Yesterday we took a turn to the dark side, but the mystery of the turd-like Rot Rod Miata was easily unraveled - you all deduced the owner to be a freak, and feted his freakdom with a 85% Crack Pipe vote. Good work people, get yourselves a Scooby snack.

Today we're going over the river and through the woods to grandma's house, and Granny's 1986 AMC Eagle will make that trip all the easier.

The Concord-based Eagle arrived in 1979 as a 1980 model, and took the honor of being the first full-time all wheel drive production car (discounting the 320 Jensen FFs built), providing AMC with a stay of execution. The Eagle uses a single-speed transfer case with a viscous coupling to smoothly shift power to the end with the most traction. The rear end is a live axle with a 2.73 final drive, and the front is a novel independent setup where the differential is bolted to the engine and half shafts carry power to the wheels via double cardans. Engine choices included the AMC 2.5-litre four, their 4.2-litre straight six, and for a time, GMs craptacular Iron Duke 151-cid wheezer. The most common trnsmission choice was the Chrysler's A998-based 3-speed automatic, but manuals could be had as well.

It would unlikely to expect grandma to row her own, so, as the seller of this '86 Eagle Wagon notes that he is selling it for his Maw-Maw, it comes as no surprise that it's sporting only two pedals. Fortunately, it also has the 4.2-litre six, which is good for 110-ponies. In 1986, AMC dropped the lock-up torque converter from the car, and added an open differential transfer case. There were 6,943 wagons built that year. A common problem with the Eagle is right-rear axle failures, but they're easy and cheap to fix.

Aside from the radio, this Eagle scouts out as complete and functional. The 97,000 miles under its tires look like they've been gentle ones, and that's not too many for a 23 year old car. Then there's that price. It's possible grandma is still living in the past, and that works to the buyer's favor as the asking price is from a bygone era as well. At $2,700, this car is in the realm of an impulse purchase. Not only that but there's at least three Jalopnikadians here whose eyes have bugged out, and whose jaws have dropped on their keyboards just at the sight of the car. But, is it really a deal?

What do you think about $2,700 for a 23 year old Eagle? Does that price fill you with all the warmth of a grandma's hug? Or, does that make you think that granny's on crack?

You decide!


Johnny Knoxville Craigslist or go here if the ad disappears. Fedora tilt to theallpowerfulme for the tip!

Help me out with NPOCP. Click here to send a me a tip, and remember to include your commenter handle.

Yes, they were still putting on that 60s-style SimuWood™ plastic siding on Jeeps as late as Reagan's second term; note the plastic "dowels" and decal inserts. Enough time has passed that this stuff is now cool! This truck is also notable for its AMC 360 V8, an engine that Chrysler kept in production all the way until 1991.

I found this truck at one of the now-defunct East Bay Pick Your Part yards, so we can assume that any parts that you see here have now been digested and dumped into a Guangzhou-bound container ship.

It went all day long, involved over 100 cars and thousands of penalty laps, and that's all I've got the energy to say right now. Let's see how these fine racin' machines perform later!

Music: Lille Knox, "I'm Troubled About My Soul," source: Prewar Blues

Of course, we all know now that you pretty much need AWD to negotiate your typical shopping mall parking lot, so maybe Chrysler made a mistake by killing off the Eagle soon after gobbling up AMC in 1987. Could Chrysler have beat Subaru at its own game, had they only kept developing the Eagle?

If you like weird twists and turns in your engine-history plot, you'll like the Buick V6. Buick engineers took their aluminum 215-cube V8, lopped off a couple of cylinders, and cast the shortened block and heads in cast iron. The result displaced 198 cubes and made its debut (as the "Fireball V6") in the 1962 Buick Special. Oldsmobile and Buick dropped the 198 and later 225 into their A-bodies, but The General made the decision to use the Chevrolet I6 250 as their six-banger of choice. The V6 was sold off to… ready for this? Kaiser-Jeep! When those Kenosha swashbucklers at AMC bought Kaiser-Jeep in 1970, the bulletproof AMC Straight Six shoved the Buick aside.
Fast-forward to the dawn of the Malaise Era: "Rat turds!" screamed The General's suits up on the Fourteenth Floor, "We need a V6, like, yesterday! So, all the Buick V6 tooling traveled back from Wisconsin to Detroit and the world was introduced to the 231-cubic-inch "new" Buick V6, which was installed in such stellar machines as the Skyhawk. The funky "odd-fire" crank setup made the engine rough, but reliability was very good (and The General eventually loosened the purse strings enough for his engineers to make a smoother "even-fire" version).
Keep fast-forwarding, and you'll find this engine surviving through the Malaise Era, through the Oliver North Era, and all the way up until the present day. Displacements have come and gone, but the 3800 aka 231 has proven itself to have the real staying power; not only did a turbocharged version power the legendary Buick GNX, but Eaton superchargers started getting bolted on during the 90s. What was the most powerful factory Buick V6? Well, that depends on whether you believe The General's numbers about the GNX! Hate away, you pushrod-phobes, but you're looking at a success story.

