Bewitched

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

1) AMC and Stude fans could share T-5 info

http://www.stude.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=910&postdays=0&postorder=asc&star
t=0

http://www.studebakerdriversclub.com/tech_5speed.asp

2) AMC "400" fans could share Barris info

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/marc.seriau/AMX620004.jpg

(-05, -06, -07, -08, -09 for five more)

http://www.fortunecity.com/silverstone/wiper/71/id211_over_100_amc_family_au
tomobiles_in.htm

restorer info

http://www.totallyautoinc.com/cars.html

builder info

http://www.barris.com/gallery_amx400.html

"American Motoring" info

http://www.amonational.com/Articles/pastissues.htm

and "Project Phoenix" info,

http://epguides.com/Banacek/guide.shtml

"Banacek" and "Raymond" fans could share cheese stories.

3) I suspect some early '79 bumpers did get "spray" finishes.

I don't know if it was old-style lacquer or new-style plastic. 

4) If 'in the now' means "in the know" in AM-speak, some info.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sup_01_17.html

5) I have most --- if not all --- the requested Jeffery info.

I don't know where --- or when --- I could look it up, though.

Good that someone else reading posted some links to some info.

6) I don't have time to skim more than one AMC list, but a link to the AMC
Forum (in a recent "Eddie-mail") led me to answer a question there today.  I
will copy here that info. 

John Conde (assistant director of public relations for AMC) who thereafter
served as a curator of transportation at the Henry Ford Museum, turns 87 in
2005.
His most-held book, "Cars With Personalities" (1982) is at 112 libraries
worldwide; his "Cars Hudson Built" (1980) is at 50 and his "American Motors
Family Album" (1976) is at 45.  A good portion of his collection (see page
10) is in WY.
http://ahc.uwyo.edu/documents/about/publications/annualreports/2002/Entire.p
df
Included are "printed materials on American automobiles and pickup trucks,
including sales and parts catalogs, owner's manuals, specifications,
advertising brochures, automobile show programs, color charts, news
releases, press kits, pamphlets, reports, periodicals, newspaper clippings,
and speeches. Also includes photographs, negatives, slides, transparencies,
and blueprints as well as materials on foreign automobiles."
7) I'm sure no one cares, but in my "hurry to scurry" last post, I didn't
write enough words to relate 1976 job and 1975 AMC.  (Cart before horse =
car before cash?)  While AMC never took a major "role" in my life, it's been
a "bit player" since I first noticed Ambassador in 1965-66 and decided that
AMC "had legs" in 1967-68.  (Young = foolish?)

After seeing a '75 Matador Cassini "demo" (actually, personal car of the
dealer's sister) sit --- in the showroom! --- from July through fall, I made
"A" big mistake.  Under influence of satanic arts, Cordobas, Monte Carlos,
Mark IVs and "personal luxury" coupes of that day, I fell for its shiny
"noir-ness," copper accents, long hood and fast back.  The "big" [401]
engine, "small" [leftover] price and "virgin" [~6,000 miles] condition
sealed my deal with the devil.  Love, as they say, is blind.  Sometimes,
it's also doomed.

When spring came, I saw that it was impossible to keep clean (never mind
scratch-free), costly to keep fed and not so lovely on earthly realms.  When
summer came, I saw that eggs could fry on its [vinyl-delete] skillet top,
pigs could roast on its black velour upholstery and biscuits could bake on
its glassy rear shelf.  It once managed 22 mpg on the highway; it routinely
guzzled 12 mpg around town.  I couldn't see where its front fenders ended
and where its rear fenders began.  I buried it in the darkest corner of my
garage and saw other cars under the '70s sun.

When I saw the second gas crisis, I looked far back into the future: I
ordered a "littler" AMC.  Long hood, fast back, medium color and "small" six
(for ~$100 more; what would 232 cubes cost and be called in 2005?)  Its
"love affair" lasted and that Spirit "gamboled" about in dry weather for
fifteen years.  Its "beauty sleep" (always on the right side of its 122" AM
senior) has now endured for eleven more.  Faustian or Freudian, maybe it's
magic.    

If I hadn't got that teaching job in grad school, I wouldn't have kept the
Matador long enough to buy a Spirit (or an Eagle), I wouldn't be typing, and
probably wouldn't own any AMC cars at all.  I probably would've reverted to
Chevy, Dodge, Ford or whatever makes I considered before buying the 1971
Ambassador.  If I hadn't enohgh to "pay the devil" his dues, the Matador
"Coop" would have been empty and a Pinto (or a Rabbit) would have stolen the
AMC "spirit" before any AMC Spirits ever were introduced.    

The old man who bought that Cassini (who said it "looked like an Eldorado")
who died while it sat in his barn, his widow who gave it to her grandson who
painted it red and swapped its [by-then-seized] mill for a 350; and the car
itself all are vanished.  Even the [then-farm] house is gone; replaced by
tracts of glittery "McMansions" so much beloved for -their- enticements:
"volume" ceilings, "cooks" kitchens, "luxury" bathrooms and three-car
"side-load" garages.

I wonder if any of them will ever see any black Matadors --- even in their
darkest and most devilish of days to come?