On Sun, 2007-06-24 at 03:25 -0400, Brien Tourville wrote: > $2,000.00 for a Complete 401 will fast become > an AMC 'reality' - they 'ain't' a 304 nor a 360. Yup, just this morning I was remarking to a (non-AMC) car nut friend, how we all sort of act like these cars we've played with/driven/bought/sold/wrenched since high school or whatever aren't that old -- hell we're pushing half a century now (us? or our cars?) and that stuff that old GETS SCARCE and that's that. John's right too, even "junkyard 350's" are not dirt-cheap-common like they were. The "cheap junkyard upgrade" of today for AMCs peeking at the grave is the 4.0. A stock rebuilt 232 is like $1500, and that's with lots of R.M. applied. I just did that. Hell, $100 cars cost $2000 these days. As I see it, our choice is to either start treating our old AMCs as genuine antique cars, and think of parts, information and cars as requiring thought and preservation, or switch to a Brand that's just now turning 20 years old. Because that's how I feel we're sort-of collectively thinking and acting sometimes. (I'm projecting how *I* think of my cars onto everyone else,I admit, and I recognize that AMC-listers are much more conscious of all this than most AMC nuts.) When AMCs were merely 20 years old, they were old enough to be interesting, but modern enough to go to the parts store. Now are cars are older than the car nuts at the store (if we're lucky enough to have car nuts working the store). My cars were 20 years old, over 20 years ago. Be honest -- how much do you intimately know about cars from the 50's? 40's? 30's? The generation before "yours"? (Clearly some here do.) Not the bright-spot cars (55/57 Chevy, corvette, 40 Ford, Ford V8, 32s, Ts) but all the odd in between stuff? I barely know anything in there. THAT is what our cars look like to import-scene kids. Who are, or would be, stocking our parts in their stores. We gotta wake up and smell the double-shot soy lite latte. _______________________________________________ Amc-list mailing list Amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.amc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/amc-list