Oldsmobile and Hurst built roughly 2,499 examples of the 1979 Hurst/Olds package, wrapping a 350-cubic-inch Rocket V8 and the iconic Dual/Gate shifter inside a gold-over-white paint scheme most Cutlass Supreme buyers never knew was an option. Only 537 of those got the desirable T-top upgrade, making this one of the rarest performance packages Oldsmobile ever quietly slipped into a showroom.
Hurst Comes Back for One Last Round
The Cutlass Supreme was downsized for the fourth generation, beginning in the 1978 model year, as an upscale Cutlass Calias. There is also a high performance Hurst/Olds notchback Supreme available for 1979 which is powered by the 5.7 L (350 cu in) Rocket V8 with the Dual Gate shifter for the Turbo Hydra-matic transmission.
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By 1979, the muscle car era everybody remembers had already been dead for the better part of a decade, strangled by emissions rules and insurance surcharges that made a 350-cubic-inch V8 feel like a luxury nobody could afford to advertise too loudly. So when Oldsmobile and Hurst teamed up one more time to build a genuine performance package out of the newly downsized Cutlass Supreme, they did not shout about it with a big block or a screaming stripe kit. They did it quietly, in gold and white, and built so few that most Cutlass buyers that year never even knew the option existed.
A Genuine Performance Package Hiding in Plain Sight
The 1979 Hurst/Olds package paired Oldsmobile’s 5.7-liter, 350-cubic-inch Rocket V8 with the signature Hurst Dual/Gate shifter, routed through a three-speed Turbo-Hydramatic, wrapped in distinctive gold-over-white paint and gold-trimmed alloy wheels that marked it out from every other Cutlass on the lot. This was not a badge-and-stripe special; it was Hurst’s last real collaboration on the newly downsized fourth-generation Cutlass platform, built on a much tighter 108.1-inch wheelbase and 200.1-inch overall length than the land-yacht Cutlasses of the early ’70s.
Rare Even When It Was New
Only about 2,499 Hurst/Olds packages were built for 1979, and while roughly 537 T-top cars is the number most commonly repeated in Oldsmobile circles, the Hurst/Olds Club of America has since acknowledged that the original color and T-top breakdown for 1979 was never fully documented — so treat that split as a well-worn estimate rather than gospel, even as a genuine T-top Hurst/Olds from this year remains a scarce find either way. Layer the plush Brougham trim on top — floating-pillow style seats, Brougham emblems, fancier door panels, and other extras — and you get a car that looks like a luxury coupe from the outside but hides a genuine factory performance package underneath, exactly the kind of sleeper combination that makes late-’70s Cutlass collectors grin.
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