[Wikipedia, image source here]

The heated battle yesterday over the merits of a $3,700 Pontiac ended with a surprising 75% Nice Price vote saving the LeMans to cruise Hollywood yet another night. Speaking of Hollywood- it's a long way from Cherry Hill New Jersey, which is where we're headed today.

Nash Kelvinator had always been a second-tier automaker here in the U.S., and by the mid-fifties, while everybody was leaving it to beaver and loving lucy, they quietly merged with Hudson to form American Motors. A brand cue of Nash's (other than Nash Seats which would have engendered a population explosion had the cars been more popular) was the bathtub body design. The tall fenders with semi-skirted wheel arches - front and rear - made the cars look like they should always be transporting a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker. While the major competition was zooming into the future on fins bedecked with chrome, and everything longer, lower and faster, what Nash felt America needed was a diminutive shoppers trolly disguised as a car. Setting one of their biggest Kelvinator washing machines on extra-hot, they shrunk down their compact Rambler into the even smaller two-seat Metropolitan- an example of which is our candidate today.

This 1961 Metro is attractive for both its convertible top which lets the sun in, and an opening trunk, which lets you in to get your stuff. Previous models required you to limbo your way behind the seats to access your bottles of scotch and Life magazines. The two-tone paint is most complimentary to the cheery but rounded shape, which is surprising on such a small car. That carries over to the interior with a pair of broad seats, in red and white, and a metal dash that is dominated by the speedometer- directly ahead of the wheel and three on the tree shifter.

While Father may know best, the mileage of this BMC- B-series powered Metro is in question. The seller claims it might be 21,000, or. . . maybe not. But really, who cares? You're not buying this for its long term drivability. This is a fun car, a top-down Sunday afternoon kind of car.

And with those expectations in mind, let's revisit that price. The seller is asking $16,500 for this littlest Nash, and that gets you not only the top and the trunk lid, but also a continental kit, which looks a lot less ridiculous on this than you might imagine. These cars have extensive support networks- the Nash Metro Club has chapters all over the place and the members typically aren't weirdos, just regular folk. And they're not all a bunch of dwarves, so stop thinking that.

So what will it be for this Nash with panache? Is $16,500 a Price that is Nice for this slice of American life? Or, is the seller smoking the Crack - from a tiny, little Crack Pipe - for asking that?

You decide!

South Jersey Craigslist or go here if the ad disappears. Hat tip to evanschmitt!

There's a good cross-section of Kenosha advertising style here, from the 60s muscle cars and penny-pinching economy sedans to the Malaise Era favorites and into the Members Only 80s. When you're done here, you might enjoy our favorite VW ads, then continue your car-advertising overdose with the Datsun, Toyota, Renault, General Motors, British Leyland, Ford/Lincoln/Mercury, Honda, Citroën, and Chevrolet ads.

1979 Jeep Cherokee	1983 Jeep CJ-7	1987 Jeep Comanche
1976 Jeep CJ-5 Levis	1975 AMC Pacer	1969 AMC Rambler Rebel
1967 AMC Rebel	1967 AMC Ambassador Wagon	1981 AMC Eagle
1969 AMC Javelin	1969 AMC Ambassador	1969 AMC AMX
1973 AMC Gremlin	1979 AMC Spirit

The Spirit was built on the aging Gremlin chassis, and you could even get a not-so-quick AMX version. Still, we'd have taken the Spirit over the Chevette, if only for the possibility of getting a 304 V8 with a 4-speed.

You see, Casadelshawn, of Bunny With A Pancake On Its Head VW Rabbit fame decided he didn't feel like racing in Buttonwillow's 110° heat (actually, it was only about 97°) and took his '76 Audi Fox wagon to Monterey instead. He won the prestigious "Der Self-SatisfiedKrauttenWagen, 1970-current" trpphy, but he took a break from laurel-resting to shoot these photos for us.

