Part A

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

5/05 PHR "The Forgotten Cars" remembers Laguna and Ventura and Satellite and
even does "the Snoopy dance" over '81-'83 Imperial.  It completely forgot to
remember a single AMC model.

Flip through the rest of the issue.  Ford, Chevrolet, Mopar.  Is AMC as dead
as Studebaker-Packard?

4/05 SCM (16) puts '68-'70 AMC AMX at the bottom of its corrections column.
The purple '69 AMX 390 4sp (73-74) [A9M397X157337; #10607] that sold for
$14,364 "seemed about right."  "AMX parts are notoriously hard to source and
find though" seemed their opinion also.

On p. 94 are the BBG '69 CA Special record-setter and the "Ivy Green
Metallic" [??] '70 Javelin 390 4sp Ram-Air Go SST that sold for $16,470.

One-tenth the $164,160 that a recreation [!] of a clone [!] of a '70 Hemi
Cuda brought.  Crazy?  Or just AMC?

A 1-bbl 250-ci I-6 2-sp auto '67 Camaro --- with 87k miles --- sold for only
$2000 less than that Javelin coupe.

5/05 CC runs a "Stop the AMC Coverage" letter (from a former AMC List writer
[Dwight Southerland]?); on the next page, the self-titled "new AMC Craft"
shows a semi-custom Shadowmask '70 AMX.  On pp. 82-85, AMC Spirit and
Gremlin do tricks.  473 and 484 AMC mills?  Whee!

A V-E-R-Y good DeTomaso Pantera piece [35 years young] in 5/05 SCI is
required reading.  Ten pages touching on everybody from Bizzarrini to
Vignale, from Ferrari to Ford.  Not a single word about AMX/3.  Also good,
albeit shorter, article on Kaiser Darrin.  All the "others" are mentioned.
Not one Nash word.

Is AMC still a loser; still second-rate --- even in automotive history?

One OT point before we open old-car doors again.  Despite what Lutz and
LaNeve say, GM -could- kill Buick and/or Pontiac: which hasn't/haven't been
decided yet.  Some of that decision will be made by sales, the rest by
what's done with Saturn and Saab.  My crystal ball displays three shields in
heaven some days; on others, an Indian chief crying over a lack of
excitement.  If Chevrolet "Rocks" around the clock, if Saturn imports some
"Satisfaction" and if Cadillac can "Can-can" like Lexus can dance (America
don't get no $65k DeVille sedans, though), and assuming there's still
affordable gas, the General could count the same number of American marques
under its umbrella as an American Motors had planned to have over 50 years
back.  Chevrolet, Saturn, Cadillac and GMC Truck vs. Nash, Studebaker,
Hudson and Packard.

If General Motors (and America) don't solve its health-care ["activity" is a
more apt term], entitlement and borrowing problems, Toyota will be number
one in the world but Americans won't be able to buy any new cars.  All of
America must stop living off the past, loafing in the present and leaving
the future for someone else to worry about.  Rome made chariots.  

Continuing:

The degree of standardization GM had introduced by the early 1940s was, in
itself, almost revolutionary.  Remember that only a year before, the last
--- in very small numbers at that --- of an earlier revolutionary was built.
The most desirable of all the "junior" Lincoln Zephyrs, the car that saved
that division, revitalized Ford's range and brought an unrivaled combination
of V-12 power (early versions of which overheated, warped and sludged
merrily as if to "thumb their bores" at Edsel Ford's "No V-8!" decree...)
and gave America World's Fair style at a price no one could beat.

Its [semi] unitary construction (four years before Nash), synchromesh,
hydraulic lifters and radically streamlined style (though not as radical as
Chrysler's earlier Airflow [did you know that Ford's 1933 bodies were called
"airflow designs" --- by Ford, itself?] were revolutionary (but cheap
Henry's old-fashioned beam axle and semi-elliptic transverse leaf springs
weren't: the fully-independent suspension from John Tjaarda's Briggs Body
concept having been left in Chicago and the rear-mount V-8 [Henry didn't get
to try his X-8] left for Tatra and Tucker to build: truly revolutionary.)
Its aircraft-style steel-covered girder framework made it lighter than rival
luxury cars; its two-speed Columbia rear axle gave it six forward speeds;
enough silky torque gave it the ability to pull from low revs to its easy
87-mph top end.  Its clutch was light and its steering was low- geared.  To
most who see it at shows, it's just a fancier pre-war Ford; to those who
know --- which now included you --- it's a revolution. 

Was sort of body style(s) was it?  Initially offered in two- and four-door
sedan form, convertible sedans were sold only in 1938-1939.  Technically
"fully- transformable four-door sedans" but you would call them
convertibles.  Look at one carefully at some show: you'll see chrome-framed
side glass, the wide body-color painted steel B-pillar and suicide doors
latching to a central post, a relatively smooth cloth top with chrome-framed
glass rear window and a somewhat slanted windshield.  Open one up and you'll
see angled front glass trailed by -empty- space.

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