[Amc-list] Answers

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

>>What AMC history do all recall?

"X" to "AMX" via Teague.  In its 1944 update, the 1933 Packard "Brown Bomber" became a coupe de ville.  Its replacement, the 1952 "Special Speedster" was followed by the 1953 "Balboa-X" hardtop coupe by RAT.  His first "X" car inspired American Motors to almost turn it into a Romney Rambler production option, it inspired Fifties Ford to almost turn it into a lasting Lincoln-Mercury signature style, and it almost inspired Ford to Focus on yet another "world car" that it hoped might Escort it back to the future when Henry was inspired to build Model T.    

http://mmm.lib.msu.edu/search/imagedisplay.cfm?i=EB01e513

http://www.plan59.com/images/JPGs/mer57tpc.jpg

http://tinyurl.com/2dlz5y
http://tinyurl.com/ypssfr

http://www.wingedmessenger.net/Images/63marauderad.jpg

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~stanchfi/anglia/anglia-merc-2.jpg
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~stanchfi/anglia/anglia-merc.jpg

(Lincoln was also inspired to take unity with Nash to an extreme...)

http://www.classiccarpartsfinder.com/13Unitized.gif

http://tinyurl.com/yvvf95

If I had some other AMC connections in mind, they're now forgotten, but I'll give you a chance to take the next step: what 1960s production AMC design can also be "traced" to the same make, same model, same men, and same era?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tXaaupVM0s

Got it?  OK!  If "Marlin" was your answer, you know the extent to which Packard was still alive at AMC.  The big fish spawned from Pininfarina.

If you wrote "Tarpon," do you know what automotive sea it swam in also?

Don't pull out your Expert AMC books.  Not gonna find the answer there. 

>>
While you're thinking, one of the cars in today's ramble has a history that also involves the history of the car that's related to AMC.  Know which one, when, and how? 
<<

This is a toughie, yet it's a fun fact: the Bugatti Royale --- perhaps forever the world's most coveted and/or costly collectible car --- was prototyped exactly eighty years back and that first 41 chassis did not bear a Bugatti-built body.  It bore a stretched body built by Packard!

http://users.tkk.fi/~hkuutti/T41.jpg

Remember it if you ever read how the first 1980s Imperial concept was a prototype AMC car built to study feasibility for Kenosha production of Chryslers.  The Imperiador, the Matadodge, and the Pierce-Ambo are not jokes.  They are AMC history that hasn't been told.  I read the latest HCC last night.  Less fluff-n-puff and more deep digging might be good. 

For American Motors, Chryslers, or Bugeyes.  (Smilin' atcha now...)

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/pix/wayzgoose/FisheyeSprite-m.jpg

http://www.bugattipage.com/jacob/type/41-100.html

That reminds me again of the 1980's "baby" Compass/Patriot concepts I keep hoping will surface in the next "Standard Complete Bible Catalog History of Jeep" I leaf through.  My copies always seem to have pages missing.  Maybe yours are complete, but I suspect that Frank's is not

>>
In the 70s there was a downsized Jeep designed and considered, more the size of an early Suzuki Samurai, but looked more like a traditional Jeep.
<<

so I went fishing.  Bad news.  I'm no Mr. Mac at the computer; I'm not even as cool as the nerdy PC guy; I'm basically buried under AMC paper, so I run on memory --- the original kind, not the plug-in IS-IT? drive.  If I can remember what I'm thinking of and then find fact to verify it, I'm in business.  If not, I'm useless.

So I look for my "baby Jeep" photos (which I can't publish because I'm not willing to be sued --- a nasty AMC-type story there --- for design infringement) and I can find but one of them.  This is how AMC history is lost.  Little-by-little, day-by-day, year-by-year, decade-by-decade.  I'm as guilty as the other guys.  That's bad.

Anyway, as I recall, the bigger "baby" was blue or black or some dark color, and looked somewhat like small Renault Grand Cherokee semivan.  Somewhat like what General Motors did to make its "sport-ute" minivans.  Five passengers through four doors of a two-box body with one liftgate for all the family stuff.  It had flush door handles.  Jeep character.

The "baby" I'm looking at now is white, with white wheels, dark-tinted glass, two high-back buckets, Jeep "face" and AMC side markers; it's fully-enclosed, and it's as "wheels-outward" space-sparing as a Smart. It's tall and "tough" with Jeep wheel cuts, and in this era of xB and Cube, it looks like it would sell.  And it looks "off-road" ready just posing on a California beach at sunset.

Hope that helps --- at least it's something from AMC history to watch for.
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