Jerry Petraglia
You are looking at a 1969 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. Now this baby was my very first “really nice car” that I purchased used in early 1973. I had first started driving in February, 1968, when at age 17, I paid my parents $50 for my very first car, a 1959 Ford that was my mom’s. I was so excited – it had an AM radio, heater and even had vacuum wipers! (LOL). Of course, it did NOT have power steering, power brakes, nor power windows – things that are pretty much standard on every car now but heck, I had a car – I had freedom!
I then moved up to a 1966 Chevy Caprice, which was my dad’s company car that he had turned in and that I subsequently got a good deal on. I bought the Caprice from his company’s car leasing company in 1969, and I kept it through college.
Upon college graduation in 1972, I entered the workforce and started saving for a “really nice car.” I wanted something snazzy, fast, sporty, etc. and I finally found her – my 1969 Cutlass Supreme with a 4-barrel carb, dual exhaust, power everything, even A/C! I was hot stuff!
In late 1973, I changed jobs and became a medical sales rep for a big Fortune 500 company. Sales reps got company cars! Heck, I didn’t have to pay a dime for the car – no insurance bills, no gas bills, no maintenance and repairs, 2x/month car washes! WOW I thought….. but I would have to give up my “really nice car.”
My medical sales career was off and running but without my “really nice car.” I had a free company car with all the bells and whistles that would get replaced every two years. Imagine that, I thought, a new car every two years! Not bad for a 23 year-old kid, one year out of college. So, as a result, I sold “my really nice car” to my baby sister who used it to commute to college, her job, etc.
One day in early September, 1974, there were some real heavy rainstorms resulting from a residual east coast hurricane that eventually became a “noreaster.” My sister, who was not a very experienced driver at the time, got stuck in the storm and had to park my “really nice car” on a short bridge over a creek in Hackensack, NJ. She had to be picked up by my dad as the waters from the creek were rising, and she was getting scared that she would get stuck inside the car during those downpours.
My dad picked her up and got her home safe and sound, but they had to leave the car and hope for the best. Well, after a few days of torrential rain, the car was half-way underwater and considered totaled as it was completly flooded, wouldn’t start, and the insurance company considered it a complete loss.
This was a sad end to my “really nice car,” but it was fun while it lasted! Oldsmobile was shut down by General Motors years ago and the only relic I have from my “really nice car” is the image you all see.