[Amc-list] No go?

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

Yesterday BMW announced plans to increase its US production capacity by more than 40% --- BMW knows that to survive, it must grow bigger still.

2010 BMW hopes to be the next 2000s Lexus. 

Go?

AMC also increased its production capacity to be better able to survive.

1967 AMC hoped to be a little General Motors.

No?

GM still plans to recapture market share in order to maintain big-scale production capacity --- GM knows that that involves negative cash flow. 

2010 GM hopes 1960s America can be restored.

Go?

AMC tried to tough it out with losses from year to year.  When AMC had a profitable quarter, it popped corks and said, "Next year we will go!"

No?

Detroit's carmaker Bigs try to turn tables on Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and the foreign Bads by slashing sale prices and extending warranty coverage.  Sticker shock?  Chrysler now sells many cars up to one-third off MSRP.  Ford is nearly as ready to dicker and no-hassle GM is up into the 25% zone.  "We'll take sixty-six to seventy-five cents on the dollar.  Take our cars and trucks, pu-leeze.  We're so desperate, we'll throw in a giant-sized flat-screen TV."

Go? 
  
AMC pioneered the 2/24 warranty in its 1972 Buyer Protection Plan and if you found an AMC dealer desperate enough, you may get a fresh new Hornet and a leftover 12" '71 black-and-white TV.  Or a leftover '70 AMX if you preferred.

No? 

GM is trying to increase worldwide share by buying in Korea and China, after buying in Europe and elsewhere.  "Could we interest you in this Saabaru wagon or that GMCaab truck?"  "Can we show you our new Impala OZ-SS [it's like our Camaro RS-SS, only faster], our Deutsche CadiBTS [it's like our Amerikanische CaterOmega, only faster], or even our newest, our SuzuYamaCala-engined Corvette 6.2 [it's like 'Shift' in American, because it's our only world-class American-manufactured car and, yes, it's our fastest] while you wait for our new '55-'57 bow ties to be hand sewn?" 

Go?

AMC tried to increase its world standing by building cars in Belgium, Iran, Mexico, and Argentina and by showing the world that its fastest world-class car looked at home on the historic cobbled stones of Rome.  "Greetings, world-class buyers, might we show you a new Italian-style Kenosha-engine flying machine --- flown by the fastest flyers BMW and Torino ever knew?"  It'll look good when parked beside that 250SE 3.5 Cabriolet in your north-of-Sunset garage, with your, er, ah, '-niece-' parked beside you as you greet its custom-fitted mahogany-and-guilloche 380mm Nardi 'Spinclassico' on the Grand Corniche, and, well, since it's an AMC car, at Bob's Big Boy on Cruise Night in Encino."  "It will cost a little more than a 1970 LS-6 Corvette, but less than thr Lamborghini those crazy AMC guys based it upon."  "Can we write up your order today taking a $200 deposit with only $11,800 due at delivery?"  "Who would ever buy a Miura SV when he drive a new AMX/3 RM instead?"  "Mark my
  words, AMC will be really big someday."

No?

"Well, don't say we didn't offer it, if you're still waiting for GM to sell you the just-around-the-corner mid-engine Corvette in, say, 2007."

"And don't count your Ford GTs 40 years from now or smoke your Panteras because you believe they can always make more --- you can never predict the future."

"Unless, of course, you suggest that tinny Toyoda [you know, the funny little firm that couldn't manage to make more than 351 of those stupid-looking E-type knock-offs beginning -two- years after introduction and during four years {1967-1970} of production {any fool knows that, after selling almost 20,000 cars [!!!] over just -three- years of production, AMC will never stop making a two-seat AMX --- and that Japan Inc. will go home in disgrace long before new AMC cars stop appearing on America's smooth roads!}) and who in the world will ever -collect- such a dumb-ass pretender anyhow?] --- that Toyoda could best Lincoln, Cadillac, or Chrysler on the auto status wheel.  Why, that's as likely to happen as America without an Oldsmobile, Plymouth, or Ambassador.  An America with three-dollar-a-gallon gas.  Man, you -are- car trippin' today.  No way.  No how.

It's 1970 and this is America.  Real out.

AMC 4 ever!

Japan junk!

http://www.madle.org/og05toy2000gt69.jpg

No?

