Shrink to share: AMC and GM

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

America can't pay $65 an hour for assembly-line labor today; America can't pay $900,000 to the heads of for-profit or not-for-profit HMOs; America can't pay however too little or too much it does today to its schoolteachers if they can't produce more graduates, more of whom are capable of successfully competing in the big bad world.

Like Studebaker in the '60s, American Motors in the '70s, and Chrysler in the '80s, America's last two automotive "Bigs" can't pay production costs and marketing costs and retirement costs for plants and pipelines and people if their motor vehicles can't be sold.  If blue collar, white collar, green field or rust belt America can't do more than it does now, do it cheaper, and do it better, then it can only, as they say, "shrink to share."  If/when such share shrinks to too small a fraction, as S-P, AMC, and every prior "last independent" learned, yet another aspect of America can only disappear.  That's sad.

Peter, if you, Ralph, or anyone else, wondered why AMC could become more "interesting" if more knew about Bangle's BMW and the next new Mercedes, that's a question that could've been answered if I had more time yesterday or best answered if the kind of functional AMCyclopedia framework existed into which such information could be installed.  Erect the steel, pour the floors, apply the skin, and finish the interior.  That's the way it could be done.  Do everything 
right once and let it serve.

Way back when teaching, I used to say, "If I mention something once, it should be relevant; if I mention it twice, it would be memorable; if I mention it a third time, it could be on the test."  Those who listened learned.  And those who learned had listened.

Reason to sweat stuff beyond AMC should burn bright as "flame sculpting" on every car -not- designed by Chris.  Source and influence.  Cause and effect.  Past catching up with present.  Present catching on from past.

If there were the style of well-designed searchable online AMCyclopedia that is possible, instead of having typed (and now having re-typed) the same thing onto this fleeting façade once and twice, I could have typed something new by now for some permanence.  Just search "Bangle" to read the story anytime.

What "it" (assuming no one recalls) was -is- relevant, interesting, and, especially when tomorrow looks -back- at today (that's what history has been about, hasn't it?), could make AMC more than it is/has been.  (Or is AMC a "has-been" after barely 20 years of death?)

I hate to repeat --- especially when lean learning is on the grill --- to 20-somethings or to old hands because doing so -limits- options and wastes the most precious commodity we have.  Time.  We do not learn as much by talking as by listening.  We don't learn as much by writing as by reading.  We never have enough time: life isn't recess; it's racing to our ends.

Off the top of my butt-head (I don't have time to research and type on AMC for free), as I remember what he said, when Bangle was a boy of 16 in Wisconsin, the first car he bought was an AMC.  I hear "'72" in my memory, but I think that's incorrect.  Since this posting will have no more value than the first time I told the tale, it doesn't matter now.

As he called that Javelin/AMX "purple" I don't see the '71 model in D8 Sparkling Burgundy.  Instead, I envision F3 Fresh Plum from '73 and G4 Plum from '74.  If I found AMC really interesting, with really devoted fans working together to make it into a really rollicking car hobby, I might have gone back to him for more specifics, more memories, or more insight into how the sheet metal of that AMC car (or of other AMC cars: where better to see AMC than around Milwaukee in the 1960s and 1970s?) may have influenced his design eye, but there's no impetus to do that.

That's just one reason I suggest that AMC fans make AMC "interesting."

AMC could become like Packard.  Or just muddle along being "only AMC."

A build article here, a burnout photo there, an annual meet somewhere, brief books and rehashed history for sale, a variety of club pubs that only their members know, an occasional burst out of the bubble when an AMC receives a big bid or wins a big show --- yes, it's all good.  But is it good enough?  Is that all there is?  Is AMC today as big as AMC once really was?  Will AMC of tomorrow be more or less than it is now?

Will there ever be a big AMC book, an online AMC resource, a national museum, and a cooperative coming-together of people to make AMC more?

Will everyone remember all that AMC was, or anyone still be trying to catch up on what, by then, will be even longer gone?  And will anyone even know that Christopher Edward Bangle once liked the look AMC had?

