I guess I'm the only one who thought it was funny. I liked it. I grew up driving them like some other people here, and oddly enough both the cutlasses I drove and all the ones I cut up and sent across the scales were some version of Brown or tan. Yes, the 260 in my first one was indestructible. Literally. I tried. It also used so much oil I looked like James Bond trying to shake a tail. I ran anything slippery in the crankcase. Anything. I worked at an auto parts store and whatever was on the leaker pallet went down it's insatiable gullet. Trans fluid to gear lube. I overheated it a half dozen times minimum. Couldn't afford a new radiator so when it got low.... Then I got a used V6 radiator. It held water, just not enough. I drove that thing to the junkyard because I couldn't afford the tickets from the tailpipe smoke. The gas cap is on my GP today 30 years later.
All that aside, there was nothing special about it or any of the others. From strippers to loaded down. They were slow, thirsty but somehow glorious. That first Cutlass cemented my love affair with G bodies before I even was a car guy. While all my friends were building fox Mustangs and second gen Camaros I was swapping a 400 Pontiac into a mint grandma owned 79 Cutlass. It was the first car I built and the first motor. I did almost nothing right but loved every second. After innumerable cars in the intervening years and 16 in my garage right now. My 78 GP is probably my favorite with it's bone stock 301. I have faster cars, I have prettier cars but my GP makes me smile every time. The Gbody has a magic and Cutlass just had a little more. If I found a clean enough one today I'd probably recreate my first car without the mistakes because, well Cutlass.
So, I thought the article was funny. I thought it was accurate. But you will pry the shifter of my G Body from my cold dead hands and I owe it all to A POS Cutlass that wouldn't die.