Ford tried buying in Japan, Sweden, and Merry Olde.  "If you like our Rover and our Aston Martin, check back next week.  We may have Jaguar and Mazda sale-priced by then."  "Will you be in a Focus focus group?  Europe will test the better car; America's Focus will go from dumb to dumber to dumbest.  No hatchbacks, no wagon.  No brains.  No problem.  Or can we put you in a petite Pinto perhaps?  We promise that it'll be a real gas."   

2008 Ford hopes to hone its Edges.  Ouch.

Go?

AMC tried to increase share by broadening its auto lineup, buying Jeep, diversifying into non-auto products, and through alliance with Renault.

1970s AMC hoped to be like 1950-1960s Mopar.

No?

Ford and Chrysler each plan on downsizing to ensure survival --- both know they cannot afford to continue big production that will not sell.

2008 Little-Two hope to bid 1985-2005 adieu.

Go?

After AMC failed to become big enough to be counted among a Big-Four, it tried to downsize to survival by building nothing but small cars.

1979+ AMC hoped to be a 1958 Rambler encore. 

No?

America thinks its borrow-and-spend consume-and-forget lifestyle will never end whether or not it learns, innovates, manufactures, or works.

2000s America hopes it won't end up being as big as a British Leyland.

Oh?

Huh?

Who?

What?

We worry?

http://tinyurl.com/2cl8b2


Frank, when you were thinking out of the box, you didn't think far enough back.

Whatever it was I wrote that made you think about '60s "Euro" bodies (maybe it was hangover from that '63 Classic photo), they are, surely, among AMC's best.  They could have been "reborn" as the 1958 Rambler was and they could have lived a charmed second life.  In truth, they were more versatile, more adaptable, and, ahem, more beautiful? than the very long-lived Hornet/Concord/Gremlin/Spirit/Eagle body shells.

But when they were born, car styling changed fast.  Two years, three years, then dead.  Facelifts were major surgery, not Botox back then.  If a company couldn't pay, it couldn't play, no matter what rationale it tried to palm off.  "No model year changes."  Ha!  "Different by Design."  No, in poverty!  Only the niche market will buy that.

Avanti, Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce (with badge-engineered Bentley; to build one, change the radiator badge and swap the Spirit for a B; no cost to do that back in the 1966-1980 days) and even stolid, steady, quality-is-everything Mercedes-Benz could prosper without new style: Ford or Chevy or Dodge or AMC couldn't pull off that old hat trick.

And they had to sell hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of cars.

Merely to keep the assembly lines running and the showroom lights on.

Think back to that "ordnance vehicle" Dick found ready for production when he arrived for his first day in an AM job in '59.  Think outside Pat Foster's propositions that Bill Reddig is a super-terrific talent (if he was, why was he styling appliances rather than Chryslers and Plymouths or Lincolns and Fords [remembering that GM wasn't a mecca gone -to- but a high mesa thrown -from- back in the days when style meant American motors, not import brands done around the world, we wouldn't expect -any- designer to go from AMC TO Warren Tech...]) and admit the sad fact that Nash-Rambler-AMC couldn't afford to hire or hold the best stylists, so, as a Defense Secretary said, it worked with what it had: sometimes AMC got good results, sometimes it got garbage.  

They may have been built well, but some of the best selling '50s AM cars were some of the ugliest (for the day) on the US market; some of the worst-selling '70s AMC cars (they may have been horribly assembled) were some of the prettiest (for the day) sold anywhere.  Sometimes we need open those eyes in the back of our heads.  It's easy to follow the leader; it's better to think for ourselves.  Once we have the tools we need to work with.  That's why we spend our lives looking and learning.  (And reading "War and Peace" posts if we really really love loving old cars.)

I must stop now, so I'll quickly wrap up yesterday's questions.  There have been dozens --- if not hundreds --- never answered in years past.  There are dozens --- if not thousands --- on scraps of paper in "AMC" boxes.  They can be recycled.  But there's no AMC Museum and Archive for the "real" documents, drawings, and photos.  And, sadly, there may never be.  Detroit?  Ha!  It'll all burn down someday.  Kenosha?  Ha!  Too small to afford staff or space.  Auburn Hills?  Yeah, prime interest for the New Chrysler Corporation.  Stuttgart?  Ya gotta be kidding.  They won't admit AMC ever existed.  Not in their world.  Not today, not yesterday.    


#1 How does the first gasoline-engine Studebaker fit into AMC history?

