[AMC-List] Label me; label you; label AMC

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

Arfon asked:

"...accurate?"

>>
if you wonder why those inertia starters on Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto, Chrysler, Imperial, Valiant, Ford, Meteor, Edsel, Mercury, Monarch, Lincoln, Hudson, Essex, Terraplance, Nash, LaFayette, Rambler,. AMC, Studebaker, Rockne, Packard, Willys, and Jeep vehicles all look so similar, it's because they all trace their roots to Autolite.
<<

Indeed: beyond America, there was even more sharing.  In 1931, a Lucas-Bosch (CAV-Bosch) diesel engine joint venture had been accompanied by a promise not to compete in components like starters, but six years later, under orders from Berlin, Bosch sold CAV to Lucas, so, both before and after the Second War, similar --- or even the same --- starters started many marques, but they bore different component-maker names.  

To complicate that confusion, Rotax (yet another starter maker Lucas had acquired in the 1920s), CAV and Lucas also made starters under a license from Bendix, which, in 1932, also sold a majority interest in one of its British starter companies to Lucas (along with Bendix's ex-Rotax license for aircraft starters) with a wink and nod from the American government.  "America First" (Lindbergh, etc.) didn't mean we were -completely- blind to what'd been starting (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) cross the Atlantic.  A few Americans were, as a few Americans still are, praying for better days, but preparing for an Armageddon.  A majority of Americans were, and are, happily clueless.  But they do know who won the "American Idol" and the Mustang convertibles.  And Barbie's starter car.     

http://www.pinkponytail.com/Product_Images/recent_03/G8022o.jpg

So America still is a leader?

To end where we started, in 1937, to keep the top American starter maker out of its markets, Lucas began paying Autolite $50,000 a year, and that firm agreed to exchange starter technology --- and licenses --- in turn.
Thus, you may add even more makes with "Autolite" starters to your list.

So your motoring world turns.

Arfon also asked:

>>
This 1967 California 232 had a silver lable on the rocker arm cover...

http://www.arvonia.net/~arfon/Rambler%20Battery%20Tray/MVC-003F.JPG

...anyone know what it used to say?
<<

Two things.  1) It's another good example of how an online AMCyclopedia would beat posting-and-typing-and-posting-and-typing while hoping for a better day.  The first time any question came up, if an answer had been typed into an AMCyclopedia framework and edited, after additions and/or corrections by even more AMC fans, had Arfon not looked it up, he would simply need a link to follow.  Bingo.  Success.  No more of the lesser AMC.

Puttering is enjoyable.  Individualism is encouraged.  -Accomplishment- is essential for any endeavor to succeed and survive.  AMC now is a car company that failed.  If AMC now is a hobby for "doing their own thing" exclusively, AMC has failed again.  I'm not a writer but can find a word for AMC: Forward!

That's "Avanti" in Italian (as posted several times here) that any self-respecting mid-western (Indiana or Dakota) American independent car fan should be proud to know --- Studebaker Avanti was among the most important post-war designs American motors built (the world outside AMC acknowledges that fact) --- and also proud to make their own thing.

AMC failed because it couldn't see; it couldn't plan; it couldn't change what it had been doing comfortably.  It's painfully obvious now that collectible AMC is comfortable doing the same thing.  I've written yet another word here before.  No doubt it too, has no meaning.  Elcar.  As an earlier AMC.

2) It's another example of how excellent AMC information online cannot accomplish what it could if were AMC more a "co-op" than an "own thing" collector car endeavor.  Trunnions (double "n" is correct, even though the French --- yes, internationalism really is a good thing, and car lovers of every age, education, and economic level really can look, listen, learn, and accomplish for free --- is "trognon"), chokes (if you're choking on this now, you may be reading and learning, thus -accomplishing- something), and heat tubes were addressed.  Better than nothing, but just another one-time thing.

What happened to his other question?  If answered by "off-list" e-mail, what was accomplished?  One piece of info for one individual doing his own thing?  And for AMC?  If it wasn't answered at all, was -anything- accomplished?

Is that all that's left for the lovers of AMC?  Is that a way forward?  If no one can remember the entire parts (or just wants to remembers their "own thing" part) of AMC and no one looks ahead to a better AMC of tomorrow, why will anyone want to do anything with AMC cars or AMC people?

Cars and people can only succeed (yes, they both must -sell- themselves) because of how they are built, how they perform, how well they are serviced, how they look, how they are advertised and how they are perceived.  In words, pictures, and music.  Life is a grand opera.  It's not a game of solitaire.

Good cars can be failures; bad cars can be successes but it's the complete package that leads to survival.  Ford's "Bold Moves" and GM's "Then And Now" campaigns (if you don't know both, find out; if you don't want to know more, how very sad) recall AMC advertising.  I am lucky enough --- no, I worked hard enough --- to talk with many of the very people (smart people who know why looking, listening, and learning are important aspects of being alive...) who had worked for (or more accurately, -with-) AMC.  Mary Lawrence and several members of her staff once tried very hard to make more of AMC.  I've talked with designers on the AMC staff, from RAT to those who drew door handles for Grand Cherokee (yes, an -AMC- Jeep that Chrysler inherited almost finished) and in the shadows (yes, AMC, more than the Big-3, hired hired guns, or rather, Prismacolor pencils); I've talked with kids and grandkids of AMC leaders; and I've talked with anyone anywhere from Bloomfield to Agoura hills,!
  in Bergs (yes, there are still overseas AM secrets) and in 'burbs (Detroit to Stuttgart to Seminole swamp buggy) and I have jotted notes and drawn doodles during/after all those meetings.  I've seen the "Packard Pacer" color renderings and a '51 "Pacer" wagon; I know what a production AMX Turbo could've looked like; I've seen photos of an AMX/4 clay with 15" Turbocast III alloys.  I think such AMC things are worthwhile.  But maybe Larry Mitchell, Pat Foster, Retro Ralph --- and you --- don't.

I've listened to Lido, Dick, Chuck and a hundred others' AMC stories.  I've spent hours and days writing (pencil on paper, guard outside the door) notes in the most hallowed halls of Motown history.  I don't mean the Detroit Public Library National Automotive History Collection; I had much higher designs for AMC history than to just stop at that.

I should post a document file for the world?  What world?  Is the AMC World Club somewhere doing its something new?  Is the AMC List/AMC Forum/Gremlin/Pacer/etc. world doing something special that's some deep dark secret?  Are some Ambassador experts, Marlin experts, Matador experts, AMX experts, Javelin experts, and Pacer experts somewhere doing some dancing to tunes of some truly -cooperative- AMCyclopedic structure?

A rather respectable publisher won't publish a rather extensive book about a rather undervalued, yet still rather worthwhile American carmaker named American Motors.  "We just can't print a ~$100 reference book for such a small market."  "There is absolutely no demand for such degree of detail in that make/model segment."  "AMC collectors won't buy a Buick/Cadillac/Packard quality book; they want something that's much cheaper and much easier to read."

A rather colorful periodical won't publish much more than rather lightweight looks at AMC history.  It will publish in-depth looks at Chevrolet, Pontiac, Packard, and other makes, but "Our readers would not want such a wide-ranging comparative study involving AMC, so we can't devote that many pages, words, photos, charts to such a manufacturer."  

So that may be AMC now.  That may be the way you may like it.  RIP.

To a party now: recognizing staffers for -cooperative- achievement.

It's an Ice Cream Social, not an AMC List Picnic.  And that is sad.

Almost forgot:

http://faculty.concord.edu/chrisz/hobby/67-DataBook/DataBook-Eng/eng103.html

http://southtexasamc.tripod.com/osbdecal.htm

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