[AMC-List] Shipping bumpers and abrasive rashes

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

If you read (or read of...) this best-seller,

http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/ESLquiz.html

you saw a joke coming.  If you didn't, look harder.  Don't look dumb.

"Shipping, bumpers, and 'abrasive' Nashes" are today's actual topics. 

Little things really do count.

>>
The endura bumper I shipped took a pounding, you could see it on the
wrapping, they are also nearly impervious to damage so it was no big
deal.
<<

Gee, to think back to 1968, when "to put the squeeze" on a car lover meant to pinch his Pontiac on the nose, not to punch his Hornet in the grille.

http://ultimategto.com/1968/68h_00176_1.jpg

>>
I saw a Matador coup in the readers rides under construction a few years
back in some magazine, I can't remember which one. Anyhow the owner had
used a pair of late 60's early 70's Corvette rear bumpers on the rear of
his car. I don't remember what he used on the front it may have been
rear Corvette ones too. The Corvette ones on the back looked nice. Those
massive bumpers did nothing for the looks of the car.
<<

Mmm, to apostrophe, to comma, or coup the coupe shorter than the sedan?  To car lovers in 2006, that may mean to pinch out of or to punch up on punctuation.

In 1968, one could pay $25 for the "Endura Delete" option (one couldn't delete the "Sercon" plug-in diagnostic test system --- remember when GM was a world leader in smart technology?), but in 2006, one doesn't even need to pay to look smart, thanks to technology.  Just type in a "Word" and then stop at the red lights to delete (or add options) as diagnosed.  One will "Get TO" endure gratitude instead of brake dust on one's nose.

In the aggressive age of 2006, not doing so could be embarrassing.  In the asbestos age of 1968, not doing so would be lethal.  In either age, looking dumb is dumber than taking a minute to test things out and look smart.       

And not looking for the AMC content is dumbest of all, so it's time to remember that the Pacer, the Matador coupe, and the [Spirit-based] AMX Turbo all were wanting for flexible faces --- had AMC been able to pay the freight.

Pacer probably came closest to actually getting plastic bumpers: the decision to substitute steel came quite late in development.  AFAIK, '74-up Matador was to receive a new "integrated" fascia for its first (~'78) facelift (designs abandoned when rush re-do requested for '77 put the bumper money on hood, grille, and headlights; naught, of course, was ultimately funded, with only the opera window and trim changes made), but AMX would have received much plastic, from grille (non-grille, if the "Euro" look had been adopted) and front fascia to full lower-body cladding and an extensive "smoothing" of the rear.  One proposal was quite evocative of '68-'69 (wraparounds), one of '70 (caps), one was Pontiac show car (Banshee III), and one was prescient of Mustang SVO and GT, as if done by English and German Ford studios.

The Spirit front posed such a problem (too tall) that serious thought was given to clever cut-and-patch ways to graft on a longer one-piece nose that would have looked OK from the front and front three-quarter but would've looked "funny" (funny car?) in side profile, even if the lower rear end had been lowered and "padded" (J Lo?) by a few inches, and the upper trailing mass had been "added" by use of a double aero wing (which, to maintain visibility and liftback operation, would've looked substantial from the side but blade-like from the rear --- so thin, in fact, that if the narrow (neon or LED) HCMSL could not be budgeted, the light would've been at top of the gate (outside edge was too narrow: inside under-glass unit required rerouting of heat wires) or, since the liftgate's squared-off lower lip was also narrow, -on- the bottom edge.  No one liked either option.

Single wing spoilers (two of which had no triangles tacked onto fender edges) offered different problems.  One had a row of tiny incandescent bulbs, but was expensive to produce and difficult to re-lamp; one had a "hang-down" unit that would have looked quite inelegant, and one would have looked like the Donohue ducktail with a lighted rectangle where the keyhole should've been.  It would not have solved the access complaints, it obscured too much glass, and made the upper rear look more massive than was considered optimal for the overhang.  (It also had gasket issues, I recall...)

To make this all the more vexing, one of the designers (no name, please) wanted to see a -round- CHMSL (to recall and reinforce the AMX identity) that would have demanded "sculpting" the thickest single-wing spoiler, or "sinking" a circle into an already too-tall ducktail, or even one "stand-up" design that would instead have circled back to recall and reinforce more of a 1950s-1960s -Chrysler- identity.  AMC owners should know why.  

http://tinyurl.com/k6m9h

http://tinyurl.com/zs7d8

http://tinyurl.com/jk2bm

Here's lookin' at ya, kid!

http://tinyurl.com/zqkoz

AFA blade bumpers cut to a coupe Matador, they would have looked ideal, but were never even considered.  Of course, back then, such a design -couldn't- be.

American car lovers should know how over a thousand Camaros had to be destroyed when American autoworkers struck so long that those '72 cars could not be sold.  (GM thought about pulling the plug on the F-body right then and there...) and Matador maniacs should know what AMC borrowed from that blade-bumper Camaro and the Italian GTs -it- had borrowed from.

It shouldn't require painting or posting a picture to see auto history.

And AMC (and all car) lovers should know that, along with the "dumbing down" of America, our bumper standards are not what they once had been.   

Here's to readin', writin', and 'rithmetic.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/regrev/evaluate/807072.html

>>Well, I WISH I could claim credit for The Old Car Manual Project

Mike, I knew that you only -added- to TOCM's online treasure trove; I did, however, post a note (I don't say or do anything without reason) because TOCM is exactly the sort of -sharing- I've been yammering for.

If AMC people can't (they certainly haven't over the past decade...) do that, then AMC people must join with other car people who are doing something good.

If I had unlimited opportunity, I'd have every piece of published auto paper I own scanned for such a worthwhile free service, from the earliest (1902?) to the latest (2006, 2007, or whatever model year I stop acquiring...) and, when every designer is dead (unless, by then, the heirs of every designer have taken a leaf from certain [no names, please] independent legatees and they become more protective [read profiteering] of that work than were those who put a pencil to paper), I'd have the "one-off" design dreams scanned.  They'd be much better looked at than read about.

I'd hope serious car lovers could make something better of it someday.

Assuming old car lover are still able to read, write, and learn, then.   

Once again, I'm out of time, so once again, I won't post on Nash-Ajax.

I don't mean to be abrasive [get it now?]: I'm just ready to ship out.

For now, put your AMC skill to use unraveling this mystery: what was the 1974 AMC connection to a 2006 Wisconsin vehicle that is built -for- AMC?

If you say "AMG" without thinking, you'll be sanded, er, -stranded- on the deck of the wrong bumper car, er, -ship-.  Nash, er, -knash- your teeth, tear your wool, er, -hair-, and grill your colleagues.  Think of yesterday, today, tomorrow.  Lean back; think for a spell.  Think about spelling, for spelling well is swell.

If all good things do come to an end; bad things eventually end also.

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