[AMC-List] 100-50-10 and AMC oil

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

In the nearly 10 years since I began reading this list, American Motors has gone from being a fond memory from days when I routinely drove new AMC cars to being an artifact, an object, and a nostalgia trip to take on a computer screen.  I learned about AMC from A to Z (and from Allure to Zagato?) down a road that rode bumpier than Easy Street.  I learned about AMC grilles and flares (or about AMC's flair for grills?) and I learned that it would require 90 more years to post all the info about AMC that interests me.  (And I learned that what interests me does not interest many with interests in AMC!)  I found my postings translated into Portuguese, found my Pininfarina history found interesting by Peugeot people, and found a note I wrote about Packard was found by a Phord PR executive in 2006 who is interested in learning about his grandfather who, in 1956, was a -Studebaker- PR executive.  It was interesting to find that the top Cord and top Corvette historians were reading !
 what I wrote for fans of AMC --- that being what some AMC fans weren't interested in reading.

All in all, it is interesting.   

After all, all life should be.

Over time, always interesting.

100 years ago, my grandfather probably rode in a Packard (I don't know for sure; I only know for sure that they owned Packards since the '20s) and 50 years ago, he still did (he never learned to drive): either in his big black '49 (he did not like the '50s limos) or in his third wife's big red '53 convertible.  50 years ago, my father bought a '56 Packard after just buying a '55 Packard (breaking his three-year rule) because he didn't like the '57 Studebaker that pretended to be a Packard (just like the '55 Nash had pretended to be a Hudson), thus, when I was 3, I could ride in 1 of 4 Packards.  Too bad I was just a dumb kid back then.

For 50 years (from 1906 to 1956), Packard Motors had gone from being a part of America that had weathered 5 decades of -wrenching- changes to a last-off car.
2 World Wars, 1 "action" and much more.  Booms, busts, and a Great Depression that had made most makes not made by GM, Ford and Chrysler likewise long gone.
Technological change that no one could possibly have dreamt up.  Tom Swift?  Dick Tracy?  George Orwell?  Huh?  There was no Locomobile, Pierce, Cunningham, Franklin, or Peerless after 50 years, but there still was a Packard and America still was the greatest country in the whole wide world.

>From 1956 to 2006, Packard (and Studebaker and Hudson and DeSoto and Studebaker and Checker and AMC and Oldsmobile and Plymouth and such) would disappear and there was even more change that no one had imagined.  The world viewed via computer screen, visited via cell phone; and living longer via technology, so when there was no Packard, there was Cadillac (and Lincoln and Imperial and Buick and Ambassador and such) and America still was one of the greatest countries in the world.

Then there was Acura (and Lexus and Infiniti and Azera and such) and Cadillac became a truck, Lincoln became a taxi, and Imperial came and went and came back --- never nearing what it had, in 1906 ("Imperial" meant other American cars before Chrysler built his first...), in 1956, and, with some generosity, in 1981 --- at least they were trying [computers in cars?  Wow!] then --- once been.

By the time I could buy a Packard, an AMC Ambassador was the closest thing left (of course a Cadillac/Buick/Lincoln/Chrysler would have been somewhat closer but it would not have been a real American independent): 35 years ago this spring I sprung for one and ordered the calendar to be turned back.  To 1956, if not to 1949 or 1926 or to the 1906 Packard [?] of my granddad.

>From 1996 to 2006 my "AMC Packard" sat in storage (actually from 1984...) and 10 years in an online AMC world passed.  As the real world changed as much as it had in 50 or 100 years in the past, a "Packard" remained in 1971 (or maybe in 1976, since it once was, after all, a road-going car) and life went on.  When AMC became yet another vanished American independent, that Ambassador was still a real "living link" to what Packard had once been 50 and 100 years back.

Decades are doors to history; that's why I asked you to look into AMC history in January, February, and March.  I even gave you "2/6/1966" as a start.  The silence was deafening.  Even the AMC wake must be over now.  

In the nearly 27 years since my Spirit was built, American Motors has gone from being part of the everyday scene to being seen mostly at car shows and being seen rarely on the road in western New York.  American motors (meaning GM, Ford, and Chrysler) have gone from being the makes most of America drove to being the makes struggling most for shares in America.  The United Auto Workers of America has gone from being a 1.5 million-man/woman middle-class march to being a 2/3-smaller whimpering willow.  Once, the best car frames were made of American white ash but like those Cord and Corvette men, they now date to an older American age. 

http://www.crailville.com/feature/f2_constr.htm

America of today and tomorrow must build in more modern automotive ways. 

America went from being young/strong/smart to being older/weaker/dumber.

Over time, maybe the only way.

And America, always changing.

