Anyone owned an AMC vehicle?

[addyguy]

Just as the title says, anyone here ever own/drive an AMC car? Ever since my Godfather had a 1976 Gremlin that he drove for 10+ years, I've always thought they are 'neat' cars - just a bit different than everyhting else on the road.

Never hear about them much these days - anyone got a trip down memory lane to share on 'the last independant'?

 

[ViragoBry]

Well, I didn't own it, but a couple of very close friends of mine had a 1985 Eagle sedan. It was a fantastic car for them (Especially because it was in Wyoming) and they kept it until around 2005. The wife (it was her car) sunk her claws into it and refused to let her husband sell it because there wasn't anything she wanted to take its place. It had very few problems over the years, but finally he got her to concede because of basic reliability and lack of anyone to work on it or ability to find parts.

I went up there on vacation in 2007 and was saddened to see that the Eagle was no longer in their garage. In its place sat a 2004 bright red Impala. I was shocked, to say the least.

It was the first thing out of my mouth when they greeted me at the door. When I mentioned the Impala, her response was "Oh, I hate that tacky car. I want my Eagle back".

 

[StevieC]

My mom had a Pacer before I was born and she put almost 300K KM on it. Was the best car she ever owned she said. My dad kept it running. (mechanic)

I have a picture of it, and boy was it ugly. 70's Gold/Brown colour. YUK!

 

[JTK]

I remember a neighbor purchasing TWO brand-new Pacers in the 1970's. They both rusted beyond in repair in under 3yrs. The looks of the Gremlin and Pacer was only outdone by the Matador IMO. OTOH, I've driven the 4x4 Eagle, inline-6 a few times. That was a neat car!

Joel

 

[oldmaninsc]

My grandfather owned several 1960's Ramblers. He drove them a lot of miles. Not sure the exact number, but he made a lot of trips across the United States.
My grandfather always bought cars with the 3 speed stick shift tranny. The column shift. I drove it a few times - very clumsy to drive after you are used to a 4 on the floor type of transmission.

My Dad bought a new Rambler in the mid 60's. The back doors would come open going around turns - with only the driver in the car! It was a real lemon. It spent more time in the dealership's garage than it did his!

A close friend bought an early 70's Gremlin with the 258 straight 6. They named it right! He had nothing but problems. Valve job at 50K miles, tranny replaced shortly after that - oil leaks like crazy, etc.
It was a purple one! YUCK! We called it the Purple Ape! So his CB handle was "The Grape Ape".

In the early 80's another friend had a late 70's Gremlin with the 4 cylinder engine which I think was a Pontiac engine. While being very gutless it seemed to run well for her.

 

[addyguy]

Originally Posted By: StevieC
My mom had a Pacer before I was born and she put almost 300K KM on it. Was the best car she ever owned she said. My dad kept it running. (mechanic)

I have a picture of it, and boy was it ugly. 70's Gold/Brown colour. YUK!

Any chance of posting that pic? I'll be posting a pic of my Godfathers Gremlin soon when he gave it to us to 'do with as we please' (he moved back to Australia).

 

[addyguy]

Originally Posted By: oldmaninsc
My grandfather owned several 1960's Ramblers. He drove them a lot of miles. Not sure the exact number, but he made a lot of trips across the United States.
My grandfather always bought cars with the 3 speed stick shift tranny. The column shift. I drove it a few times - very clumsy to drive after you are used to a 4 on the floor type of transmission.

My Dad bought a new Rambler in the mid 60's. The back doors would come open going around turns - with only the driver in the car! It was a real lemon. It spent more time in the dealership's garage than it did his!

A close friend bought an early 70's Gremlin with the 258 straight 6. They named it right! He had nothing but problems. Valve job at 50K miles, tranny replaced shortly after that - oil leaks like crazy, etc.
It was a purple one! YUCK! We called it the Purple Ape! So his CB handle was "The Grape Ape".

In the early 80's another friend had a late 70's Gremlin with the 4 cylinder engine which I think was a Pontiac engine. While being very gutless it seemed to run well for her.


The 4-cylinder in the Gremlin was and Audi-sourced 2-liter OHC 4-cylinder. The Spirit, and later AMC's, used the 'Iron Duke' 2.5 from Pontiac; and then in 1982, AMC developed their own, completely different 2.5-liter 4-cylinder.

