|
Thread Number: 32638
AMC! |
[Down to Last] |  |
Post# 491955 1/27/2011 at 20:47 (4,831 days old) by peteski50  (New York) |
||
 | ||
|
| Post# 491958 , Reply# 1 1/27/2011 at 21:19 (4,831 days old) by toploader55 (Massachusetts Sand Bar, Cape Cod) | ||
Comment : | ||
|
Post# 491968 , Reply# 2 1/27/2011 at 21:46 (4,831 days old) by jamiel (Detroit, Michigan and Palm Springs, CA) |
||
when department stores were more dominant sellers of everything (i.e. before big boxes and proliferation of malls), they had private labeled appliances in an effort to compete with Sears/Wards. AMC (Aimcee Wholesale) was the one set up by all these department stores. You'll see that lots were missing...none of the Macy's, or May Department Stores, or Allied stores were here. They each had separate yet similar appliance programs....Macy's brand was Supremacy, May's was Duracrest, and Allied was Ambassador. (They cooperated on lots of different product lines...procurement, if not branding (140 thread count muslin sheets, for instance...no need for each of the stores to procure individually). Only connection between AMC and American Motors was perhaps that American Motors/Kelvinator was a supplier of certain product lines (probably just refrigeration). AMC or the others would go to a "dominant" producer of whatever line so as to get the best price/feature combination.
| ||
|
Post# 491971 , Reply# 3 1/27/2011 at 22:07 (4,831 days old) by rp2813 (Sannazay) |
||
 | ||
|
Post# 491979 , Reply# 5 1/27/2011 at 22:47 (4,831 days old) by rp2813 (Sannazay) |
||
|
| ||
|
Post# 491980 , Reply# 6 1/27/2011 at 22:48 (4,831 days old) by rp2813 (Sannazay) |
||
|
| ||
|
Post# 491981 , Reply# 7 1/27/2011 at 22:50 (4,831 days old) by rp2813 (Sannazay) |
||
|
| ||
| Post# 492000 , Reply# 8 1/28/2011 at 00:22 (4,831 days old) by whirlcool (Just North Of Houston, Texas) | ||
|
I liked the Pacer. I am sure all that glass made it like a greenhouse in the summertime. You'd definitely get one with a/c! | ||
|
Post# 492004 , Reply# 9 1/28/2011 at 01:11 (4,830 days old) by CircleW (NE Cincinnati OH area) |
||
|
I've always thought AMC cars were some of the ugliest objects I've ever seen. As for the washer and dryer pictured above, I'm thinking they could be Norge. I'd say this is from around 1956. Remember this brand being sold at Shillito's. The appliance department was in their garage annex diagonally across from the main downtown store. | ||
| Post# 492027 , Reply# 11 1/28/2011 at 06:26 (4,830 days old) by washernoob () | ||
|
Ehh the car looks quite a bit newer and uglier than both of those! lol Maybe like a late 70s, or 80 model. | ||
| Post# 492044 , Reply# 13 1/28/2011 at 07:06 (4,830 days old) by kenmore700bill (Lodi NJ) | ||
 | ||
| Post# 492048 , Reply# 14 1/28/2011 at 07:14 (4,830 days old) by toploader55 (Massachusetts Sand Bar, Cape Cod) | ||
|
Pacer | ||
|
Post# 492059 , Reply# 16 1/28/2011 at 08:47 (4,830 days old) by yogitunes (New Jersey) |
||
We were an AMC family for cars...Mainly because my father learned to work on Jeeps in the war...and later became a transmission specialist/teacher for AMC...granted not some of their best designs....but according to my father, mechanically, some of the simplest, easy to service, no-nonsense mechanicals around.....even today, the 258 straight six engine is still used in the Jeeps, now produced by Chrysler, fuel injection kicked these motors up a notch.....
my first car was a 1972 Javelin Pierre Cardin, then onto 1977 Hornet AMX, the best I thought was the EAGLEs, I got a 1982 Eagle SX/4 for graduation, and just sold that in 2003 with 150,000miles on it, like vintage machines, parts were getting scarce, I also had 2 Eagle wagons and the Eagle Talon AWD Turbo....Now its a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited...the baseline mechanics has not changed, although updated, the V8 in my Cherokee is not much different than the one in my Javelin.... maybe we need a vintage car thread of our first cars from our youth...showing our age?....oh, who cares, we had four wheels to get around, and thats all that mattered, later on we souped them up with Airshocks, fancy rims, wide tires, squealing wheels and cruising the avenue...they were great times | ||
| Post# 492060 , Reply# 17 1/28/2011 at 08:48 (4,830 days old) by macboy91si (Frankfort, KY) | ||
The Pacer I also for one have a weekness for the Pacer and similar cars from the era. I also am a big Chevette fan. I always thought the Pacer was a neat car in many ways. As mentioned before it is definately not a boring car. With a good set of wide tires, they handle very nice with their wide stance. The inside of these cars are huge as the car is so wide and it's just a pleasant car to drive. The passenger door is longer than the drivers door to encourage passengers in the back seat to porperly exit and enter the car from curbside rather than the street.
