HUSKER

hello everybody..Im trying to get the history on my 76 salon, if anybody can tell me where to go to get stuff like build sheet,how many were built ect..please let me know.it would be greatly appreciated..this has been a very nice site and everybody has been friendly end helpful....thankyou

jaunty75

You're one year too early. The Olds History Center has selling dealer info, original sales invoice, and stuff like that for 1977 and later models. For 1976 and earlier, no such luck. You're on your own, and there's no central repository of information like this. We all wish there was.

As far as the build sheet, if it's there at all, it's in the car somewhere. There was no policy that build sheets be left in cars during the assembly process, so some cars have them and some don't. The most common places I've heard for them to be found is up in the springs under the front or rear seat or taped to the top of the gas tank, which makes it very hard to get to. Others have reported finding them under the carpet or inside a door. In most cases, people seem to find them when they've disassembled the car for some other purpose.

As far as production, there were 7,921 Cutlass Salon Colonnade Hardtop Sedans and 48,440 Hardtop Coupes made in 1976.

There were also Cutlass S's, Cutlass Supremes, and Cutlass Supreme Broughams, some with and some without the "Colonnade" name, made that year. By far the most popular was the Cutlass Supreme Hardtop Coupe, of which 186,647 were made. In total, about 477,000 Cutlasses of one type or another were made that year out of almost 900,000 total Oldsmobiles.

1976 was approaching the peak years of Oldsmobile production. Oldsmobile produced over 1 million cars in each of 1977, 1978, and 1979, and your year, 1976, was no slouch, either, with production getting close to 1 million.

Those were Oldsmobile's glory years as production reached 1 million per year for the first time, and the Cutlass was the most popular car in America. Olds would reach even greater heights in 1984, 1985, and 1986, with sales appoaching 1.2 million each year. Production then declined steadily and rapidly into the late '80s and '90, falling to less than 400,000 by 1996. It reached zero in 2005.

Other info about your car is that the base price of the sedan version was $4,965 and for the coupe version was $4,890. The base engine in these cars was the 260 V8 with 110 hp. Optional engines were the 350 with 170 hp or the 455 with 190 hp.

The coupe version of your car had a wheelbase of 112 inches, was 211.7 inches long, and weighed 3,968 lbs. For the sedan, these figures are 116 inches, 215.7 inches, and 3,799 lbs, respectively.

HUSKER

Thank you for your reply jaunty. seems like that is what I hear everywhere
I look. Oh well,I will keep looking..

jaunty75

Do you mean the build sheet? Is there any chance that it might already have been found by a previous owner? One of the things that would make me hesitate to go digging through the car looking for it would be if the car had had a number owners, any one of whom might have found the build sheet. It's possible that it was found once and then it didn't make it to later owners for whatever reason.

On the other hand, if you bought it from the original or maybe second owner and have reason to believe that all the paperwork ever existing for the car came with it, and the build sheet isn't among that paperwork, I would say that there's a good chance it's still in the car somewhere. Also, if you know for a fact that the car is in pretty much original condition and hasn't been extensively restored, then it's likely that it hasn't been taken apart enough for the build sheet to be found. But you really just never know!

joe_padavano

That's what you hear everywhere because it's the truth. I'm not sure what you plan to keep looking for. Unless the car was built or originally sold in Canada, the records simply do not exist prior to 1977 and are not available anywhere.

HUSKER

Thank you to all who responded..Im the second owner and bought the car in 1979.I drove it for a long time and I knew what I had so I kept it in great shape.Im about to restore it complete and I know for fact that it is all original and has never been taken apart.I even have to gen 1 tops..just thought it would be nice to have all the facts on the car..when Im done with it I will post pics....promise...again thank you for your info...

jaunty75

Then I would say the odds are pretty high that, if the build sheet exists at all, it's still in the car somewhere. Good luck.

coltsneckbob

I was at the Olds Nationals in Mass a few weeks ago and I asked several folks about where build sheets might be hidden. One place was mentioned that I had never thought of and that was inside the front seat's seat back. I was told this was particularly a favorite spot for A body cars like Cutlass/442.

It is interesting why/how these sheets wind up all over the place. Hazarding a guess I would think that the sheet was considered garbage after the car was complete. Rather than throw out the paper (and amassing a large pile) I think the assembly line worker who installed one of the final parts (or near to final part) into the car just simply hid it in the car. This would support the reason for finding it under the rear seat and carpets so often.

jaunty75

Build sheets were never meant to be delivered to the final purchaser. They simply traveled along with the car as it went down the assembly line so the workers would know what to install on that particular car as it went by their area.

I took a tour of the Lansing assembly plant when I attended the Oldsmobile Centennial in 1997, and we could see the build sheets taped almost anywhere on the partially assembled car as it hung from the assembly line so that it was in easy view of the workers as the car went by. But what happened to those sheets at the end of the line was completely arbitrary. Some got thrown away, some were left on the car, some were untaped and tossed into the car somewhere. I asked someone about them, and he thought it odd that anyone would want them as they're all in code. But I told him that people can decode those codes and that having the sheet was another piece of history about the car and helped the restorer know what options the car originally came with.

But the bottom line is that there is no rhyme or reason to where they can be found, and not all cars ended up with one.

TK-65

If your Olds was built in a plant other than Lansing Assembly you may find a build sheet. Lansing sheets just do not exist. The workers were instructed to remove all paperwork from the car before it left the plant. Plants like Fremont did not, and there are examples of build sheets from there. Only paperwork found in Lansing cars are broadcast cards, and they came from Fisher Body.

A buildsheet wasnt for the purchaser, they were used to build the cars and were supposed to be thrown away.