[AMC-List] Curious ducks

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

>>
Just out of curiosity do you own or drive an AMC/Rambler? Just curious?
I work on or drive one of the 2 I own 5-7 day's a week.
<<

By now, I thought everyone would be so sick of Mahony's [sic] car count that they'd rather swap an Oldsmobile 350 diesel into their Donahues [sic] than be subjected to -that- kind of AMC history ever again.  Duck, Doc!

Of seven AMCs he's owned ('67 Ambassador DPL convertible, '68 Rebel 550 convertible, '69 AMX [BBG], '71 Ambassador Brougham wagon, '75 Matador Brougham [Cassini], '79 Spirit DL liftback and '83 Eagle [Sport] wagon, he still has the '71 [36,000 miles] and '79 [19,000 miles: both still in storage, both in exactly the same position [Spirit to right of Amboat] since they were adopted.  They've always been "babied beauties" as it were, and were AMC a lot more like certain GM or Mopar brands, they'd be deemed "HPOF pattern cars" for they're as near-to-original, fully-documented, and, yes, -beautiful- examples of the way-AMC-really-was to be found.  He doesn't work on, drive, and even sit in or gaze on them now 'cause he's been too busy doing too many other things (some of them involving other old cars) to treat both with the respect they deserve.  One, he ordered on a cold February day and five weeks later, he put 27.9-cent gasoline into it, and drove it happily home.  The other, !
 he ordered in an early May heat wave, and put "free air conditioning" on high six weeks before he drove that car home.  Gas was over 50 cents [!] then.  He kept wagon rolling and hauling until November of '84; he kept Spirit alive and willing until September of '93.  He then kept AMC interest up (and down and up and down again...) vicariously.  He kept waiting for AMC to become more unified, more national, more local, and more historical.  He kept looking for AMC to become more interesting, more intelligent, more written-about, and maybe even more polite.  He kept reading and researching and writing and rambling on and on. (He keeps this run-on paragraph running on and on to prove how hard-to-read  dieseling can become...)  He flung out free facts, fotos, fancy, and fun --- more or less non-stop from summer of '96 on --- and he threw out hundreds of"build-it-and-they-will-come" pitches for AMC fans to play in the big leagues of old car collecting.  For an online encyclopedi!
 a constructed through the cooperation of everyone; for a "world" AMC c
lub that everyone would want to join; for an AMC hobby that became as big as AMC-as-automaker once was.  He watched all the AMC games on screen, bookshelf, and newsstand; he watched all the AMC league players come and go (and come and go and come again...); he is still interested in watching how AMC came and went, yet he still isn't working on or driving his AMC memory-mobiles these days and weeks.  (But he isn't working on or driving his Pierces, Packards, Buicks, and Auburn either now, and whenever he's driving, he's driving something designed in Japan or Korea.  That's how his world runs (and runs on and on until it runs out of fuel or drive) today.  Tomorrow, he might run on something he has not even -seen- yet. That's the way it goes.

http://www.bimos.co.kr/english/main.php

Maybe he should never have traded his Coronets [a '69 followed the '66] for an AMC baseball cap --- and definitely not for any more kingly Korean krown.       

http://tinyurl.com/nrvbm

Spud -nut- you say?

Yeah, that's him.

Over his long AMC years, he's hit a lot of fowl balls.

Blast away, Doc. 

http://www.driller.com/driller/air/bosscouplings.html
 
Quack, quack!

Call AFLAC?

No, Avanti!

(Which may mean "forward" even in the AMC dialect...)

Let's read something that we haven't read before.  (IOW, let's learn...)

In 6/06 HR, Barney Navarro's passing of biz to Mike Hermann references Rambler Indy Six (p. 32) and the running of E-85 is referenced (156-158.)

In 6/06 CC, '66 Rambler American is laughing at [laughing] gas (p. 10), '66 AMC Marlin is looking "like an early Charger" (23), and a '5- Nash Met is looking late for a big "Buyit-Jackman" sale (75).  Ha, ha, how funny.  It's a funny car in a funny strip, Ricky and Lucy.  You're 'sposed to laugh at old AMC there.

5/06 PM begins to build its [advertorial] Grand Wagoneer (pp. 103-116): they identify AMC ancestry, but they assiduously avoid identifying the year-of-sale.  If an A. I. [after Iacocca] G. W., one would think they would say.  They specify that their crash-truck hemi (Hemi?  HEMI?) is an '04 Durango.  And they forget to realize that that RWB should involve -blue-, not black, custom upholstery.

But, since they want it to "look as early as possible," they must be hitting for a Kaiser Willys Chrysler Jeep home run.  No AMC team allowed.  Their game will be over next month.  "That AMC Jeep got a HEMI in it?" will probably not be found in the title blurb.  (And some say that -baseball- takes too long?)

In 5/06 MPH, "10 Worst Automotive Ideas Of All Time" run the bases from Aztek to Trabant to V-8-6-4 [Cadillac's, not Chrysler's, (semi?) HEMI!] to copper [Shelvador's Crosley, not Matador's Cassini --- they must be too phat (fat?) in the head to consider Chevrolet's cool Kettering of 1923] car cookware, to giving a nodular nod to the aforementioned Olds oldie,    

http://www.bildelarosby.se/olds.57d.80.jpg

(is the forklift its friend or there to take it for its final ride?)

but time (or the MPH crew) forgot how much fun Gremlin, Pacer, and the aforementioned Matador were.  One person's "worst" is another person's "best" so one person's curiosity is another person's curse.  And so AMC goes.  Driven or stored.  Owned or sold.  Good or bad.  On or off.

To continue -storing- my last 2 AMCs, I'm now off to find if 4 OTCs 

http://tinyurl.com/zbutq

can be bought for under $362.99.  Rambler mentality with insurance. 

In the AMC field of dreams, someone who ran a shop, had a connection, and practiced the aforementioned art of politeness and kindness might write, "See here!"  They might help us learn which wheel material, bearings, metal, and construction were best; which manufacturer or which retailer were reputable.  They might add cooperation to curiosity and see AMC really roll.

Onward and upward.

Not yet crushed.

Good Carma. 

Carisma.

Cop car?
 
Yes, in the 4/16 NYT (Arts & Leisure, not Automobiles) on p. 17, note the make and model shown.  Only its weatherstrip, inside rearview mirror, small sliver of dashboard top and some steering column can be seen, but whether one owns, works on, drives, or just remembers yesterday, one needs only that much old AMC vision to answer the famous question: "What's a Matador?"

http://tinyurl.com/ojy8u

To know is to own is to work is to drive AMC's game into the next inning.

But now, another game's over, another ball fouled, another AMC day gone.

Ah, but it was Packard, not AMC, who said, "Ask the man who owns one." 

So have fun with all the AMC work and driving.  And the grill resto.

Be smart.  Be savvy.  Be funny.  Be nice.  And AMC will roll on.

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