Da VIN "P" Code - Uno

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

While this rare green holiday week (grey and rainy) is my PNW Christmas dream [when I wished for NY/CT snow domes --- dumb kid!], I can't DO much during it (and can't go away until the new mayor is sworn in on Sunday), so, "But it's not snowing!" will be called an "accomplishment.  If I can't care FOR cars, I can talk ABOUT cars, clicking and clacking at a computer. 

Note 1:

Chris's Ambassador info is a joy --- but, since he solicited comment...

'71 grille was not "chrome" but a "natural" cast pot with bright trim.

'72 grille was not "new" but was a '71 grille with small casting mods, in-painting, and "Mercedes bars" (as studio staff dubbed them) added.

'73 sedan was not just a special order, but a -very- special order, if it was painted "Cordobe" Brown.  I gently asked about this previously:

http://tinyurl.com/ar95g  

and I'll do it again: did AMC typo a Monroney?

Do your research and tell us what you believe.

While P78 is "Cordobe Brown Metalic" [sic!] at 

http://www.amxfiles.com/resource/tech/69vin.txt

in the very same online resource, P78 is named

http://www.amxfiles.com/resource/tech/chips69.jpg

Only one of those AM resources can be accurate.

If P94A Moroccan Brown supplanted P78 in 1970,

http://www.amxfiles.com/resource/tech/chips70.jpg

B2 Burnished Brown supplanted P94A come 1971,

http://www.amxfiles.com/resource/tech/chips71.jpg

then Cordoba Brown re-surfaced as D4 in 1972.

If your scan of AMC's chart is not quite eye-legible (it isn't, I'm just being gentle) or if you doubt the paint companies' credibility in their service to AMC history, find some better original info.  Click "Production/Tech"
and "AMC, Nash, Rambler Paint Codes" and "1973 MAC [sic] Chipchart" at 

http://www.planethoustonamx.com/   

and see "Cordoba" clearly.  On a clear day, you might not be able to see General Motors, but you certainly can't miss seeing such history of AMC.  Especially since you're an AMC lover.

Then thank those who provide the tools to tell AMC history and ask those who profess to love AMC, just exactly what --- and when --- they will do more to unify its information resources, its hobbies, and its followers.  It does NOT take a village to raise a child (unless one aches to be the first woman President --- in Washington DC, not on ABC TV), but it -does- take more than Foster cranking out books and articles to make AMC "the best it can be."  Whether it's an AMC lover repeatedly adding an "e" to his AMC Concord or one seeing "e" for "a" in Cordoba, unifying -all- the AMC info that ever existed will benefit everyone.  And it WILL take a village of AMC-loving people to do that.  

Remember, Cordoba (with the "a") recalls the P12A "Dark Corral Cordovan Metallic" that AMC had when Imperial had a "Cordovan" and Cadillac had a "Cordovan Metallic" on their charts.  When D4 faded to Fawn, Golden Tan, and Copper in 1974,  

http://www.matadorcoupe.com/images/1974_07.jpg

and the last "elegant car" in "very formal deep metallic" from Kenosha posed not far from where the world's finest cars still gather annually, as every AMC lover with an eye for history knows, F5 Vineyard Burgundy was chosen by AMC.  If Chris only owns the postcard version of that portrait, let's hope someone who has the big book version will send him a larger scan.  Assuming that AMC people are a village. 

http://faculty.concord.edu/chrisz/hobby/Courtesy/_74AmbassadorZ.html

That photo, like many by American Motors, was -heavily- (or artlessly?) retouched, but, as we should know, AMC was less than it hoped to be, yet more than it was perceived to be.  Whether the power of its V-8s or the style of its bodies, AMC deserves to be the best example of automotive history.  But back to the last Ambassador pose.   
 
Three decades later, the name above that door has changed (the "Del Monte Lodge" name is now a trademark owned by the Rochester NY heirs of pre-cast concrete millionaire Ernest J. Del Monte and it appears on a newer chain hotel 

http://marriott.com/property/propertypage/ROCDL

that replaced his 1960s Depot Motor Inn [the depot is still standing],

http://tinyurl.com/b8tzy

site of my first Pittsford dinner [big deal to a poor college student]) but the AMC Ambassador, after its reign as the then-longest-lived continual-use model name in automotive history (Cadillac Fleewtood has passed also now, and Buick Roadmaster, gone too, was dormant for a few decades; if you read what I wrote here on all three names, you'll know another interesting fact...) has gone to the orphan car heaven most of us love.  The entrance that served as a backdrop for that "last" Ambassador (which, of course, it wasn't, since the photo shoot took place in 1973 --- and just where IS the last Ambassador how shameful if some AMC lover [museum?] doesn't have it safely tucked away now)   

http://www.tonie.net/images/sanjose2001/monterey/lodge.jpg

http://www.pebblebeach.com/page.asp?id=1375

is very little changed, but both Cadillacs (if you -truly- enjoy Kenosha cars, do some digging and post both year and [rather "rare"] model of the General Motors Ambassador photographed in that very same place and pose) are no longer ships Americans flag as their dream cars for cruising.  It was a long time ago, but both Kenosha Cadillacs and Cadillac Ambassadors were kings of their realms.  Long live the kings. 

PS - Chris's Ambassador convertible would look good beside the Matador.

http://www.geocities.com/alanowens/MatadorHomePage.html 

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