Mopar has gone from being powered by Hemis made proud by Pettys to being pimped up by semi HEMI and pumped down by SBC Benz.  To "Crossfire" with an old Cordoba would be to face off at a crap game in Monte Carlo with a Matador.  Only there's no more softly-padded rich Corinthian leather to fall down upon 

http://www.tocmp.com/pix/images/1976ChryslerCordobaSportCoupe.jpg

http://www.nashnut.com/archives/p75matador1.jpg

http://www.matadorcoupe.com/images/AMC763.jpg

http://tinyurl.com/m39s4

http://www.autobooksbishko.com/products/stdImages/1683.jpeg

http://www.geocities.com/motorCity/Garage/3222/met28s.jpg

http://tinyurl.com/hzo52

and no one to see "eye-to-eye" with AMC-Jeep down the road. 

http://membres.lycos.fr/rvmarg99/telechar/alpine-1024.jpg

http://sameens.dia.uned.es/Trabajos/T2A/ESalmoral/wall3.jpg

http://tinyurl.com/hkps8

http://tinyurl.com/k2fr2

http://tinyurl.com/pjk9p

Had a new AMX been able to face off with a new Corvette,

http://tinyurl.com/nzlzz

http://tinyurl.com/l9t6y

American motors may not be going, going, (gone) so fast,

http://hvtm.totalcar.hu/car/m/renault/272266.jpg

but American motorists don't dig into American car history and Franco-American Motors' failures, and they don't ponder why a German-American motors should be better than Mopar-AMC-Jeep or Toyota-Honda-Nissan-etc. but isn't.

http://tinyurl.com/n4v8w

http://www.schwab-kolb.com/dcnew115.htm

http://www.whnet.com/4x4/pix/sbc3.jpg

http://www.whnet.com/4x4/pix/sbc1BIG.jpg

Yet no one today, not even with "King of the Hill" history, rides free.

There are no brakes or breaks in the "tough American" motors world now.

American motorists should be cautious, conflicted and highly concerned.

They don't know what they don't know (or they are very easily confused)

http://www.boschappliances.com/promo_popup.cfm?highlight_id=85

since they cannot work and/or learn while playing, eating and sleeping.

(Around: TomKat, Brangelina, Jay-Z, and Ja Rule are American royalty??)

It takes hard work to be the best when there's some -real- competition.

AMC lumbered from '54-'57; lucked out from '58-'62; launched its attack from '63-'66, and almost realized its dreams from '67-'73, but when a car world did what AMC did and did it better, cheaper or more attractively, AMC couldn't carry on and it was soon gone.  Packard was once American royalty; Nash was once America's Ambassador.  Both were once very big in America.  And in the whole world.

Cadillac once proved itself to be "Standard of the World" when, nearly 100 years ago (in 1908), Henry Leland took three factory-built Cadillacs across the Atlantic, took them apart, tossed their parts together, and reassembled them for a 500-mile torture-test drive.  In 2006, Cadillac must prove itself to be working -up toward- the standards of the world set by Mercedes and BMW and Lexus --- even if a 2006 Cadillac is built well beyond the standards America built to when it built the best cars in the world.  50 years ago, the world still tried to build a Cadillac but, in 1956, it still was a car for Kings.

http://members.tripod.com/~cool59/elv56c1.jpg

Cadillac once was B-I-G!!!

For America, times change.   

GM has gone from being the best-imagined, best-beauty, best-seller firm in the world to being the world's number two carmaker, America's number one basket case, and all American motorists' worst "what if?" nightmare.  They might drive Toyotas, BMWs, Hyundais (or AMCs?), but when they live, work, and pay taxes in America, they all will feel General Motors' pain.  

Ford has gone from being a glass house shining under a Dearborn sun that won Le Mans to a sod-roofed remnant upon the River Rouge under orders to pay X $ to Honda for the right to Mark its once-Continental Lincoln with an X just to dream of competing with an Acura-ate Lex-urious Infiniti of Better Ideas: too many of them built and sold by non-American companies.  

One of the remaining American motors "Big-Two" will even have gone from racetrack regular to domestic dropout within the next 2.7 years, for it can't afford to pour more billions into the bottomless NASCAR money pit.  Ovals where Plymouth, Dodge, Chevy, Pontiac, Ford, Hudson, AMC, and more once roared may only hear the squeal of Toyota V-8s and sell the squeals of even more Toyota fans to ensure that America's favorite "All-American Sport" becomes even richer.  Keep the fat fools happily entertained and they won't wonder where AMC's America has gone.