Meanwhile, the coveted Worst Of Show trophy went to one of the most horrible-yet-cool motor vehicles ever made, a 1980 KV Mini 1. The owner towed this precision-made, belt-driven machine all the way from Washington… with an MGB! So next time you're shopping for a big ol' truck to tow your bass boat, go with British Leyland instead. Here's the official Cd'L press release:

Mike Harrell from Shoreline, WA stunned the crowd and judges with his 1980KV Mini 1 and took home Worst of Show honors. The KV is a horrible little car powered by a 125cc one cylinder 2 stroke motor that drives the rear wheels through a constantly variable ration belt drive system and friction rollers on the rear tires ensuring that little of the meager power available actually results in forward motion. The features dont stop there, to put the car in reverse, one must shut off the engine and re-start it so that it runs backwards. Combine this with the tin bumpers, solid steering shaft aimed at the drivers chest, the lack of a roof and any other safety features and it was a shoe in for the Worst of Show title. As if to convince the judges that he truly does have a screw loose, Mike towed the little French death trap behind his MGB the 1000 miles from Washington to Monterey. Well done.

Given the similarity in era, two-door body styles, and use of steering wheels, it would not be out of place to see today's contender fare as well as yesterday's Mercedes 300CD, which garnered a most excellent 88% Nice Price vote.

Then again, maybe not.

American Motors, always seemingly barely hanging onto the narrow precipice of financial solvency, needed a product that differentiated it from the company's competitors. Instead of yet another new grill treatment on the evergreen Hornet, they decided to go for broke and develop- from the inside out- a radical new car that would provide positive buzz and generate sales.

The result was the fishbowl-shaped Pacer, which offered large car width with small car length, and a basket handle roofline that was eerily aped by the Porsche 928 two years later. The Larry Craig stance gained it instant notoriety, and the car did well in its first year, racking up over 145,000 sales. However, the car lacked the economy of its competitors, and, like Craig, its differentness wasn't universally seen in the positive, ergo sales dwindled in the ensuing years.

Originally intended to employ a General Motors-supplied wankel engine, the car debuted with the tried and true AMC straight six when GM pulled the plug on their rotary program- and hopefully refunded AMC their $1.5 million in licensing fees. This ended up being both a blessing and a bane for the Pacer- warranty claims for thousands of blown apex seals would have bankrupted AMC, but the iron six weighed nearly double that of the proposed GM wankel.

This '77 has the larger 4.2 litre six, which puts a little more pace under its short but wide hood. That's a good thing because the one barrel 3.8 had a tough time dragging around 3,300-plus pounds of Pacer. It also has the unique styling features of all Pacers including a passenger door 10 cm longer than the driver's side, and door panel "wings" to hide the glass which doesn't roll all the way down. The orange over black color scheme will be good come Halloween, and hopefully the seller will be able to find that missing ashtray, noted in the ad.

And about that ad- it reads like it was written by Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin, with oddly constructed sentences and strange word parings that make you wonder if the seller might live under the power lines or something.

So, what about that $7,000 asking price for this orange orb? Considering that's double it's price when new, and the question of the missing ashtray, is the seller on crack? That would explain the ad. Or is that in line with what you'd expect to pay for so original, so orange, and so wide a car?

You decide!

KSL.com, or go here if the ad disappears. Props to Jo Schmo for the tip!

You might notice that there's no Vanishing Point Challenger, no Two Lane Blacktop '55 Chevy or GTO, no Road Warrior Falcon, no French Connection Pontiac LeMans, and so on; you can go anywhere to find those admittedly deserving machines in a Top Movie Cars list… but you're in for something a little different when your Rambler clanks into my drive-in!

