JP’s A to Z Challenge: A is for AMX
Your humble correspondent has done a pretty good job of avoiding contrived themes designed to puff up content and juice reader stats. But when a good idea comes my way, I’m in.
A blogger friend (a good fellow named Herb) has done several versions of an A to Z Challenge on his blog. The high IQ readership of this blog has certainly figured out what this is – but I will spell it out anyway, having been stung early in a prior career with a note on a draft of a legal writing assignment that said “assumes too much reader knowledge”. Ahem, anyway, an A to Z Challenge (as normally done) is a new blog post for twenty-six days in a row, on topics associated with each letter of the alphabet.
Herb’s most recent Challenge got me to thinking – what would an A to Z Challenge look like here? First, it could not be every day. A weekly blog that suddenly goes for 26 days would make no sense. Would that be 26 days in addition to the normal 4 (ish) that would be published in a month? In any case, it would offend my sense of order and symmetry. But 26 weeks – now THAT is a schedule that works for me. And that it would cover almost exactly a half of a year, how perfect!
But it would have to be something other than this blog’s normal fare. And then it hit me. One blogger I follow is a film photography aficionado, and he regularly posts his work. Another is a nature lover and shares some wonderful wildlife photos. Me? I am a longtime car nut who has been photographing cool old cars for a long time and has gobs of them in my electronic vault. So there we go. Many of these have been part of long-form articles at CurbsideClassic.com, but many have never made it there and deserve to be seen.
And as you got from the title, A opens things for us with the AMX, made by AMC (or American Motors, if you prefer).
Did you ever play Car Bingo from the back seat of the family station wagon on the interminable drives with the family as a kid? I did, and I could always count on good old American Motors when I needed an “A”.
American Motors was the perennial also-ran of the U.S. auto industry that was ruled by “The Big 3”. However, for a brief stretch in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s the plucky little company put some fun and fascinating things into its showrooms. And one of those was the 1968-1970 first generation AMX.
The AMX was a 2 passenger sports(ish) car derived from its larger, 4 passenger Javelin. AMC only managed to build 19,134 examples over all three years, so these were never common. And though I was never the biggest fan of AMC’s cars, even I had to admit that the original AMX was a real looker. I am not a red car guy, but red suits the AMX, as do the great stripes.
The only question left is whether the next 25 installments of this series will append to the end of regular weekly posts on the normal variety of subjects, or whether there should be a temporary expansion to a second day each week for a limited run. The jury is still deliberating on this one, so feel free to weigh in.
Photos by the author at a car show in St. Joseph, Michigan, July, 2013.
J. P.'s Blog 
You’ve got a two-fer with both the make and model having an “A”. If you are thinking models, I (unable to help myself) can also think of Ambassador, Aspen, Accord, and Alliance (AMC again!). Makes have me thinking Audi, Apperson, and Allstate.
How to do this? If a particular subject inspires you, focus on it and have the car bingo as a secondary topic, or subplot, if you will. If your well of inspiration is shallow some week, focus on car names. Plus, some letters are mighty thin for make/model names; I’m thinking Q, Y, and Z plus there are likely others.
I think this is a great idea.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thinking about this, I could probably do two or three cycles without much effort. Just for A, I skipped over Avanti (showed one a few weeks ago), Allante and even Airflow. I am even good on X and Z, but may have to snap a few photos of a Yukon when I get a chance. 🙂 My biggest struggle is how poorly my photos are organized.
LikeLike
Having lived in Milwaukee in that period, you bet I saw a lot of AMX’s, and I preferred the first gen model like this, but had a few friends that owned the second gen (and got to ride around in them). In an era where the “Big 3” were starting to have a lot of dependability problems, I never recalling hearing anything about mechanical problems with them, and my friends gen 2 models were pretty dependable. The gen 1 model body design was the perfect embodiment of the “less is more” design philosophy, and it was small, sharp, and sleek.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When I was a kid, my best friend’s family got a new car – a 1972 Javelin AMX (the 2nd generation one I think you are referring to). It was red, had the stripes, the bucket seats, the cool wheels, and everything anyone would want on one of these. I had no idea back then how rare that car was, because I never saw another one just like it. I just did a little research, and only about 3200 were built with the AMX trim. No wonder I never saw another one just like it!
LikeLike
Not having paid much attention to AMC products at the time (were they Ramblers, or AMCs or what were they?), if I had seen one of these when they were new, I would have passed it off as just a Javelin. Maybe AMC should have differentiated these a bit more from the Jav. However, the whole point is that they didn’t have the money to do so. Therein lies the quandry.
Now we look forward to seeing what the letter B may bring us. Barracuda, Bonneville, Bentley, or Bobcat.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I always thought that if the regular Javelin had been styled and proportioned more like this AMX, it would have sold better. But the Javelin looked a little too long and the AMX was a little too short to make a decent 4 seat pony car.
