By 1972 the lights were going out on the Muscle Car Era. Surging insurance rates were causing manufacturers to downplay power, and now Detroit manufacturers were advertising everything in SAE net horsepower anyway. Emissions controls had gotten stricter and compression ratios had dropped across the board.
The 442 was no longer a separate model, as it had briefly been, but an optional trim level of the Cutlass and Cutlass S coupes or the Cutlass Supreme convertible. So, to be absolutely technical, the car in these photos is a 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Convertible 442, but nobody would call it that.
The 442 could be had with the L32 Rocket 350 V-8 with a two-barrel carburetor or the L34 four-barrel Rocket 350 V-8. On the menu were also the L75 Rocket 455 V-8, with a four-barrel carburetor and dual exhausts, and... if you ordered the top of the line W-30 performance package ...the L77 Rocket 455.
1972 would be the last year for the W-30 and its snarling 300hp L77 455. The package was not available with air conditioning and came with a mandatory limited-slip diff with a 3.42:1 ratio (3.73:1 was optional.) Oldsmobile made it plain that the high performance motor, with its special alloy intake manifold, heavy duty cooling system, would not be able to match the forthcoming emissions controls in 1973.
In a sign of the times, Oldsmobile brochures for '72 didn't even mention power outputs at all (in '71 they only gave torque figures and no horsepower numbers) and dedicated a page in the full line catalog to how safe and low-emission the new Oldsmobiles for 1972 were.
The twin pipes on this one suggest it's got the optional L75 455.
Hi-Performance Cars Magazine tested a 1972 Cutlass 442 coupe with the W-30 package and pronounced it a shadow of its former self. Even so, the torquey big block meant it needed to be babied off the line lest everything end up in a cloud of tire smoke. At Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ, zero-to-sixty was accomplished in 7.1 seconds, with the quarter mile taking 14.4 seconds at 98 mph. The 3.42 rear gears meant the fun ran out at a buck fifteen. Price of the test car was $5,255, or about $40,600 in current dollars. That was a 60% price increase over the base $3,087 Cutlass coupe.
The one in the photos was snapped in June of 2025 using a Sony a700 and a 16-80mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom lens.
No comments:
Post a Comment