Fee Waybill's 1968 Plymouth Sport Satellite
Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, 1981. Just look at this evil '68 Satellite, driven by the character played by Tubes mastermind Fee Waybill in the nearly-forgotten punk classic starring Diane Lane.
Stacey Keach's 1972 AMC Matador
Up In Smoke, 1978. Some folks might try to tell you that Cheech's '64 Impala is the automotive star of this all-time Malaise Era classic, but those same guys will sell you a bag of "Acapulco Gold" that turns out to be oregano. Sergeant Stedenko's unmarked Kenosha sedan, take a bow!
Isaac Hayes' Cadillac Fleetwood
Escape From New York, 1981. An apocalyptic Caddy with chandeliers on the fenders, in jail, being driven across a mine-studded bridge by Isaac Hayes? Why the hell didn't Cadillac issue a chandelier-equipped Escape From New York Edition Cadillac?
Barbara Stanwyck's 1937 LaSalle
Double Indemnity, 1944. It's taking all my willpower to avoid stacking this list with nothing but film noir cars- for example, the cop '49 Ford stalking Sterling Hayden in the opening sequence of Asphalt Jungle- but there's no way we can neglect this LaSalle, which features in the greatest post-murder-victim-body-dump 'car won't start' sequence in cinema history.
Robert Mitchum's 1950 Ford
Thunder Road, 1958. That ol' dope-smoking Bob Mitchum won't let the '57 Chevy-drivin' revenoors catch his triple-carbed Ford, no way! You'll get some nice closeup shots of the triple-carbed overhead-valve Ford V8 in this excellent car movie.
All 250 Vehicles In The Final Sequence Of Used Cars
Used Cars, 1980. The greatest Malaise Era movie of all time! You'll see everything from an early Bronco to a Fiat 128 burning rubber in the final ten minutes of this Kurt Russell classic.
Mel Gibson's 1994 Chevrolet Caprice
Conspiracy Theory, 1997. A movie in which Crazy Mel delivers the line "It's time someone lifted the festering scab that is the Vatican" is already starting off on the right foot, but his awesomely evil Caprice cab sets a new standard for scary movie taxis.
Harvey Keitel's 1972 Imperial LeBaron
Mean Streets, 1973. What do low-level mob associates drive in Early Malaise New York City? Exactly. Spoiler: this car doesn't get a happy ending.
Reese Witherspoon's 1967 Dodge Coronet Wagon
Freeway, 1996. This movie features cynicism galore, a nightmarish Danny Elfman soundtrack, Brooke Shields sticking a gun in her mouth and pulling the trigger… and this beautifully wretched Coronet wagon, the crapping out of which starts Witherspoon's character on her Red Riding Hood-esque adventures. Murilee says check it out!
Bette Davis' 1947 Lincoln
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane, 1962. Yeah, so I like my movies dark and cynical- you got a problem with that? Davis' character, Baby Jane Hudson, uses this reminder-of-past-glory luxury machine to haul her crippled sister to her death on the Santa Monica beach.
Ronald Reagan's 1959 Ford
The Killers, 1964. Man, imagine having an actor become governor of California! Watching The Great Communicator- in this case, playing a criminal mastermind plotting a mail-truck heist- hoon this gigantic boxy Ford down a dirt road while wearing the same exact suit he wore as President… well, I'm shopping for '59 Fords now!
Dick Rude's 1976 Toyota Corolla
Repo Man, 1984. I'm going to go on record stating that Repo Man is the Greatest Car Movie Of All Time, and that choosing one car to honor in this list was quite difficult. I've read the screenplay many times, and it's telling that Alex Cox specified the exact year, make, and model of every car to be used in the film (and, in most cases, those are the cars that were used during the production). The red Eldorado? The Government Agents' Matador? The Malibu? I'm going to give the honor to the "get sushi and not pay" gang's very punk Toyota… and that reminds me that I've committed a grievous mistake by omitting the Torino from Suburbia in this list. Well, next one!
John Lurie's 1965 Dodge Coronet 440
Stranger Than Paradise, 1984. What's the best possible car for a pair of small-time gamblers to drive from New York to Cleveland to Florida during the winter in 1984? Jim Jarmusch knows!
Rodney Dangerfield's 1966 Mulliner Park Ward Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III
Caddyshack, 1980. What car best epitomizes bad taste and conspicuous consumption, Middle Malaise Era style? Sure, a Zimmer might have worked just as well, but a Mulliner Park Ward Silver Cloud is just as horrifying and ten times as expensive!
Matt Dillon's 1965 Cadillac Fleetwood
Drugstore Cowboy, 1990. When you're ripping off drugstores for that good pharmaceutical-grade junk during the Nixon Era in the Pacific Northwest, there's no better ride.
Billy Bob Thornton's 1940 Dodge Coupe
The Man Who Wasn't There, 2001. Of all the Coen Brothers' films- which show excellent taste in vehicular selection- I settled on this one as my favorite. Tough choice, and I almost went with the '85 Cutlass Ciera in Fargo, or the detective's Beetle in Blood Simple.
Roger Sloman's Morris Minor 1000 Convertible
Nuts In May, 1976. This annoying little car is so perfectly suited to Sloman's fingernails-on-chalkboard character that it's impossible to imagine him driving anything else.
Gloria Swanson's Isotta-Fraschini
Sunset Boulevard, 1950. Wicker bodywork. Leopard skin upholstery. 800 feet total length. Best of all, a golden telephone to speak to the driver!
Burt Reynolds' 1972 Citroën SM
The Longest Yard, 1974. A drunk-driven SM being chased by Malaise Era Mopars, with Burt Reynolds at the wheel and Lynyrd Skynyrd on the radio. Enough said!
Ömer Simsek's Opel Manta
Manta, Manta, 1991. As any longtime Jalopnik reader knows, we have a sick love for the Opel Manta, otherwise known as "the German Camaro." Here's one of the many, many gorgeous Mantas from the German film Manta, Manta.
Image source: Automobilsport

