Welcome. Pastel Beige 86 Salons with Light Saddle vinyl tops don't grow on trees anymore. They used to. That, along with the light metallic blue with dark blue tops...they seemed to be everywhere. The problem is that a nearly 40 year-old car won't just appear out of nowhere. You'll need to dig under every rock and short of looking in everyone's garage, you'll have to hope on some luck or someone knows someone who has a beige/saddle 86 Salon. Salons were NOT a huge seller. They cost more initially, so many people bought the "cheaper" Cutlass Supreme. Because then, they didn't know. The economic times were different in the 80s as well. If you lived them, no explanation necessary. If you didn't, well, buckle up, you're just now starting to get a taste of it now.
On the fortunately side, they made nearly 150,000 2-door Cutlass models in 1986 alone. So even by attrition rates being what they are, several have survived over time by luck or by choice. Of course, the U.S. models had a larger share of the market back then, PLUS- (and people tend to forget this) we were just starting to come out of the LAST major economic kerfuffle of nearly 40 years ago. So if interest rates were down (even people with good credit was paying >10% interest on car loans), and more people had jobs, they probably would have sold 250,000 2-door Cutlasses. The world may never know.
On the unfortunate side, as with any other "non-collectible" model, not many people went out of their way to save one of 5,335 Cutlass Salons made in 1986 (not counting the 4,273 442s based on the Salon). Also, being made how they were, they seem to dissolve in water. Not quite, but the quality of the builds for all 80s cars wasn't what I would call Job 1. Add a little salt to the mix as in winter road slush in most of the norther states, and they'd give an Alka-Seltzer tablet a run for their money in which could dissapear in water the fastest. Our beloved G-bodies were part of the "slap it together and get it out the door" mantra most car makers saw back then. Mass produced. What can you say?
There was also the dumb Cash for Clunkers (CFC) program of 2009 which ate some cars. Not sure how many cars died this way, but it was more than half a million. Never did much research on it. Basically, if it was 1984 or newer, you could get up to $4500 toward a newer, more fuel efficient car. The catch was they had to RUIN the engine.
I got curious and just now started looking at the CFC 2009 data. Hmmm. After looking at the spreadsheets, it seemed to spare many of our own G-bodies. I thought it would be more. Who knew?
Out of the 84-88 G-bodies destroyed by the cash for clunkers program of 2009 (pre-84s were spared), I gathered this unofficial tally:
120 Regals
34 Caballeros
202 El Caminos
238 Monte Carlos
8 Cutlass Cruisers
421 Cutlass Supremes
60 Pontiac Grand Prix
70 Pontiac Bonnevilles
TOTAL known G-bodies destroyed in CFC 2009 program:
1,153 (36.5% were Cutlass)
In contrast, this is just a tad more than the 92-96 Roadmasters (non-wagons) that lost their lives that way alone. 967 NON-wagon Buick Roadmasters were killed!!!
As a percentage of ALL cars smooshed in the program... G-bodies were less than a quarter percent!!!
Known G-bodies were a total was only 0.173% of the 677,081 cars destroyed during that campaign.
Also, there was this (May be G bodies, may not be):
4 84-85 UNLISTED Oldsmobile models
1 85 UNLISTED GMC model
26 84-87 UNLISTED Chevrolet models
Check my math from the spreadsheet-
Dug up from an archive of a defunct government website, this document shows every single car that Cash For Clunkers destroyed.
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