Returns

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

On July 13, 1983, America first heard these words on the television:
"We at Chrysler borrow money the old fashioned way: we pay it back."

On July 13, 2005, America will again hear that voice sell Chryslers.

For the first time since 1992 retirement, these words will be heard:
"If you can find a better car, buy it!"  And so Lee Iacocca returns.

The most predictable premises of auto history are change and cycles:
The most pleasurable pastime for car historians is seeing them turn.

PT Cruiser, which DaimlerChrysler lobbied the EPA to class as a truck for
2000, will be sold as a "small car with style" for 2006.  Maybach, which
DaimlerChrysler touted as best-of-biggest for 2004, will be sold via rebate
(just $50,000 off the $327,000-$378,000 MRSP) in 2005.  (Rolls-Royce offers
$15,000 only to buyers who are -trading- their worn-out R-Rs...) 

And Saturn, which General Motors promoted as being built-and-sold a planet
apart from the old Detroit routine for many years, will become just another
GM nameplate arising from various places on this planet:  "Wanna buy a
Daewoo-designed, Honda-powered, Brazilian-built Saturn?"

If you can see from Detroit to Stuttgart to São Caetano do Sul, whether or
not you see can AMC, DaimlerChrysler, GM, and Toyota, enjoy the VUE.

Beyond the Ambassador Bridge, there's a lot of worthwhile auto world.

The list founder's AMX is for sale; the list's membership (~50 in NYS alone
when I found it in 1996) is far from solid; the list's level of information
is far from what it used to be and the list's energy is a few blips from
flat-lining --- yet the "other" forum(s) seem no place better --- so change
is its cycle too.  AMC fans suddenly pop up from places near Batavia and
equally suddenly sink into sands of Pittsburgh or Phoenix.  AMC fans "bean"
other AMC fans in Boston and Texas; AMC fans "beat" themselves (in the
bleach boxes) by "being themselves" to inexplicable X-tremes.  Handfuls keep
hoping and trying, reading and writing: maybe a cycle will change and the
good old AMC will return.  Maybe retired leadership will yield to new
attitudes, interests and approaches to liking, looking at, and learning
something new on AMC.

Of course, it doesn't really matter what happens; some AMC cars will
survive, some AMC spirit will be remembered and some AMCers who don't
wonder, write or witness much will decide to do so, when they please.
Except for a handful, AMC is not a business, AMC List is not a life-altering
experience and AMC info is not worth the effort of reading.

Change continues: cycles count by days, months, years, even decades.  If,
like Lee, you are 80 when AMC becomes changed and recycled, you might hope
that some "AMC Genie" is still in some NOS NOx bottles then.  If you're
still pedallin' to the metal, that is.

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0507/07/A01-240028.htm 
 
"If they don't write, it means they're not reading" wrote John Teahen (in
his 6/27/05 AN response to the flood of letters on his Thunderbird* piece):
what would he write a free "unknown" 197x "Javelin/AMX" clay photo that no
one wrote for?  Or would he still be writing --- after 9 years?  Ford fans
must be made of fiberglass; AMC fans must have clay feet.  (*Which will
sputter away selling ~10,000 units this year; AMC fans probably don't care
which two-seater gasped its last after only 4,116 units were assembled 35
years earlier...)  

If you don't know what car that clay -didn't- turn into, you'll pay for
-not- making the most of your opportunities.  Today and tomorrow, what will
likely be the hottest body of the musclecar era won't be the "ueber
Javelin/AMX" you didn't want to see, but the models about which "Muscle Car
Chronicles" (ISBN 0-7853-5564-2) wrote (in 2003):

"Dodge finally got its pony car, the 1970 Challenger.  It used the same
unibody platform as Plymouth's new Barracuda, but the Dodge's wheelbase was
two inches longer..." 

Since you didn't write, you won't know the "untold" story of how AMC figured
into that chapter of pre-Lee family-tree history and you won't be able to
teach your Mopar pals an AMC lesson or two in E-body design and engineering.
You won't be able to whip out a Blackberry and punch up that split-clay
photo (hey, it's "Javelin" on the left and "AMX" on the right --- cool!) to
make your point.  You also won't know how much it cost AMC so you won't be
able to make AMC as interesting as it could be --- for yourself or for
history.    

Don't open the "Standard Catalog of AMC" to page 242.  There's no chassis
paragraph twixt the Javelins of 1970 and 1972.  Compare cars?  Compare
makes.  Compare books.  If you can find a better one, buy it!

(Maybe that's why Javelins don't sell for $750,000...)

>>Pacer and Cadillac help needed

Did anyone notice the AMC irony in this [probably unplanned] pairing?

Did anyone recall that, until he returned to CA (to work for Rhodes Lewis as
a military illustrator, a fact that Karl Fosburg, if he's reading, will find
interesting) in 1951, one of the chief stylists working in the Cadillac
Advanced Studio was the designer of Pacer?

Did anyone recall, that, in 1952, after a year away from automobiles, that
delighted designer was offered another job --- again by Frank O. Hershey ---
this time, at Packard, and his second chance to draw cars back in Detroit?
Did anyone realize that, had Hershey not opened the door -twice- for that
California dreamer, there'd never have been the Javelin, Gremlin or Pacer of
your own AMC dreams?

Did anyone also reflect on the fact that while the first "Pacer wagon"
sketch dates to ~1952, the first "Pacer sedan" (mid-sized 4-door then)
drawings were done at General Motors, in the late '40s, for Cadillac?!

As with Olds and Buick, AMC fans should know their Cadillacs.

>>I hope that isn't one of those 4-6-8 Caddy's

And since Teague trained on Cadillacs, Nash Ambassadors were called "Kenosha
Cadillacs" and Cimarrons were called "Cadillac Concords" in some design
studios, 'Doc' should have a chance to know their names. 

http://www.cadillacforums.com/cadillac/tech/684.gif

http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/

"Making our way in the [AMC] world today takes everything we've got..."

Cheers!
  

PS - I owe three list -readers- notes and/or photos.  Tomorrow!