We love perfectly restored AMXs, of course, but seeing one with a few rough spots that still survives on the street is pretty cool. Patrick was inspired by the Alameda '69 AMX to send in these shots from his neighborhood:

This one appeared a few months ago on my block in Santa Monica and calls the street home. It's riding on its original glass tires and is in 100% pure time-warp condition. Virtually its entire life was spent sitting in storage before recent liberation.

So, in an attempt to get the 450 DOTS Celebration to show up on your computer, I'm breaking it up into sections. We've had the Germans and the Wagons, and today I've been so inspired by the beautiful DOTS '69 AMX that I've put together a collection of Alameda's street-parked vintage American cars and trucks that were not designed by Detroit's Big Three (I say "designed" because I think that the '45 Jeep counts as a Willys, in spite of being built by Ford). I believe that the trio of kit cars, the Shay Model A, the CMC Gazelle, and the Fieroborghini- based on Pinto, Chevette, and Fiero chassis, respectively- qualify here, because, well, why not? You Scout fans will find plenty of iron to admire, we've got some Ramblers and a couple of Studes, and there's even a Packard!

1943 IHC	1945 Ford	1948 IHC	1951 Willys	1953 Packard	1956 Willys
1958 Willys	1960 Studebaker	1960 Rambler	1961 Rambler	1964 Studebaker	1964 Jeep
1964 Checker	1965 IHC	1965 Rambler	1969 AMC	1969 AMC	1972 IHC
1972 IHC	1972 IHC	1976 AMC	1976 IHC	1977 IHC	1979 Shay
1980 IHC	1983 Jeep	1984 Jeep	1988 CMC	2000 Fieroborghini

If you count Ramblers, so far the only Kenosha cars we've seen on the island have been this '60 American, this '61 American, this '65 American, this '69 Ambassador SST wagon, and this '76 Pacer X. While I've got a real soft spot for the Oleg Cassini Edition '75 Matador, most car freaks would suggest the AMX- or maybe the SC/Rambler- as their all-time favorite AMC product. Here's one, with a 4-speed and everything!

This car lives on the same block as the '65 Mercury Comet, seen here in the foreground, and both machines are part of the same family; father owns the AMX and daughter drives the Comet.

Since the Comet DOTS photos resulted in some very Robert Bechtle-esque photographs, I decided to shoot for that effect with the AMC as well. This one's a little dark for true Bechtle style, but what the heck.

Yesterday, 77% of you deemed FREE to be a Nice Price for the poor little AMC Spirit, and we're eagerly awaiting the first report on when you go to pick up your prize. Today, we're pleased to present another AMC product- this time a foreign exchange student who liked America so much it moved here permanently.

By the late 1970s AMC was running out of ways to annually refresh the centuries-old Gremlin and Hornet, and their innovative all-wheel-drive Eagles wouldn't be on the market soon enough to keep the Kenosha car maker in hookers and blow a financially sound position. In a historic reversal of fortunes, the French came to the aid of the struggling Americans, but in this case financially rather than militarily. Renault, salivating over the Jeep brand, and seeking a more robust presence in the still lucrative U.S. market bought a controlling interest in the little Wisconsin manufacturer. In addition to pumping fundage into the company, Renault also provided the basis for some new baubles to adorn AMC Dealerships, and new frustrations for those dealer's service departments. First among those was the mawkishly-named Alliance, based on the Renault 9 sold to the surrender monkeys back home. The Alliance was quickly anointed by Motor Trend as the Car of the Year for 1983, ensuring its place in history, as well as heavy volume of Renault advertising in Crain publications for the next twelve months. Car & Driver, not to be one-upped by a rival, named it to their Top 10 list the same year. Both are deeds for which neither magazine has yet to officially apologize.