The mecahnics of this car are much more interesting and fun though. This car was originally designed for a rotary engine. When plans fell through for that, AMC "modded" the car to fit the conventional inline 6 cylinder engine in the engine bay. This is part of what gives the Pacer it's somewhat disproportionate appearance. The car came standard with a 232ci inline 6 which made it rather responsive over some of it's mainly 4-cylinder competition. The 258 and the 304 were also offered as an upgrade. I have seen several of these cars with an AMC 360 V8 dumped into them, which would make quite a bang, but they still drive like a much larger car, I think they are very stable cars.
The model shown above is very optioned, vinyl roof and rear wipers were fairly rare as were the sport wheels which I believe in this case are stock.
-Tim | ||
|
Post# 492065 , Reply# 18 1/28/2011 at 09:15 (4,830 days old) by polkanut (Wausau, WI ) |
||
 | ||
|
Post# 492084 , Reply# 21 1/28/2011 at 11:04 (4,830 days old) by appliguy (Oakton Va.) |
||
The AMC appliances we are talking about here
WERE NOT made by American Motors Corp. The AMC in the beginning of this thread stood for AIMCEE WHOLESALE CORP. The automobile conglomerate that went by that name did not become known as AMC until around 1966 when they started dropping the Rambler name and putting AMC on their cars instead. They did it first with the Ambassador in I believe 1966 then the Rebel in 67 and the Rambler named died all together with the coming of the 1970 Hornet. From the time of the Nash and Hudson Merger in 1954 until the mid 60's, the company was known simply as American Motors. Their advertising in that period used the AM logo and in the late 50's their tag for all the ads in magazines and tv was "American Motors means more for Americans. During this time American Motors DID make appliances but they were made under the Kelvinator, ABC (Kelvinator bought Altorfer Bros. circa 1952 and produced appliances under that name until 1958), Leonard, and Duracrest names. AMC sold Kelvinator to WCI in 1968 because it needed an infusion of cash to try to save it's ailing car line........PAT COFFEY
| ||
|
Post# 492086 , Reply# 23 1/28/2011 at 11:35 (4,830 days old) by appliguy (Oakton Va.) |
||
|
Thanks Tom | ||
|
Post# 492164 , Reply# 24 1/28/2011 at 17:05 (4,830 days old) by goatfarmer (South Bend, home of Champions) |
||
 | ||
| Post# 492175 , Reply# 25 1/28/2011 at 17:33 (4,830 days old) by jamman_98 (Columbia, SC) | ||
I had a Pacer | ||
|
Post# 492188 , Reply# 27 1/28/2011 at 18:22 (4,830 days old) by appnut (TX) |
||
 My first car was a Pacer X (had the X option package)--it as a dark forrest green with metalic speckles in it and color-keyed sport wheels. Had great visibility and a great car to learn to drive in. Kept having major problems with the engine's black box--a common problem with them. It left me on the side of the road wayy too many times. One time even had to have it towed 115 miles back to the dealership in Houston. Finally couldn't trust the car any more, so I unloaded it for a Citation. Sould have know, my first two cars were model names of Edsels. | ||
| Post# 492207 , Reply# 29 1/28/2011 at 19:07 (4,830 days old) by washernoob () | ||
|
Excuse me Sir, would you happen to have any grey poupon? Schwing! Terribly good movie. 
| ||
|
Post# 492279 , Reply# 30 1/28/2011 at 21:35 (4,830 days old) by Jetcone (Schenectady-Home of Calrods,Monitor Tops,Toroid Transformers) |
||
Ohhh | ||
| Post# 492373 , Reply# 31 1/29/2011 at 10:38 (4,829 days old) by gorenje (Slovenia) | ||
 | ||
|
Post# 492378 , Reply# 32 1/29/2011 at 10:44 (4,829 days old) by bajaespuma (Connecticut) |
||
 That box of ALL is very nice.
