The Oldsmobile Cutlass is a line of automobile

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

s made by the Oldsmobile

Oldsmobile

Oldsmobile was a brand of American automobile produced for most of its existence by General Motors. It was founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897. In its 107-year history, it produced 35.2 million cars, including at least 14 million built at its Lansing, Michigan factory...

 division of General Motors

General Motors

General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

. The Cutlass began as a unibody compact car

Compact car

A compact car , or small family car , is a classification of cars which are larger than a supermini but smaller than or equal to a mid-size car...

, but saw its greatest success as a body-on-frame

Body-on-frame

Body-on-frame is an automobile construction method. Mounting a separate body to a rigid frame that supports the drivetrain was the original method of building automobiles, and its use continues to this day. The original frames were made of wood , but steel ladder frames became common in the 1930s...

 intermediate car.

Introduced in 1961 as the top trim level in Olds' compact F-85 line, over the years the Cutlass name accumulated great brand equity

Brand equity

Brand equity is the marketing effects and outcomes that accrue to a product with its brand name compared with those that would accrue if the same product did not have the brand name. Fact of the well-known brand name is that, the company can sometimes charge premium prices from the consumer . And,...

, and became one of the most popular nameplate

Nameplate

A nameplate identifies and displays a person or product's name. Name plates are usually shaped as rectangles but are also seen in other shapes, sometimes taking on the shape of someone’s name...

s in the industry in the 1970s. By the 1980s, Oldsmobile was using the Cutlass as a sub-marque, with a number of different vehicle lines bearing the name simultaneously.