But time wounds all heels, and summer is upon us offering warm weather, longer days, and the chance to enjoy some quality time behind the wheel of a breezy convertible. Now, along with all that, summer has also brought gas prices that have been creeping up like a cheap pair of underwear. That means that your summer driving fun should be in something that doesn't drink with the rapaciousness of an auto blogger, hence today's $4,500 question mark; a Renault Alliance convertible from the halcyon year of 1985. Not only was that year that the film Otac na sluzbenom putu was recognized with the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival, but it was also the year that Renault recognized the resemblance of the Alliance to Marie Antoinette, and decided to lop its head off too.

This white over metallic bleu Alliance is ready for your summer lovin' and that 37MPG means you'll be spending less time at the pump, and more time next to the hump, rowing your own with the five-speed manual, the linkage for which likely feels as though it was made from rubber bands. And since this one has the 1.7 litre OHC motor, rather than the precambrian 1.4 pushrodder, you'll have fewer instances of being humiliated at stoplight drags by octogenarians on riding mowers.

Described as like new (which may not be a positive considering the dog-crap quality these cars seemed to have been cursed with upon leaving their Kenosha birthplace), and with a color-matching interior, this little brie-baker could enliven your summer motoring for not much more than two months lease payment on an Aston Martin V8 Vantage, and without all the attitudinal baggage associated with that 12MPG beast.

So, does $4,500 sound like an amount that could let you form an alliance with this tidy little Renault? Or, is that a price, and a car, that you more closely associate with the axis of evil?

You decide!

Milwaukee Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears. Hat tip to tempesjo!

Help me out with NPOCP. Click here to send a me a tip.

Now, don't go sending me a bunch of those "ZOMG where is this junkyard? I need them parts for my Rambler project!" emails, because I shot these photos a year ago and this proto-AMC long ago served as a tasty snack for the steel jaws of The Crusher, an appetizer for the main course of Tradesman vans and W126 Benzes. Instead, contemplate the temporary nature of life as you peruse this Server Hamster-Approved™ new-style gallery, which I'm hoping won't cause a blackout to descend upon the Eastern Seaboard the very first time a reader clicks on one of its images:

Holy crap! A Weather Eye!

It's a still-in-shrinkwrap Jo-Han 1:25 scale kit of one of my two favorite musclecars of all time: the '69 AMC SC/Rambler. The current top bid is just $3.25, but there's a week to go. How much would you pay for this rare red-white-and-blue beast?

[eBay]

Ramblers and AMCs haven't been particularly plentiful on the streets of Alameda, but we've seen a handful. This '61 American, this '65 American, this '69 Ambassador SST Wagon, and this '76 Pacer pretty much sums it up, though I could add a few more if we consider pre-Chrysler Jeeps to be members of the AMC family tree.

1960 was the last year for the upside-down-bathtub Rambler styling. A low sticker price was the main goal for this car, and AMC was quite successful; car shoppers could get a two-door 1960 Rambler Deluxe Business Coupe (back seat not included) for just $1,781. Compare that to the $1,912 price tag on the cheapest Ford Falcon, or the $1,984 Chevy Corvair sedan. Or, heck, even the $1,565 '60 Volkswagen Beetle- the extra couple hundred bucks got you a much more traditional-looking and substantial car than what Wolfsburg had to offer.
The American's low price tag came with a few compromises, of course. Even this relatively high-zoot Custom (priced at $2,059) came with a flathead inline-six engine as standard equipment. That's right, you could still buy a new car with a flathead in the 1960s!

TheEastBayKid spotted this fine machine not far from 24 Hours Of LeMons Headquarters, in the former bootlegging capitol of Northern California, Emeryville. As befits an Oakland native, TheEastBayKid describes this Kenosha wagon as having "hella bass." We certainly hope so!

That's how Alan Galbraith sees it, so he's put together perhaps the coolest Pacer we've ever seen. No, AMC never made a Hurst Edition Pacer, but so what? It just looks right! As Alan says: "It's really not a bad car. Oh sure, it's rusting at the seams right now outside my house in the rain, the 30+ year old emissions system is going fail me at smog check one of these years, the brittle and non-replaceable plastic interior is one bump away from completely crumbling to dust... But it drives, rides and handles pretty well. Personally the design is growing on me... like a fungus I guess."