) sign of extreme fade in our 6-stop test with pedal effort almost tripling, and they were very slow to recover from the test.”
Operating That Pedal on the Right. R&T observed, “Our test car had… the standard 5.7-liter, 180-bhp V-8 engine with GM’s responsive Turbo Hydro-Matic transmission, thus putting it in the same class of power and weight (10 bhp less, 300 lb more) as the $13,000 Mercedes 450SE.”
The Europeans (considerably less pricey than the 450SE) , as tested R&T, February 1973.
The Salon was in good company with the Bavarian, XJ6, and Mercedes 280. I suspect part of its thirstier nature might be attributed to “normal driving” versus the comparison’s “test trip” conditions.
Summary. “Is the Cutlass Salon much like an expensive European touring sedan, then? No. But neither does it cost as much…. The Cutlass Salon is pretty, comfortable, a lot of car for the money and thoroughly American.” ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2023