Gone from the greatest auto nation with an industry that put all America on wheels to the nation with the greatest disparity between its image of itself and its provable achievements.  America has gone from spending a greater percentage of GDP on government, education, health "care", (and on cars) than any of its competitors, to become an America that realizes the lowest returns on its [mostly borrowed] "investment" in the American people.  As America has gone from the top to near the bottom; from dream to decay, from brightest to dimming, from dumb to dumber; from creating the best cars for the world to copy to scrambling to copy the best cars of the world, America has been changed in 100, 50, 25 --- or even 10 --- years.  Impala has gone from a scintillating SS to a simulated Accord; Buick has gone from being a Roadmaster to a Passat clone; Saturn has gone from being seen for stardom to seeing stars in an Opel stone.  And an American icon known as Jeep has gone off to see !
 the Wizards (of North America, Central America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, China, plus, of course, Japan, Korea, and anywhere in Asia where skill is high and cost is low; dunno 'bout the Wizard of OZ) in hopes of finding nerve (and a brain) to grow off and -on- the Yellow Brick Road.

Confer with the flowers, consult with the rain, and unravel the riddle:

"The Imperial Wizard of Cars will do wonderful Jeep things because ---"

http://news.caradisiac.com/IMG/jpg/Chrysler_Imperial_Concept_3.jpg   
http://news.caradisiac.com/IMG/jpg/Chrysler_Imperial_Concept_2.jpg

(Because just about "Anything Goes" in cars now?)

http://car-reviews.automobile.com/images/cars/ArtImages/12447/07.jpg

(Or because a smile is a frown turned upside down?)

http://autoblog.it/uploads/alfa_159_gta_hardy.jpg

If America bought a Jeep from Lee Iacocca, America can also buy a Jeep from Brazil, Belgrade, or Beijing; if America can find a better buy by buying a Cheap "Jeep" from Chery, it could buy that instead.  American motors can't continue losing thousands of unit sales (plus billions of dollars) every quarter while running plants at less than three-quarter capacity.  If America can't find its own way to become smarter, better, faster, and more efficient at building Jeeps and Buicks and knock-offs of Toyotas from Prius to Lexii, America, like American Motors, will be gone.  In 100 years?  In 50?  In 27?  In 10?                

Toyota builds nearly 2 million cars in America, employs nearly 40,000 Americans in its plants (thousands more selling, re-selling, servicing and pimping them after they're built), pours nearly 20 billion dollars into American investment, and buys 26 billion dollars of American-made parts to build its cars in America.  Toyota is not going to disappear.

Toyota looks back (remember that when you see a new Supra) -and- ahead. 

If America were to study "Global Vision 2010."  "To promote the appeal of [Toyota] cars throughout the world and realize a large increase in the number of Toyota fans"), America should see the future clearly, and if American motors can see where it needs to be in 5 --- or 10 or 50 --- years, it may be able to go from being another American Motors to being another Packard of 1906, a General Motors of 1956, or a Toyota of 2006.  

"You're out of the woods 
You're out of the dark 
You're out of the night 
Step into the sun, step into the light 
Keep straight ahead 
For the most glorious place 
On the Face of the Earth"

In America, great again.

PS - Guess who passed out plastic bags at the NY Auto Show: big, sturdy red bags with comfortable tube handles that everyone carried everywhere showing a logo and name on each side.  Who's moving forward in America?

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5807/1885/1600/IM000304.jpg   

Great oaks from little acorns grow.

While dead wood slowly rots away.

PPS - according to Alexa (who started counting -up- the net 10 years ago this month, exactly 2 months before I started counting -on- the net to rekindle my interest in AMC), this old listing house ranks 745,233rd in net traffic.  The top car sites now are Honda.com at 1,479th, Toyota.com at 1,922nd, Ford.com at 3,250th, and GM.com at 3,934th.  Lesser lights do shine: BMWUSA.com at 4,357, MBUSA.com at 4,568, Lexususa.com at 4,640, VW.com at 5,354, BMW.com at 6,053, Audiusa.com at 7,203, Ferrari.it at 12,565, Volvousa.com at 21,922, AstonMartin.com at 22,388, Saabusa.com at 22,821, Jaguar.com at 24,722, Maserati.com at 42,729, Mini.com at 46,358, BentleyMotors.com at 51,403, Lamborghini.com at 66,464, Rolls-Roycemotorcars.com at 153,679, and Maybachusa.com at 230,984.  Do note, however, that AMC ran at almost twice the speed of Maserati.co.uk.  It clocked in at a leisurely 1,353,131th.

So is AMC faster than a speeding bullet?

Is AMC rarer than either Ford or Chevy?

Is AMC hotter than a British Maserati?

Say "Cheerio!" and "Buon Appetito!"

In 10 years AMC will not be gone.

In 50 years AMC will be better.

In 100 years AMC will be tops.

America will be much changed.

Packard will live forever.

Among American royalty.

And AMC Ambassador?

Toyota may know.

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