Re: Stop...

["Jim Blair" <carnuck@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Replies ensconced below:

From: "Mahoney, John" <jmahoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx'" <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Stop...
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:57:41 -0500

the nonsense

A: And the insanity! (Sorry. Susan nee-Powter is a friend of mine and 
neighbor)


Before we slip into silence, say "sayonara" (or throw a rod through the PC
screen), we want to remember what we didn't see written here this year, this
month and this week.

On February 3, 1973, we didn't remember who signed a licensing agreement
with the Curtiss-Wright Corporation.

We didn't recall who was co-owner of which patent rights then, who agreed to
let the smallest American automaker build its product.

We didn't talk of how that license, covering both passenger cars and Jeeps,
required AMC to pay $1.5 million over the coming four years.

We didn't note how that agreement also allowed AMC to access -all- the new
rotary technologies of -all- the Wankel licensees worldwide.

We didn't consider the possibility of a Mazda-built rotary in an AMC.

A: Actually, while I haven't considered it recently, the thought of a rotary 
Pacer had me thinking seriously about reviving a Mazda Cosmo 3 rotor motor 
with twin turbo to put in.

We didn't mention how the document also gave AMC the right to sell any
rotary engines it produced to any other car companies in the world.

A: I was under the impression that Mazda had a prior commitment by Mr 
Wankel, and they had in production cars the aforementioned motor since 1969 
(The R100 coupe, which I had along with an RX2 with R150 motor and twin 
turbo with nitrous that did some fantastic 1/4 mile times in 1975-78 when I 
sold it just prior to rotaries being banned from racing against piston 
engine cars)

Nor did we read what Roy D. Chapin Jr. [AMC chairman], said in 1973.

"We believe that the rotary engine will play an important role as a power
plant for cars and trucks of the future."

We believe that's more what more might want to read about AMC.


In February of 1959, American Motors' shareholders received a letter from
their company stating that the success of compacts "signals the end of
big-car domination in the U. S."

AMC wrote that small-car sales might number 3 million in four years, so it
would allocate $10 million to a Kenosha expansion that would allow it to
assemble 440,000 units "straight-line" - up from its [then-taxed] 300,000
capacity.

{A: I'm not sure if I corrected the number right}

(American Motors had built 217,332 1958 units at its plants in Kenosha; it
would build 401,446 1959 models soon.)

In February of 1959, Henry Ford II also wrote to shareholders, but he did
not state that Ford had plans to sell a new compact in October.  He only
said that Ford would do so "when the demand is strong enough for such a
vehicle."

Falcon, Corvair, Valiant and domestic others, not to mention VW, Simca,
Renault and more from overseas would prove AMC's prediction accurate.  But
long before Toyoda, Datsun and today's USA sales leaders ever competed,
AMC's own
future turned out quite differently.

We want to read more of -that- type of writing about AMC.

A: I know I would like to know about this turning point in AMC's history. I 
have been under the impression that GM was building the rotary engine to be 
put in AMC (and GM) cars due in part to AMC's selling back of the "fixed" 
Buick V6 design. This also had some place in the acquiring of the 2.8L and 
Iron Duke 4 cyl when the GM rotary design went Tango Uniform (and Mazda even 
had some troubles with the engines not holding together. The Canadian Mazda 
racing team used my motor as part of the test mules for the hard chrome 
facing which helped cure the apex seal troubles and was unleashed with the 

RX-7 as a kick butt sports car that could even keep up with an AMX)