"Let the [Dodge] Spirit move you" --- again

["Mahoney, John" <JMahoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Are you up on the news?  If you're not "dead" in the White House pressroom or tuned exclusively to Howard Stern (is it funny who wants the FCC to do what -now- when the shoe is on the other foot-in-mouth, as it were?), you know old will be new --- again --- in Geneva.  

Did you think that my AMC List "Valentine" was the Daihatsu D-Compact?

Or did you read it as a "sting" on the return of an old AMC nameplate? 

American motors, or, rather, German-American motors, gets a new B-car!

And its name will be "Hornet."  Here's the buzz. 

http://www.topgear.com/content/news/stories/515/

http://www.mph-online.com/web/prtranslated/00534

http://www.globalautoindex.com/news.plt?no=1379

http://tinyurl.com/b2rlz

(leave it to Motown to give the skimpiest look!)

Too bad it's not as "pretty" [?] as some of the prior Hornets to fly

http://www.graphic-express.com/images/amc_ja7.jpg

http://mclellansautomotive.com/photos/B7119.jpg

http://tinyurl.com/a2qre

http://www.tamsoldracecarsite.net/SrsHudsonleadsPorsche450.jpg

and too bad it doesn't look like another of today's first-look cars.

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/d/103559

Styling like that would be "sharp" for any new Hornet or Hornet AMX.

Too bad it's by another German car company. 


>>
http://www.jstor.org/view/00221821/di974553/97p0130p/0

For the vast majority of us not accessing this site from a University or
library, what's this link all about?
<<

Matt, it's 26 pages from a Princeton dissertation about a 1955 sales war between Ford and Chevy that, as I noted, rang the death knell for S-P in 1958-1966 and, as I also noted, summoned the buglers for the 1987 funeral of AMC.  In the automotive business, market share, volume and profit (or cachet, exclusivity and profit) are the only life and death issues: note many American makes' fate today and prepare to hang crepe tomorrow.  Or don't.  Your call.

If anyone here is -not- familiar with what happened in 1955, learn fast: it was a momentous year in American cars for more reasons than small-block V-8s and two-seat Thunderbirds.  1955 was the 1932 of the post-war era.  And if anyone wants to find the "best buys" in post-war classics, look beyond your bow ties at second-tier '55-'57 metal.

http://www.prn.ee/ajuvant/reklaam/1950/plym55.jpg 
http://www.prn.ee/ajuvant/reklaam/1950/dodge56c.jpg
http://www.prn.ee/ajuvant/reklaam/1950/linc-premiere57.jpg

Don't forget one of the "biggest" buys

http://www.plan59.com/cars/cars106.htm

and don't forget how big isn't forever.

http://www.plan59.com/cars/cars240c.htm

http://www.plan59.com/cars/cars014b.htm

But don't mortgage the "honey-be" farm.

Use care around 1970s Hornet nests.  There may be little "honey" there.  

Dunno who wrote ("ingenius" [sic] and "uniquest cars"?) AMC history at:

http://www.usedcarsplaza.com/autoparts/american_motors.html

but s/he touches on the effect that 1955 sales contest had.  S/he notes that AMC once was big (largest corporate merger America had seen...), s/he notes disagreement regarding what a four-make AMC would have been, and s/he notes that "American Motors Corporation has left little impact on the world ... never effectively managed to compete ... and is now largely forgotten by the general public."  S/he could've noted what an all-out competition to sell Fords and Chevrolets [ultimately] did to the last independents, as well.  And then there were none.

But, if you like taking autos apart --- whether Hornets or history --- and rebuilding them again even better, READ!

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.02/teardown.html

Then WRITE about any of the momentous things involving AMC that took place years ago this very month.  Just DO it!!