 

[ViragoBry]

Living in Wyoming made this badboy pretty attractive. I thought it was cool, anyway.

 

[Johnny]

Yes I did. Although this is not a picture of mine, this is what mine looked liked, only mine was sort of beat up. It's the car I drove while in high school.

1958 AMC Metropolitan with a whopping 53 HP 4-cylinder.

http://webpages.charter.net/s-tanner/metro6.JPG

 

[addyguy]

How did it run, Johnny? Neat looking little cars!

 

[paulo57509]

I haven't owned one, but I've worked on a few. The one that stands out was an Eagle station wagon with a manual trans. The hydraulic clutch was leaking at the slave cylinder. After replacing the cylinder, I went to look for the master cylinder reservoir.

After searching for a while, I finally located it. Fastened directly to the master cylinder was a clear Tygon-like tube running up the firewall beside the power brake booster, about 6-8 inches long with a heat stamped "FULL" line on the OD. It was open to the atmosphere.

 

[Samilcar]

My first car was a 1973 AMC Hornet, the sedan version of the Gremlin. Brown exterior with brown/tan interior. Hard to keep running, but it looked good. In the short time I had it, I replaced the thermostat, transmission, starter, and front suspension. Good memories in that car though.

 

[Johnny]

Originally Posted By: addyguy
How did it run, Johnny? Neat looking little cars!


Well, I will put it this way, it would keep up with a 1962 VW Beetle. It belonged to a fellow my Dad worked with and it had a bad head gasket. My Dad bought it cheap and we replaced the head gasket. It got me through high school. Best I remember it got around 20-25mpg, but back then I did not care as gas was only $.30 per gallon.

 

[gizzsdad]

'73 Gremlin with a 3-speed on the floor and electronic push button overdrive. 100% black vinyl interior(not a stitch of carpet anywhere). Red w/white stripe, baby moons and chrome rings w/white letter GY Polyglas tires.

Of course an after market 8-track!!

I could be driving down the road and it would die and all the idiot lights would come on. Push in the clutch, turn the key, let out the clutch and keep going. By the time I got rid of it, I think we had narrowed the problem to distributor cap and rotor with aluminum contact points that seemed to suffer from rapid corrosion.

 

[ArBee]

My family owned two AMC products, a '64 Rambler American and a '66 Rambler Classic. Both were six cylinders with the Borg Warner automatic trans that I believe was called "Flashomatic". They were comfortable, reliable cars, but they were awfully staid.

 

[opus1]

Kinda sorta.

My Dad bought a 1980 Concord (used to be called the Hornet, I think) as his mill-car. GM's 2.5L Iron Duke engine, 4-speed manual, no A/C. Other than a choke that got touchy and flooded the engine if the weather was juuuust right and someone who didn't know the car tried to start it, that thing was unstoppable.

It had over 90,000 miles on it when my Dad replaced the original clutch (on which he taught 2 people to people to drive stick) and it wasn't really worn out but he was in the neighborhood anyway to replace a shot throw-out bearing.

He got rid of the thing when he bought the Ranger, so he got a good 13 years or so out of it, and other than some rust under the vinyl roof, the body was in pretty good shape.

 

[msparks]

Had 1969 Javalin we owned for a short time. Wanted to put a 390 in it but sold it for some cash.

Mom bought a brand new 1984 AMC Eagle 4 door. I loved that car, it would go about anywhere. Though the transmission sucked on it.

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted By: addyguy
Originally Posted By: StevieC
My mom had a Pacer before I was born and she put almost 300K KM on it. Was the best car she ever owned she said. My dad kept it running. (mechanic)

I have a picture of it, and boy was it ugly. 70's Gold/Brown colour. YUK!

Any chance of posting that pic? I'll be posting a pic of my Godfathers Gremlin soon when he gave it to us to 'do with as we please' (he moved back to Australia).


Let me find it and I will post it, if it's ok with my mum.

 

[Zaedock]

I had a '75 Matador. It had a 258 that ran well.

It sort of looked like a big frog.

 

[Greaser]

My dad had an Ambassador.It had a green alligator skin roof and red wall tires.360 Chryco 2 barrel engine and a TH400 tranny.Thing ran forever till it got T boned.