The first Studebaker gasoline car actually was the Studebaker-Garford (not "Garfield" as in Richard Langworth's The Studebaker Buyer's Guide [MBI, 1990] --- twice --- and, of course, online:

http://www.collectoronline.com/9546/PictPage/1922451378.html

we admit we can't spell in America [and we don't like to read too much either], but what's our excuse for not being able to -copy- text also?)

and the Studebaker connection ceased in 1911, with Garford G-8s and G-10s* (both were fours; their differences were dimensional: 117.5" & 116" wheelbases; 372.1 & 297.8 CIs) built until 1913.  AMC history's link is that Garford was bought by John North Willys and merged into Willys-Overland.  Gone.

*Technically a Studebaker, but none may survive, and you don't care, so... 

#2 Why did the first hydraulic-brake Studebaker revert to mechanicals?

The 1918-1926 Big Six (almost as Classic a car as a contemporary Super Six --- although neither classic will be found on an approved car list

http://www.classiccarclub.org/CarList.htm

so let your RM take flight: there still are bargain [C]classics about!) was one of the finest of American independents.  Good looking (for its day), powerful (for its day) and advanced (for its day): with its 60-hp detachable L-head, gearbox-behind-engine, Hotchkiss drive, and Spicer differential, it was a speed demon (seven American cars were faster but they tended to cost two to four times as much) and a record-setter (NY to SF in 86 hours) and it didn't drive like a truck.  A Packard drove like a truck (and, to a lesser degree, so did a Pierce-Arrow), but a Studebaker Big Six drove like a dream.  Some cars were for chauffeurs to drive; some Studes were for owners to drive themselves in for fun.

Studebaker spent almost $200,000 per year for the first six years of Big Six production advertising that four-wheel brakes were dangerous; you can read more about that fact and learn about Rickenbackers now.

http://detroit1701.org/Rickenbacker.html

But in 1925 Studebaker braked to a two-wheel halt and brought forth four-wheel hydraulic brakes pumped off the transmission as a Big Six option: somewhat expensive (for its day) at seventy-five bucks, but packaged with sporty new pinstriped steel disc wheels --- just the thing in bling (for its day).  To prevent front lockup, the braking power was greater on the rears, but that also prevented the Big Six from quickly slowing down.  It was (for its day and forever) under-braked and over-powered.  Not an ideal combo.  It was (for its day) also so rare that it is almost unseen now, but, after two years of trial-and-error <Screech, Crash, Crinkle, Crunch>, the all-new '27 Studebakers' (the Commander was sort of the Big Six's replacement...) four-wheel mechanical brakes made Stude's big experiment even more forgotten.

Interestingly enough, less than forty years later another two-year Studebaker experiment broke tradition, records, and the status quo.  The record-breaking Avanti that raced from sketch to production in a record-breaking 18 months, that would break 29 Bonneville stock car records (and, unless Bob Lutz starts testing Corvettes if Wolfgang Bernhard is appointed CEO of the New Chrysler Corporation, broke a record for any sitting car company president --- 168 mph ---- in any 1960s American production car) that raced from showroom to Smithsonian, from misfit to milestone faster than any postwar American automobile, also broke the drum habit with standard front disc brakes licensed by England's Dunlop.  Call me Imperial (1951) or a Hot Shot (1949) and I'll break for history.   Avanti wasn't the absolute American first, but it was the first of the future.  Studebaker was known for that.

Without Studebaker, there may have been no Mustang.  Good or bad.

http://www.tocmp.com/pix/Studebaker/images/53Studebaker03-or.jpg

Which reminds me: "flaws" in the original Mustang, Javelin, and AMX.
In -detail- for the first model, in -dimension- for the second pair.

I've discussed all that here, so there's no point in doing it again.  I listed what was "wrong" (and how/why that happened), I quoted AMC designers, and I rustled up the usual slew of AMC (and Ford) photos.  If there had been a permanent place to plant such a production that permitted non-linked photos, anyone could read it to learn or enjoy.
Clearly, that's not going to happen and the AMC hobby doesn't care.  Like the AMC spokesmen said when the ship was going down: AMC buyers are happy with the way things are so we see no need for improvement.

We will thrive by not changing and survive by becoming smaller yet.

We know truths Toyoda, Toyota, and an entire auto universe doesn't.

AMC 4 ever.

Go?
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