For reasons that no doubt made sense at the time, the utterly hopeless Cord triumphed over the absolutely impossible Lamborghini in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll. After those two high-ticket machines, I figured we should take a look at some good old American muscle, from the Golden Age of V8-powered rear-drive machines. The problem we run into with most of the Detroit muscle machines from the 1964-73 era (in terms of this series) is that it's just too easy to get parts for them, particularly for the likes of GM A- and F-bodies and Chrysler B- and E-bodies. But those guys in Detroit weren't the only ones building such cars; that's why we've packed up the Pink Pig (official vehicle of the Mobile PCH Spotters' Brigade) and headed right for Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the ghost of George Romney (yes, Mitt's father) pointed out a couple of fine AMC muscle monsters for today's matchup...
The AMC AMX, though not being on the receiving end of anywhere near the quantities of nostalgo-glitz gushed over its Big Three competitors by the Baby Boomer Gratification Industry (the same industry that will make the rest of us suffer through the same 25 "classic rock" songs until the day we die), was quite the factory hot rod in its time. You could get one of the little two-seater shorty Javelins with a 390 and a 4-speed and blow away all but the wildest Mustangs, Camaros, and Barracudas with it. These days they're getting pretty expensive, but there are still some diamonds in the rough to be had. Or, more precisely, diamonds in the ruff, as stated in this ad for a '70 AMX (go here if the ad disappears). The seller couldn't be bothered to wipe the 90-weight off his or her camera lens, so it's not easy to make out exactly what you get for $5000 here. There's a (putatively) rebuilt 360 sitting near the car, there's a disc brake conversion of unknown ancestry, and there's rust. Thrown in on the deal are some rust repair panels and three transmissions. We figure an evil-looking primer paint job, a 4-speed, Cherry Bombs, and Mickey Thompson rubber are all you'd need!
OK, AMX fanatics, go ahead and gripe how the '73 isn't a real AMX. Sure, sure, it's just an option package on the plain ol' Javelin, and thus a '73 can't possible compete with a jen-yoo-wine 1970 AMX in the coolness department... or can it? How about if told you we'd found a '73 Javelin AMX that was also a Pierre Cardin car... and a 4-speed machine to boot? What would you say then? We're serious- check out this '73 AMX for just $3500 (go here if the ad disappears) and then try to tell us you're not imagining this fine AMC in your personal garage. Now, there's a certain air of mystery about this one, because we've got a seller who doesn't believe in describing the condition of the item being sold. Does it run? Is it rusty? Does it have a title? Is there a drum of radioactive PCB-laden transformer oil leaking in the trunk? Hell, we can't say, but who cares? It's a goddamn 4-speed Pierre Cardin AMX! Pierre probably wouldn't approve of primer for this machine, but it's definitely Cherry Bomb material.
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