[AMC-List] Not the AM Macaren

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

It's two weeks since I last moved the cheese where AMC mice don't please, but after a Met opening (too little time for a Mets game), a Tenerife trip (to see what will be in Atlanta) and a train from Spain to an auto show before a plane, I'm "home" --- where, if it's not about Vespas and trams,

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22749-2374531,00.html

it's about Charity AMXs and Javelin Trans Ams.

It's time for AMC to win: it only takes plans.

>>
little if any press exposure, little if any solicitation of donations

very little exposure inside the hobby.
<<

>>
problem with this project is that the AMC community has been burned
<<

>>
main reasons I hesitate to get Involved

there should have been a detailed project plan

charity(s) identified should have had some knowledge of this as well 
<<

So AMC fans said.  20 years after death.  AMC Goals?  AMC Leadership?  

Sad.

Lani Guinier, Lynn Sherr, Fareed Zakaria, and Drew Carey this weekend; Moshe Safdie on 10/11 for a final 411; not much time, but enough to make mice men. 

So I'll ask: Do you do the AM Macarena?

It may be a new Marlin Matador Machine,

http://tinyurl.com/h4fwr

or it'll make a Mopar 300 mambo go mad.

Don't ask if American Motors can dance.

Listen to the music.  Feel a beat now?

http://tinyurl.com/l47wv

A "Pacer" did not take Paris by storm, 

http://tinyurl.com/gs5gu

but a "Gremlin" was, in a way, reborn,
 
http://tinyurl.com/ryofs

(with more doors; Toyo sees a way up!)

http://tinyurl.com/l47wv

and Chrysler may yet again be re-torn.

"Chrysler has lost $4 billion over the past five years against a $32 billion accumulated profit for the group.  This might be time to reconsider whether Chrysler should remain part of the group in its current form.  We believe seeking a partial or entire spinoff or an industrial alliance with another party could be a route to higher and more predictable earnings.

(Deutsche Bank report...)

Chrysler now suffers from "reliance on light trucks, scant presence in markets outside North America, and high labor costs" --- including $2 billion/year spent on health care.

[Which was $6,102 in 2004 (averaged for every American) --- and thus 50% more than the residents of the country with the next-highest health care bill, Switzerland ($4,077); more than double the average for all industrialized nations ($2,546) that provide health care for all their residents for less money than the US spends while we have ~46 million uninsured.  In 1970, we paid about the same for health care as Europe did: our medical costs have risen faster than anywhere else.  Are Americans healthier?  No??  Why not?  Physicians say America has more high-tech medical equipment than the other countries: Edward Langston, new chair of the AMA says, "There are more MRIs in Detroit than in all of Ontario" but Gerard Anderson, head, Center for Hospital Finance and Management School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins says, no: "We have about the same number of MRIs and CT scanners as do Canada, the UK, and France.  We have the same number of doctors, doctor visits, hospitals and i!
 npatient days at hospitals.  The difference is we pay two to 2-1/2 times more for virtually identical services."  Pay for a Royce, deliver a Rambler?  Bad.

The average U.S. physician earned $180,000 in 2004; in Canada, only $100,000 (USD).  One of every seven dollars spent in the US goes for health care --- 15.3% of 2004 GDP: in Canada it's 9.9%; in Japan, 8.0%.  By 2015, we will pay $12,320 per person (in 2006 dollars) if nothing changes: America will be as viable as Nash-Hudson-AMC stores.]

Dodge, like Chevrolet, must have Asia build it cheap, reliable, and profitable small cars now.  Nitro is hot, but if 75% of today's Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep sales are in trucks, Hornet won't be American-made.  Can America fall as far as Detroit?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/allanm/sets/374377/show/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/allanm/sets/1243631/show/

America forgot?  America stopped learning and achieving?  America spends twice as much on education Japan does.  Got results?  American houses are twice the size they were in 1970.  Why?  American families have been shrinking in size for 50 years.  The much-smaller-town home of the much-smaller "small car" company hasn't decayed as much as Motown: where Nash once was, big housing and a small new museum rose, 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rcktmanil/99148284/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rcktmanil/99148155/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yamadel/52341595/

and while one of many (#1) buildings Nash built still serves Kenoshans,

http://www.kenoshacvb.com/pdf/KenoshaLibraryPark.pdf

as do the other buildings (#5, 6, 9, 25) that building Nash cars built

http://www.kenoshacvb.com/pdf/KenoshaThirdAvenue.pdf

which is something to remember even if you started (or think) "small."

http://www.michmarkers.com/startup.asp?startpage=L1397.htm

http://www.geo.msu.edu/geo333/flint-industry.html

http://www.pbase.com/papajim_48306/image/55127757
http://www.pbase.com/papajim_48306/homes_of_the_auto_pioneers

(Remember also, when you're done, no one may know your name...)

http://www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-na.htm

"If he wants to stop Toyota, Ghosn is just going to figure out how to improve his companies' marketing, the weak spot. As for GM and Ford, they will have to save themselves."

(Flint set that mousetrap on 10/4/06)

Ford/Chevy matte black rat rod too "old" for you?  I saw the new Paris "big bad."

http://www.arbitragecars.com/gt.php

Saw the new Avenger too.  Magnum opus or magnum lite?  It's not the new Concord. 

>>iirc the '66 dodge charger with 318 was 52/48% f/r...

If the '70 Charger 318 was 54/46 (and iyrc) that says something on the weight added by fastback sails-and-glass rear (and, since the 1967 318 mill was 55 lbs. lighter, would suggest that a second-year Charger was even closer to the current Charger's "near" 50/50 ideal):    

http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/stories/dynobase.html
http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/stories/weight.html

http://www.dodge.com/charger/control.html

>>
remember the early pontiac tempest?  it, along with the new little
buick skylark and olds f-85, were built on the corvair platform '61-3,
but the tempest - front engine and all - also used the 'vair transaxle
and swingarm suspension.
<<

Knudsen and Delorean did NOT desire to use Corvair's swing axle design*, which was why the Pontiac Polaris died: Cole refused to fix it.  When a rope-drive Tempest got its clone of the Corvair rear suspension, it was over the objections of both Bunkie and John: a far cry from "their" car.

(*after seeing Winchell flip one of the earliest test-track prototypes)

AFA "on" A-body platform: kinda, sorta, but different.  Wheelbases, too.

Also don't overlook how GM's V-8-into-I-4 adventures later affected AMC.

And, in a way, that was too bad.  One of the reasons AMC finally failed.

Half a 360 = 180.  Is that too big?

Half a 304 = 152.  Is that "A" OK?

Or for late '70s, better than 121?

Or in early '80s, better than 151?

http://faculty.concord.edu/chrisz/hobby/80-DataBook/B12.pdf

What if AMC hadn't waited for 150?

http://xjconnection.jtv.cc/engine_I4_XJ.gif  

What if AMC had moved -its- cheese?

AMC might still be -building- AMCs!

Bite on that.

Once, some amateur designers were on this AMC list: now long gone?

If not, from 300-6000 euros await those who can innovate.  Please.

http://www.peugeot-concours-design.com/

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