America changed...

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

>From Sunset and Vine to Fifth Avenue, in Grover's Corners or in Detroit,
America changed 50 years ago:

On November 22, 1953, America's first live color television was broadcast,

On January 1, 1954, America's first live color TV was broadcast nationwide,

On March 23, 1954, America's first electronic color receiver was assembled,

And on May 1, 1954, American Motors' first life of automotive history began.

I've been searching for a new university president too long (AMC currency
devalues fast without routine reading) and too far (Cambridge, New Haven,
Chapel Hill, Bloomington and Palo Alto, a Manhattan stop ex-officio) to
comment on "Old Faithful" Ramblers, on SEC-ing ledger-demain at DCX, on
C-ing 300 COYs of shizzle at MT, and on seeing cash slip from every side of
Ms. Suze Orman's computer-generated GM mouth, so I won't.  I won't suggest
that Pacers need smoother Pistons, that The Donald should get The Cobra from
The Other Side of The Boardroom, that the words "... given that a Jaguar is
probably more reliable than a Mercedes these days" in a major (12/04
Automobile, p. 132) car magazine should get some in Stuttgart stoned (but
not like Anna Nicole Smith) [nor should Automobile label a '49 Chrysler a
'46; they get paid to write right!] and that I'm thankful for everything
(although I could use a month off to promote my new rap album and about
$14.8 million for groceries), so I won't.  Nor will I make an AMC Eagle
Talon spin a UK CD in Hotel California: I'm not really that Desperado.

http://www.talonmusic.co.uk/index1.html

But I will look at some AMC history.  The kind that the best of AMC
historians tend not to, uh, recall.

Fifty years ago on this date --- November 23, 1954 --- General Motors
celebrated the building of its 50-millionth car with a celebration.  In
Flint, Michigan.  (Yes, we know all the truth that's there for the telling.
Or the spinning.  Or the prop-aggrandizement.  Yes, we know of Michael
Moore.)

GM's 5-millionth car has been a first-year 1926 Pontiac, so Pontiac was
spotlighted once again.  12 1955 production Pontiacs plus a special gold
one-off displayed their all-new "Panoramic" bodies, wrap-around windshields,
12-volt electrics, vertical-kingpin front suspension, "Vogue" two-toning and
"Strato-Streak" V-8s --- in an honor guard formation escorting the '26 coupe
(which GM still owns; what corporate body preserves any legacy of AMC
today?) that rode one parade float followed by a white '55 Pontiac on
another.  Americans really knew how to do things properly back in a day.

The sole new '55 engine (287.2 cubic inches; 7.4:1 for 173-hp with 3-speed
manual and 8.0:1 for 180-hp with Hydra-Matic) had been designed by Pontiac
Division engineers Leach and Windeler with an eye toward cost, power and
efficiency.  5 mains, hydraulic lifters, ball-and-stud rockers,
pressure-suction crankcase ventilation, Carter WGD or Rochester 2GC, and
easy-to-cast iron block.  It was Pontiac's first OHV V-8 (but not their
first V-8; remember 1932?) and, to make GM history AM history, it would have
been American Motors' first V-8 also.  Packard's was a back-up.  But GM
thought it needed that V-8 even more. 

287,774 1954 Pontiacs were produced, yet by August, 1955, a half-million
1955 Pontiacs already were assembled; by December, Pontiac set an all-time
production record.  554,860 new Pontiacs needed that new V-8 engine and
there would have been none left for AMC.

AMC sold 8,805 four-door and 1,775 two-door V-8 1955 Nash Ambassadors plus
6,219 Hudson Hornet V-8s.  They had new "Scena-Ramic" windshields also.
They didn't have Pontiac engines. 

Ancient history.  How very dull. 
 
AMC is still seen in Seoul --- almost 17 years after the last AMC vehicle
was made:
"The aging Ssangyong Musso utility vehicle looks like a reject from Dick
Teague's old studio at American Motors Corp.; adding a sport utility truck
variant with a tiny pickup bed did nothing to enhance the Musso's looks."
and 
"The little Korando, a two-door Jeep Wrangler wanna-be, is so homely, it's
sort of cute."
(Pacer yourself there, Paul Lienert, you'll run out of former AMC models to

compare...)