1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme SX Barn Find! 455 Rare SX!

1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cutlass Supreme Description

1970 OldsmobileCutlass Supreme SXAmazing Barn Find!455 V8Texas Car77,312 miles!
Looking for a rare muscle car that you can drive while you work to make it just the way you like it? Here you go! This amazing 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme SX was purchased from San Antonio, Texas in 2004. It has been in dry storage since then, covering only about 300 miles in the last 15 years. This SX was built in California. It has the L-33 455 powerplant that produces 320 horsepower! This Cutlass starts easily without any smoke or abnormal noises. The 455 sounds healthy and strong! The transmission seals may need replacing--it leaks transmission fluid. It's possible that with routine driving the seals may expand and cause the transmission fluid leak to decrease, but it may just need new seals in the transmission. This could be driven home if you live in the region (bring extra Dexron), but trailering or shipping for longer transport is recommended. The Olds has air conditioning that is currently inoperable, but the compressor is there. The car has most of the original equipment with a few exceptions. The steering wheel is after market, as is the radio. The horn is inoperable. The original owner's manual and several receipts from Texas are included. The headliner and dome light need replacing. The seats are in great shape for the year! Tires look a little dated and dry, but the rims appear to be the originals. The SX rear bumper is unique with the cut outs for the dual exhaust--which sounds fantastic, by the way. The car has had one respray in the original Aztec Brown. Several areas have bubbled up where some filler is probably present, but overall the body is in way above average condition. The paint under the trunk is original. A non-original power antenna has been installed in the rear passenger quarter. After market speakers are present in the rear window deck. All glass appears good. Please only place a bid on this rare Oldsmobile if you are serious and have the money. A $200 deposit is due through PayPal within 24 hours. Full payment is due within one week through bank wire or cash only at pick up. I would be happy to work with your shipper. Questions? Send them my way through the eBay message system. Here's some Cutlass Supreme SX info. that might be of interest:

In 1970, Oldsmobile blew one right past the insurance industry by stuffing its torque-monster 455-cu.in. V-8 into a Cutlass Supreme SX. By not giving it a unique VIN, new car buyers in 1970 and 1971 avoided paying increasingly high insurance premiums. And in stark contrast to the budget muscle cars, the SX went full-zoot with plush, comfortable interiors, air conditioning and power assist for just about everything.

Built only in 1970 and 1971, the Cutlass Supreme SX offered muscle car power, without air-induction hoods and body stripes. Hinting at performance were the chrome exhaust trumpets through cutouts in the rear bumper (ala 4-4-2), but they were about the only sign of the iron being pumped under the flat hood.

About the only other outward signs of an SX are the emblems on the front fenders under the “Cutlass” script, and front fender braces on hardtops (the braces were deleted on convertibles).

When the Cutlass Supreme SX debuted, its buyer had a choice between the standard engine, L33 in late 1969 until February and March 1970, and the optional L32. Mid year, the L31 engine replaced the L33, which is the same engine available in the Delta 88 that year. The L33 455 had 320hp, a two-barrel carburetor and was dubbed the “turnpike cruiser.” With 500-lbs.ft. of torque, and a 10.25:1 compression ratio, it was an axle-twister and would be one of the last of the real killer big-bore V-8s.

There was one optional engine offered during the entire 1970 model year on the Cutlass Supreme SX: the W-32, which gave a buyer the 455, also with 500-lbs.ft. of torque. Like the more powerful W-32, the L31 had 365hp, but it had more docile characteristics, such as smaller intake valves (2.00 inches in contrast to 2.072) and a turnpike-like standard gearing at 2.56:1. All engines used “E” cylinder heads.

In 1971, only engine code L32 could be ordered, the 455 V-8 with 320hp, 8.5:1 compression and 460-lbs.ft. of torque at 2,800 rpm.

All SXs used the Turbo Hydra-Matic 400 transmission, mandatory with the Y-79 Performance Package-manual transmissions were not available. The standard Turbo Hydra-Matic 400 carried an OD code. For the W-32, the Turbo 400 had an OG code designating a transmission with firmer shifts. If a console wasn’t ordered, the SX had a column shifter. The standard SX rear gear was an ultra-tall 2.56:1, but ordering the W-32 also bought a 3.08:1 rear end.