Funny how you become attached to brands. The first of only two repair calls my Mother made to GE for our 1962 Filter-Flo was because a sock was suds-floated into the outer-tub and clogged the drain. The repairman recommended that we switch to DASH and that became our brand until there was no more DASH.
Similarly, I guess our GE pull-out came with a sample-box of ALL and that was our DW detergent until the end of ALL. I still remember how pretty that printed-foil covered box was. | ||
| Post# 492382 , Reply# 33 1/29/2011 at 10:55 (4,829 days old) by toploader55 (Massachusetts Sand Bar, Cape Cod) | ||
|
Tom
How true what you said before the Advent of Air Conditioning.
Yes, our neighborhood too was like that where you would see or hear your neighbors with the windows and doors open and see all those window mounted Box type fans with the reversable blades. On one side of the house the blades would be Pulling the Outside air in, and the other side of the house would be set exhausting the air. I also used to love the Big Homes that had the Enormous Attic Fans with the big louvers. Same thing here. Just walk up to the back door and ask. Mother would usually say, "Oh come in for a cold drink". Exactly. Now a days, I suppose if you walked up to anyones back door, they would hit the Panic Alarm on the security system, the Swat Team will show up, and you'd get arrested for Tresspassing and Breaking and Entering. Sigh... I'm glad we remember those Old Days. | ||
|
Post# 492410 , Reply# 34 1/29/2011 at 14:10 (4,829 days old) by appliguy (Oakton Va.) |
||
|
Hey Washernoob...... before you make blanket statements about a car company that went out of business 6 years before you were born you might want to do a little research first.....American Motors Corporation (that is the real name of the company NOT AMC motor company) cars were not built any worse than most average cars of the 50's thru the 70's. Most american built cars in the 70's were not of the best quality build wise. I speak on that from experience becaue my family owned 2 1974 Chevrolets (a Caprice Classic Sedan and a Malibu Classic Sedan) a 1977 Plymouth Sport Suburban, a 1979 Pontiac Sunbird and a 1979 Buick LeSabre all in my lifetime. When I was little in the early and mid 1980's a number of my neighbors had AMC cars (as a matter of fact Mr. Cleary down on the corner worked for Tysons AMC Jeep at the time) and they had great sucess with their cars. For you to make the statement you made based on your neighbor not caring for or keeping up his car is like me putting down Chevrolet because a neighbor of ours has one sitting in his garage that has not run for 5 years. | ||
|
Post# 492420 , Reply# 35 1/29/2011 at 15:51 (4,829 days old) by combo52 (50 Year Repair Tech Beltsville,Md) |
||
WANKLE ENGINES
Also had terrible durability problems the first car sold with one was the German built NSU many of these didn't last 10,000 miles. Madza did get them to last closer to 50,000 miles and even longer in the sports car RX-7. I do remember reading that AMC had bought 50,000 4 cylinder engines from Audi to put in thier compact models and ended up scraping most of the new engines because there was little demand for the 4s as people though the energy problems were over in the early 1980s.
| ||
|
Post# 492426 , Reply# 36 1/29/2011 at 16:40 (4,829 days old) by swestoyz (Cedar Falls, IA) |
||
...GM pulled the plug on the idea of building the Wankel and bought back the tools and dies of the old Buick V6 from AMC. They enlarged it to 221 cubic inches and started offering in compact and mid sized GM cars for 1975.
Amen to that! While the first 3 production years of the 231 V6 were odd fire engines, resulting in a rough power band, the revised 1978 even-fire metric blocks were the forerunner to the high performance Turbo Buick V6, as well as the footprint for the venerable FWD 3800 from from 1984 through the Gen III blocks which were in production up until the last few years. Really it is a shame that GM didn't offer up the 231 to AMC after they had bought back the rights and tooling, and if they had, that AMC didn't bite at the offer. In regards to AMC - long live the Eagle! Ben 
| ||
|
Post# 492432 , Reply# 37 1/29/2011 at 17:14 (4,829 days old) by yogitunes (New Jersey) |
||
|
Wow....now i have to dig out some pics.....that pic Ben put up is the same exact model and color of my 1986 Eagle...which I got in 1990 for 500.00 and kept for 3 years......this one had shift-on-the-fly 4 wheel drive
I had a 1983 Eagle wagon in Blue, I got that 1986....... And of course I had my 1982 Black Eagle SX/4...which I kept for 19 years.... these last two had STOP>>PULL>>SHIFT Fourwheel selection..... there was nothing that these cars could not handle, I took all of mine along for the Jeep Excursion back trails..... Having a background in AMC, allowed me to have mine beefed up with lift kits, wider tires and stance, push bars and winches.....I was ready for anything....fun part was on crossroad circles.....with the SX/4, go fast enough and make the driver side tires lift off the ground....great times | ||
| Post# 492448 , Reply# 40 1/29/2011 at 18:01 (4,829 days old) by ronhic (Canberra, Australia) | ||
like Austin did for the 2200 in England Small note of correction....