The progression will be a little bit like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates – you never know what you will get. 🙂
LikeLike
These were rare sights where I lived. They don’t even show up much at the Carlisle shows or the big Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) fall show in Hershey. Hard to believe that the same company that designed and built this also built our 1973 AMC Gremlin, which spent most of the time my family owned it falling apart.
For “B” I’d choose Bobcat…those cars don’t receive much coverage these days.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If I didn’t have B already lined up, Bobcat would have been a great idea. I have some shots of a Bobcat wagon in its full wood paneled glory!
LikeLike
First, thank you for the shout-out! I really appreciate it. I am excited to see how this series will unfold. I follow an author/educator’s blog (Jacqui Murray) who has been doing writing genres in a similar, stretched-out way.
I remember seeing AMC cars around (my friend owned a Gremlin) but I don’t remember this particular one. Very cool.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Glad you liked it! I would have thought that coming from Wisconsin, you would have seen some of these, seeing as they were built in Kenosha.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember seeing Javelins and thinking they were really cool.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for the mention JP – I appreciate it! I know that you know I had an AMC Pacer, the famous fishbowl car. It was camel-colored, not exciting looking like this Javelin. But I did know someone who had a Javelin and it was not fire-engine red, but a lemon yellow with black stripes. Whether that was the original paint job or not, I don’t know. When I worked at the diner during college, they were my favorite customers, a husband and wife that owned the Dairy Queen down the block. They loved that car and always pulled it up to the window so they could keep an eye on it while they were eating breakfast before opening the DQ.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is funny how old cars can unlock memories. I love your story, that would have been a car that really stood out!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, I can picture them driving up in it every day. They were snowbirds so they drove it down to Florida every Winter where they had a condo. I think your A-Z Challenge will be right up your alley JP. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really like your idea of an A-Z for cars – and I really like the once a week format – and I am married to a Car Guy – and I have hundreds and hundreds of photos of cars taken at all the car shows I go to with said Car Guy. Can you see where I am going here!?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha, I say go for it!
LikeLike
I showed The Car Guy the photos that could be in our ‘A’ post – an Audi R8, Ford Model A, Pontiac Arrow, Studebaker Avanti and an Austin Healey. Finding time to do the post is the bigger issue what with closing down the AZ house, driving to AB, etc, etc. I think we will be posting the ‘A’ cars about the time you are on ‘C’! And the Avanti could go under ‘S’ etc, etc. The Car Guy found the Arrow to be the most interesting one though. Very little information about it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ooh, the Arrow is actually a mystery to me. A Model A would have been a great choice – I wish I had thought of it!
LikeLike
You know, the more I think about the AMX, the more I realize that this was also the era of the “short” bodies, which I preferred over the later “bloated” models. Camaros (which I liked), and the short Firebirds (didn’t like the “nose”), 1967-1969. I really liked those profiles, and the “short” AMX fits right in there. Starting about 1970, everything started to get longer, and actually less controllable from a handling standpoint. I’ve read more than one history of the muscle car era that said that the power plants were all out of whack for speed and torque, compared to what any of the automobile companies were doing with the suspension and handling; which resulted in a lot of dead kids plastered on the roadside. Every deep discourse on the era says that the insurance companies charging exorbitant rates on muscle cars pretty much put an end to the era, and maybe rightfully so. When you look at this gen 1 AMX, you can see where a little under the front air dam, and a smallish trunk lid spoiler would have gone a long way to taming any kind of handling problems on this nice short body, and a few aftermarket shock and spring mods would have turned this into a real Euro-competitive sport vehicle.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The problem was that AMC was never really known for great handling cars, and these suffered from a lot of compromises in that department. But boy did they look the part!
LikeLike
BTW, J.P., once again, you are channeling the spooky! My PBS station just started running a multi-part documentary on American Motors! Check your local for times and availability.
https://www.pbs.org/show/the-last-independent-automaker/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh boy, I’ll have to look for it.
LikeLike
If I were you, I would stick with the A-Z format for awhile and see how it turns out. Maybe some of the cars will suggest other digressions within the alphabetical posts. Don’t dilute your energy too quickly and find yourself bogged down. But then again, no one who asked me for an opinion or received unsolicited advice from me has ever returned and said: “Geoff, your advice really helped me out!”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your last sentence is my favorite, because that’s never happened to me either (even when the unsolicited advice was absolutely brilliant).
I have decided on a Tuesday extra edition for the A-Z, and I’ll decide what to do from there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
No matter how you proceed with this A-Z I’m on board. I’m not even a car guy but it’s still interesting to read about a vehicle I’ve never heard of in your very first installment. The techie in me was trying to read “Ampex” instead of “AMX” – ha. I will say, the lines are a little too sharp for my taste and remind me of AMC’s Gremlin. Maybe most vehicles favored that look back in the day. So much softer now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You are not the first to say this car reminds you of a Gremlin. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person