Total production numbers were low, with 9,374 hardtops and convertibles built. The rarest Cutlass Supreme SX was a 1971 convertible; just 357 were made. Our featured SX addict is Bob Peters, 41, of Las Vegas, Nevada. He talks enthusiastically about the cars he loves and actually owns two 1970 SX cars, one blue, the other brown. He got his first as a 40th birthday gift from his wife, Billie Jo, in late 2003. Peters became so fascinated with the car that he re-started the SX 455 Registry, which had been in Rhode Island, but abandoned for four years by Robert Barry, who no longer maintained the site. Peters contacted Barry in April 2004, and got his blessing to create a new site. In July 2004, SX455.com was launched and, to date, there are only about 30 members, but he is registering cars free and has about 150 in the database.

“This is the car that took the place of the 4-4-2 if you didn’t want all the performance goodies. It was a luxury and gentleman’s hot rod rolled into one,” Peters said.

One of the biggest tip-offs to a fake SX is that those cloning a car place the “SX” emblem in the wrong spot. A correctly located “SX” emblem has its left edge directly under the second “s” in Cutlass, not centered, Peters said. Some SX owners report an “X” in yellow grease pencil on their car’s firewalls. Initial research shows that cars going down the assembly line had this mark, but has been proven only on a handful of cars.

Sure, the prospect of driving what amounts to a 4-4-2 for more reasonable money sounds enticing, but the proof is in the driving. Inside feels more spacious than a comparable Dodge Charger, despite the two being comparably-sized mid-size platforms. Shut the door with a solid thunk: nothing tinny happening here.

Take stock, and you wonder if this is really a HMM kind of car. It’s plush, it has faux wood on the interior, A/C, tachometer, comfy bucket seats, console and floor shift… nothing terribly sporting going on here, but it is luxurious. This would look at home in something from the post-muscle, “personal-luxury” era of Cutlass. Even when you hit the key, and the idle settles into a low rumble, there’s nothing to tip its hand that there’s fun to be had. Stealthy. Nice.

Drop the chrome lever down into D and start to roll, though, and you quickly realize that the game is afoot. The 455 has enough luxury accoutrements to haul around that it’s not going to be at its absolute screaming 4-4-2 W-30 best, but you can float off on a wave of torque that you can control. Press the gas like there’s an egg between your foot and the pedal and takeoff is effortless and smooth-the sort of acceleration that wouldn’t startle your elderly aunt as you drive to lunch on Sunday. Give it the boot and you’ll chirp the tires (briefly, especially if you power-brake slightly) and get going with the kind of grunt you expect from a muscle car-the sort of move that would have your aunt screaming for you to stop and whacking you on the head with her purse. A slightly steeper gear would get things moving more quickly, but would also alter the slightly soft character of the rest of the car. Still, all the sound deadening in the world won’t quell the throaty, guttural aggression coming out of those pipes at full chat.

The ride is that perfect alchemy of sport and comfort. It’s smooth but isn’t seasick floaty and it provides surprising stick in the turns for something this big and heavy-though no one will mistake it for a Corvette. Steering has minimal slop, turn in is predictable and the power steering even allows a modicum of feel to be transmitted through the column. The front end will lift in corners if pressed even slightly (anyone who’s watched a stock A-body mid-turn, with its tortured inside-wheel, front-end geometry in play, will marvel that it doesn’t simply tip over), but inside the car it feels like you’re hunkering down into the turn. Do brace yourself with your leg, however, as the bucket seat will offer no assistance in keeping you upright.

What shines through most in a spin behind the wheel of the Cutlass Supreme SX is just how right GM had things in the early 1970s. They were on top of the world, and cars like this were the reason why (kinda makes you wonder just what happened since).

The SX, and the Cutlass in general, proves itself to be the quintessential American car of the ’70s, although it took half a decade after the SX for America to launch it into the stratosphere as America’s best selling car.