'Sup

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

>MC MATADOR COOP 1977, 56k, $2500; AMC PACER COOP 1978, Rare V8, 80k,

Is the first the McNugget edition that competed with Ford's LTD KFC?

>http://www.frappr.com/amclist

Places, faces, and photos: very, very good.  Why not include a link to it in the list top- or bottom-line material?  This may be a way to create an AMC community --- joined together working toward something --- still.  Big pictures, even better, details.  Slater's Marlin fastback, Ciampi's American convertible, and Jesme's head!  Anyone here who remembers his old signature car-toon?  Until now, that's all we guessed he looked like.  (And if this map had been available a couple weeks ago, someone now reading could've spent a very fine evening [$300 worth of fine evening!] in the company of AMC history.  If it'll help create AM Community, maybe tomorrow I'll tell you what you missed.)   

"It was American Motors' luxury car; the counterpart to GM's Cadillac, Ford's Lincoln, or Chrysler's Imperial."

While always the Nash-AMC flagship, except during the Classic years, did it ever really made roads into Cadillac, Lincoln, or Imperial territory? 

Wasn't it more a counterpart to top full-size Chevy, Plymouth, and Ford in price and to models from Pontiac, Olds, Buick, Dodge, Chrysler, and Mercury in trim?  

Wasn't the '27 what Detroit later would call a "trim package" offering?

Does the capital "F" in "In 1957, Following" imply something's missing?

Didn't "880" and "990" also harken back to Nash?  (If not to Overland...?)

Wouldn't "Rolls-hyphen-Royce" be the King's English?

After 1978, wasn't Pacer AMC's high-priced car line?

Didn't '67 Marlin also resemble 1966+ Buick Riviera?

It never hurts to sweat the details

"As AMC pointed out in their advertising campaign for the Ambassador, the only other make to have air conditioning as standard equipment in 1968 was Rolls Royce."

by taking AMC to AMG in search of truth, if not of Niebelungen gold.  In March of 1968, the 300 SEL 6.3 went on sale, with [Mercedes' first] 70-series tires, halogen headlamps, and such swell stuff standard.  One of those standards was Klimaanlage.  O-60 in 6.5 seconds -with- a/c?  Cool.

But don't believe me: seek the truth in a book

http://mclellansautomotive.com/photos/B9969.jpg

and check it under a hood.  Hot air isn't cool.

http://www.highwayone.com/Classifieds/Mercedes-Benz/Flaherty6.3.html

"Unfortunately, a major restyle had been in the works for two years -- long before the oil shocks -- and AMC was forced to introduce a bigger-than-ever, completely restyled Ambassador in the middle of all that, in September 1973."

While in truth the completely restyled 1974 Matador and Ambassador wore rather -inexpensive- tweaks (bumpers, filler, and caps at rear; bumpers, hoods, grilles, and plastic bits up front, with [finally!] a modern dash indoors), major restyles had been in the works several times since those '67 bodies had debuted.  AMC couldn't afford to do the first one when it was scheduled, so cosmetic surgery was spread over two years.  Ambo nose in '69, butt in '70: one turning out better than the other.  A new skin scheduled for '72 or '73 never happened (and only one rolling mule was completed); an alternate '73 facelift took an extra year accomplish and the '75 or '77 or '78 re-dos were dead upon arrival: the last two never even Claymation or color rendering.  (At least the "Concord Ambassador" was done in colored gel overlays...)

Baking pie-in-the-sky with Play-Doh wasn't possible on AMC's budget (and Renault preferred playing Ambassadeur with its own big-car body), so the final Ambassador restyles [plural] were Chrysler's.  As suiting suitors on the porch swing or diplomats at the baize-laid table, Lee I. and his negotiating team hung out baubles for AMC to see.  First there was when the Chrysler quadrille was playing, and a known-but-unknown (if all you know is Pat Foster's AMC history) master choreographed.  Chrysler was looking toward its future and saw a Cabin Forward of the box built by Iacocca.   It saw FWD and styling and success and profits.  It saw but it didn't want to sail far from its fleets, so that new Ambassador was what might have happened after R-body was to B-gone.  That Ambassador was one-offed by its designer and came closest to the counterpart part: it was a Chrysler with bits and pieces from Continentals and Cadillacs.  Only one was built (it was, if you're interested, painted a very dark metallic brown) and it was photographed.  In an era when Chevy Caprice was both 10Best and a best seller and Olds Cutlass was an American new car dream, AMC desperately needed big sedans.  It needed that new Ambo. 

But, after Chrysler decided that Fury didn't need to be so Grand (and Lee whittled an Aspen into a Town Car and sold it from the Rockies to Wall Street), Chrysler decreed that there would be no new 118" 1980's Ambassador, and a last AMC flagship was destroyed.   Strangely enough, that happened in Milwaukee.  Interestingly enough, it was not done by American Motors.  The industrial giant Charlie Nash had created wasn't in charge of its own future.  Nor was it able to benefit from its own past.
         
Second, there was a Matador for fleet and an Ambassador for retail --- both again fulilling Mopar and AMC dreams.  Chrysler needed a place to assemble its profitable-but-old Fifth Avenue family and Kenosha plants needed any activity: its Horizon was one of M-agnificent synergy.  The Sun wouldn't Dance to such new tune either and facts were omnipresent: Cinderella was shoeless and the ball was done.

And then take Ambassador beyond its grave.  Had the M-body-based sedan (with an AMC 360!) ever been made in Kenosha, would it have, in truth, been the Rambler Diplomat?  I won't you ask what a two-door model [yes, one car was indeed mocked-up...] would've been called --- because you've probably never seen its photo.  But if you had, the Ambassador Imperial might be your call.    

Finally, remember that after AMC minted Classics (and Ambassadors) into MT gold for 1963, it made magic beginning in 1967, by turning mid- into full-size whether named Rebel or Matador.    

>>
: I have a technical question for you. I have a 1970 Rebel I am
restoring but the floors and unibody looks rough- I have available a
1970 Ambassador as a donar car- from what I can see booth look the same
except for the longer wheelbase on the ambassador- Could I use the
ambassadors from the passenger area back as a donor??
<<

>From the firewall back, that 118"-122" flagship was, in stealth, really just a 114"-body model.  Thus, in 1969 and 1970, Ambassador was only "bigger than Chevrolet Caprice and Ford LTD" by wheelbase measurement.  But even when an Ambassador -was- bigger than Cadillac, Packard or Pierce-Arrow, it always tried to measure "up" to the best autos.

http://tinyurl.com/cayku        

Written, as usual, in WNY

;-)