Then/now

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

Can't believe it!  A "working" AMC lunch nearly two decades after death of
the company?  Guess that can happen if an interesting topic (car bodies)
pops up.  First, car comparison.  

Exactly as in AMC history, lack of money can make any carmaker unable to
compete.  Since an 80% drop in income has derailed its new global Zeta
platform, GM will have nothing to offer against cars like Chrysler 300s,
Dodge Magnums and RWD Fords come 2008.  With its 12.5% drop in sales,
despite offering a completely new Grand Cherokee and newer mega-size
Commander SUV, DaimlerChrysler may not be able to develop crossover-type
Jeeps.  With its slipping share outside NA, despite the highest Mustang
sales in decades and America's continuing love affair with its trucks, Ford
may not have enough money to vie with anyone --- particularly with Asia ---
in higher-profit luxury models.  Jaguar and Lincoln could become "economic
victims" of that same old evil Hudson Ambassador Clipper wind.

The "mighty" Big-3 can fall for the same reasons as once did "miniscule"
Independents; just as a once "mighty" Big-3 (and Independent) engineer (and
executive) fell (unlike C. W.  Nash, like E. L. Cord, W. C. Durant;

http://www.angelfire.com/ca/TORONTO/history/leaside28.html

["geese" don't need papers to be "let in" to Canada!]
  
http://clubs.hemmings.com/clubsites/durant/articles/DMC%20Sales/SALES.htm

http://www.classiccar.com/articles/william_durant.asp

http://www.cars.com/carsapp/national/?srv=parser&act=display&tf=/advice/book
reviews/bookreviews_madsen.tmpl

unlike brothers Dodge, like brothers Duesenberg) from a smooth shift at
Packard to a drug bust ending his self-made-marque dreams: the car guy who
had turned down an offer to become American Motors' president, who died
known more for bankruptcy and PRV-powered DMC than for Ultramatic, OHC*,
GTO, Z/28** and hidden wipers* [he held *GM's patents on them; in 1968, he
**became Chevrolet division manager] who fell so far and hard.  Like
"bigger-than-life" contemporaries (Deuce, Lee, Bob and others you should
know), John Z saw (and lived) auto history.  May he blow his sax "in the
sky" in the future; perhaps in St. Peter's famous jazz band.  I always
enjoyed hearing him "play" car tunes.

Those who see parallels in auto history are looking back 50 years now: on
May 15, 1956, General Motors, once the most influential industrial (and
social) force in America, opened the most important architectural creation
ever designed for automobiles.  Its most important features were light and
metal and its most important space was its open-to-the-sky walled design
courtyard.  In it, the most important car concepts in the world first saw
daylight.  (Its designer was not from America...)

http://www.grahamfoundation.org/messagePopup.asp?msgID=72

Its importance in the creation of cars (and of a healthy, wealthy, respected
America) is no longer world-important, but its architecture is still
world-class.

http://gmcreativeservices.com/documents/lobby.pdf

On March 18, 2005, Nissan opened a new design studio in Farmington, MI.  In
addition to an important 8-by-20-foot EDS Power Wall (to display today's
versions of the full-size body drawings so sadly destroyed when Packard had
to flee Detroit [in 1956, also]), an important clay-modeling bedplate
(longest one in the world's auto industry, it's under a 585
color-corrected-tube "sky" ceiling) and an automated Zimmerman mill (for
full-size precision models at amazing speeds), its most important space also
features light and metal.  "The Egg" (a 15,000 square-foot open-to-the-sky
walled courtyard with not one, but two turntables) is shielded by double
layers of stainless steel mesh.  (It was designed in America...)

http://www.azahner.com/info.htm

http://www.azahner.com/projects/bard.htm

Those who look back, look ahead to April in FL.

When B-J sells two AMCs (note horsepower claims)

http://www.barrett-jackson.com/events/florida/vehicles/cardetail_list.asp?id
=181049

http://www.barrett-jackson.com/events/florida/vehicles/cardetail_list.asp?id
=181059

a custom Hudson (note sue-weet custom interior)

http://www.barrett-jackson.com/events/florida/vehicles/cardetail_list.asp?id
=180555

a Dodge for mass media to cluck about if record money is made 
 
http://www.barrett-jackson.com/events/florida/vehicles/cardetail_list.asp?id
=180613

and another of old Hughes's baby blue fifties clean machines.

http://www.barrett-jackson.com/events/florida/howardhughes.asp

In FL, you may see AMCs that were sold

http://www.victorycars.com/inventory_details.asp?offset=50&InventoryNum=59

http://www.victorycars.com/inventory_details.asp?offset=50&InventoryNum=60

On the "left" seacoast, AMCs for sale 

http://www.autocollections.com/index.cfm?key=1366&action=details&tab=invento
ry

and in mid-America, you may see more AMCs.

http://www.motorcarportfolio.com/site/product.cfm?id=2539

http://www.motorcarportfolio.com/site/product.cfm?id=2386

http://www.motorcarportfolio.com/site/product.cfm?id=2583

>>
I didn't think AMC put engine displacement badges on
the front fenders in 1973.  My 73 doesn't have them
<<

Calling someone to research and inform: AMC's [mis-named] "big block"
displacement callouts continued after small ones disappeared.  

>>
A: I've had several 4 dr hard tops. '66 Plymouth (Fury IIRC) with suicide
rear doors, '68 T-bird, '66 Pontiac Grande Parisienne and Strato Chief, '66
Impala, '58/9 Impala
<<

The only way a '66 Fury would've had suicide rear doors would be if Dr.
Frankenstein built it --- before Plymouth was killed by Dr. Daimler-B! 

>>
So a coupe has a shorter passenger compartment than a sedan
<<

Not always...

>>
Let's move up to the late 1940's ... someone, probably Harley Earl, noticed
that convertibles were prettier than sedans and decided that that was
because the lack of a "B-pillar" meant that the flowing horizontal lines of
the car were not broken up by a vertical line in the middle. That's when the
Hardtop Convertible (later shortened to just Hardtop) was born! It was
literally a convertible body with a fixed metal top added
<<

Let's move back to the mid 1920s, when a "California top" appeared...

Then let's look across the Atlantic for the full "Panoramique" view...

GM's hardtops were hard tops on convertibles (thus the original term, part
of which was retained): the only way their bodies would hold up in use.
Today's Solara shows what still can happen to the best of car makers; when a
foundation isn't quite what it should (could) be.  It may look like a larger
Lexus, but it's really not a big SC.

Gotta go (may be continued later), but also need to say that John McEwen is
not just GENUINE Irish (I'm only one-eighth), but he's IN Canada as well;
where, as Ralph Ausmann joked, I'm not.  My "agent" (amazing that there are
such people in academe) suggested I not pursue a U Vic VP job some years ago
because "politics" would likely lead to appointment of a -Canadian-.  If I
ever hope to enjoy Oak Bay and North Saanich, I'll have to sneak across the
border as a retiree; just as did some young men (not me!!!) during the
"dark" days of America --- during both the "darkest" and the "brightest"
days of AMC.      

I also need to whine: Those whose posting address is " mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx "
are doing no favors.  I wanted to re-read a "Brien" post and found it hard
to locate.  All the posts that are, in effect, unidentified, "archive" (for
a while) in one big AMC List garbage pile.  Had I not guessed search word(s)
correctly, I'd have found only bad smell(s).  Anything worth typing is worth
typing with an -identifiable- sender name in the "from" field!

And I don't need to chop/resend words three times.  The best info can't be
served in teaspoons.