(And, just so you know that I'm an equal-opportunity taskmaster, note that, even if you pay big bucks for your shot of car culture caffeine, you may not get the real thing.  Chris was not born in Wisconsin, not raised in Minnesota, and is not showing restraint.  It should -grill- every American red-hot when we can't read, write, work, and achieve!)

http://tinyurl.com/zezoq

http://tinyurl.com/ztpsw

Thanks, Joe for the comment: I'm still watching for a WNY club to be reborn.  When I first began to see AMC as a collectible (rather than driver) car, my Spirit was 14 years new and still on the road.  What came back from my inquiries in 1993 wasn't very promising.  One club wasn't really right for my AMC vintages; one club wasn't really into telling about itself, and one club was wild.  No wonder every "other make" hobbyist I mentioned "AMC" to would ask, "Other than nostalgia, why would you spend any of your time on -that- make?  They're weird."

(And not one of those clubs had any local activity: AMC seemed dead.)

So Spirit joined Ambo in slumber land; the AMX and both ragtops left.

Three years later, I found this list and joined up, I met Joe's friend (if he isn't, I don't need to know) Jim, Jim's friend Josh, and then Joe at that '04 Nash Club show.  I've watched which AMC cars repeat their appearances at shows; I've figured out which owners seem worth chatting to and which act weird in whatever ways, and I always asked all of them if they read this list (one hot-shot who said "no" had actually posted!) and if they were members of any AMC club(s).  Almost none were.  "I/we just go it alone" was the typical response.  I kept thinking that they (and AMC) would be better if they could know more, learn more, see more, or do more to make their interest a part of something that could be big.

I really looked forward to meeting AMC leaders, experts and top-car owners and did encounter several of them over the years.  It wasn't quite what I'd hoped for, but that's reality.  I couldn't imagine a dedicated historian would be more defensive of turf than curious to learn of alternate approaches to AMC.  I couldn't fathom why Grand National AMCs --- best of their breed still around --- looked less "grand" than the Fords and Chevys (and, in truth, than the Hudsons, Studes, Packards, and AMC Mets) under the WNY sun.  Where were the owners?  Why weren't their AMCs as "shiny" as the other cars?  And, certainly, where had the rest of AMC gone?  For every AMX, Javelin, SC/Rambler, and Machine, where were 20 more Ambos or 50 Americans?  Finally, where was the AMC community I had thought would be found; across an American land where not long ago, AMC was counted third, fourth, or, at worst, as normal weird cars for weird independents?

Why hasn't weird become wonderful as all the l-o-n-g years passed?       

Isetta.  Goggomobile.  Edsel.  1959 Cadillac.  Nash, Rambler, AMC?

Why hasn't the AMC List become more wild and wonderful since 1996?

Tom, Dick, Sue, and YOU?  Steve, Bart?  Where has -this- AMC gone?

Is AMC now dying faster than its history can be permanently saved?

Is that why no one has posted anything yet about AMC and February?

March is almost over and I haven't even begun to note its history.

But, when whatever is written is probably moot, it doesn't matter.

And that's how another aspect of automotive America can disappear.


Tom, I'm actually ham on wry, but I think you got what I'm up to.  I want AMC people to achieve, to take AMC to a place it deserves to be, and to aspire to greatness.  There's no reason "The Great One" should only mean some fat guy doing sthick or some stacked-headlight Pontiac: after all, the -first- American cars to do that came from Kenosha.  '49 and '57 Ambassadors.

Production lights, that is.  If you were among the 26 who hit that AMC summer show parade, you should remember seeing the -earlier- concept.  If not:  

http://tinyurl.com/zj9rr

Not a pipe dream:

http://www.classics.com/images01/pb01-15.jpg

And not at all irrelevant to what AMC did from 20 to 54 years ago.

By the way, the only online photo from the rear is at this dead server:

http://www.burkeandwells.com/assets/800x600/pb_lincoln_concept_1954.jpg

That's precisely why, while individual work is wonderful, a "big book" permanent, all-club-supported, all-fan-created AMCyclopedia is an absolute must-have. 

(Only two photos shown?  No test.  Whew!  [Unless you LIKE to learn...])

Out of time again.

And gone.