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Hi Terry, yea.....and no on this. With Donnie's
Gremlin, while it has been in some media, one can't associate that with market
value. A good example would be my 68 AMX The Red Death which had been featured
in over a dozen magazines and calenders from mid 80s thru mid 90s. (shown here).
I sold it for $3500 and the fellow died afterwards, then it was for sale here at
the nationals in Houston in 2001 for $3000 again. Extremely well known car,
modified/custom/ect but again, can't equate a car's exposure with what it
may/may not be worth.
On that note, one could look at Donnie's change as
'upgrading' and think of the possibilities, and future exposure he would receive
with that car once he puts it 'out there' again. All sorts of magazines come to
mind from NAMDRA, Motor Trend, Hot Rod, and more.
It brings up the old stock vs custom I guess. But
the problem is few cars in 2006 (AMC) are stock, my estimate, and that is all it
is, is that 3%-5% are indeed stock. Many are over restored, or restored to
whatever specifications from the individual owner. A good way to look at it was
Ed Buscis AMX he had on ebay recently. We talked about a hour, as he is old
customer and well, we talked about how restoration, restored, NOS, restified,
all thewords used are all over the map when it comes to aMC. Nothing wrong with
that, except some are abused. I would pick a survivor needing work over a
restored car when judging for instance. It may have paint chips missing, a small
bubble in rust, and tear in carpet, but the car should be judged against itself,
but if in same class (like ISCA) with other similiar, this unrestored will get
my nod. There was a thread Ed started ont he forum about his car, but like most
threads over there, it mysteriously disappeared somehow. Damned
Hezbollas.
I'm not sure what Donnie's car will look like when
finished, however, there are a whole slew of 'stock' that is, for the most part,
unaltered appearing, AMCs out there that have monsters lurking under hood. There
was a regular looking AMX here in Houston at the nationals in 2001, and lift the
hood and it was turbocharged!
Another example would be Louie Lanthrip's 73
Javelin. There is absolutely no way Kenosha could have built a car like this and
kept price under $4000 when new. This car is far from 'stock' and won the
Americas Cup in AMO, which is the highest award given by that organization.
Again, it was judged against itself on it's merit, not like in ISCA or car shows
where you have big group of say all 70-75 Gremlins are fighting for one trophy.
Louie (and wife Carol) 73 Javelin is the brown one here:
I agree, there will be a lot of people going home
changing their Depends after they see Donnie's car, but chances are they will do
that anyways now, as it is a nice car. He might consider making AMC red, white
and blue AMC 'logoed' Depends to sell when he goes to meets after this
conversion, as chances are he would sell out each place that 500hp Gremlin shows
up.
One more thing on stock vs custom. Speaking for
myself, I do not care what the cars are worth. My days of spending $250 for a
date coded radiator cap are gone, went thru all that, been there, done that, in
the 80s thru mid 90s and have a whole pile of 1 foot to 6 foot trophies piled in
cornder of garage collecting dust from all sorts of shows. Now I am more into
customizing. Again, just my choice at this stage in life. I commend and will try
to help (my website is a reflection of this) anyone who wishes to try to put
their car back in 2006 as 'stock' or 'stock appearing'. However, not for me, it
is more of give me a bottle of Jager and Sawzall and let's chop the roof off
this SC/360 and make a roadster. Hell, AMC did it with the Cowboy,
Yup, that is a 71 SC/360, 4barrel,
4speed.
why not now?
There is going to be room for all aMCs on the
showfield, stock, custom, blown, drag, driver, parts car, non AMC power,
whatever it may be, don't lose the fun aspect of it!
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