The first transverse 6 cylinder engine application was indeed in an Austin, but it was in the Austin Kimberly/Tasman developed in Australia, not in the UK. At the time, the Austin 1800 had sold better here than the UK and Austin wanted a 6cyl car with which to better compete with Holden, Ford and Chrysler...so the 4 cylinder 'E' series engine from the Maxi (and also used here in the revamped 1100) had a couple of cylinders added to it and was fitted transversely..... CLICK HERE TO GO TO ronhic's LINK | ||
|
Post# 492449 , Reply# 41 1/29/2011 at 18:07 (4,829 days old) by appliguy (Oakton Va.) |
||
|
Washernoob... You did not offend me at all, I did not mean to seem so abrasive.........sometimes I get so passionate about things ecspecially vintage things that I get TOO passionate, I honestly think it has to do with living in the DC area where most everyone thinks new is always better....of course we who congregate here know that is not always true don't we LOL.........we had a neighbor who had an early 80's Cavalier and the same thing happened to its engine that happened to your granddads Matador, the Cavalier was done in by the 75,000 mile mark.......I think that your granddad must have had a lemon of a Matador.....it happens in every car line once in a while...a friend of mine's brother has a 74 Matador wagon he bought from the original owner and it has over 170,000 miles on it and he's had no problems at all. What year was your moms Scirroco? I like the first generation 1975 to 1981 I think they are very handsome cars. Washernoob I hope there are no hard feelings because I do find your post very interesting and I think it is cool that a guy your age is interested in this kind of stuff too......PAT COFFEY | ||
|
Post# 492454 , Reply# 44 1/29/2011 at 18:18 (4,829 days old) by appliguy (Oakton Va.) |
||
|
Combo52 The 4 cylinder Audi engine you speak of was only offered in the Gremlin for 1977 and I believe 78 the reason it was not popular was because it was not offered in the basic model but only in the more luxurious Custom line, the base Gremiln had a straight 6. Also another reason the Audi engine was not popular is the fact that it shook like hell at idle. The way AMC coverd this up was to use motor mounts that absorbed the rocking and vibration but according to my book on AMC if you lifted the hood of a 4 cylinder Gremlin at idle you would see the little 4 vibrating and shaking. The Audi 4 was replaced by the Pontiac Iron Duke 4 and that was the 4 cylinder engine offered in the 1979-83 Spirit (rebodied Gremlins) into the early 1980's and was also used in line Jeep Cj's and the redesigned 1983 smaller Cherokee's and Wagoneer's....PAT COFFEY | ||
| Post# 492457 , Reply# 45 1/29/2011 at 18:28 (4,829 days old) by ronhic (Canberra, Australia) | ||
|
Maybe AMC should have head hunted some Aussie engineers Pride has led to many a company's fall I feel.....here, there and in Europe....
BMC/BLMC may have still been here today if only the British would have listened and used some of the products that were developed here in their own market....and I'm sure that there are examples of frustrated engineers in every company around the world who could have a field day with 'I told you so....' | ||
|
Post# 492467 , Reply# 46 1/29/2011 at 18:51 (4,829 days old) by appliguy (Oakton Va.) |
||
|
Washernoob... I understand what you mean about your first year Expediton...I have a 1997 T-Bird with the standard V6 and I was told by a friend who had that engine in a 1997 Mustang that his head gaskets failed at 85,000 miles and that his mechanic said that the Ford V6 from that era was known for having it head gaskets go between 80,000 and 100,000 miles...well my T-Bird has over a 135,000 on it now with no problems in sight. As a matter of fact when I had the transmission fluid and filter changed and the valve cover gaskets replaced 2 years ago my mechanic told me that from what they saw of the inside of the engine and tranny, my engine and tranny looked like they had only been run for 1 year not 11 years.....so I think that just goes to show...you get a lemon in every car line once in a while....PAT COFFEY | ||
|
Post# 492469 , Reply# 47 1/29/2011 at 19:01 (4,829 days old) by yogitunes (New Jersey) |
||
|
Funny how theres a little Gremlin in most "lemon" cars.......all I can think about is the bugs bunny cartoon with the Gremlin in the airplane trying to sabotage it...
one feature I liked about the Gremlins was the seat coverings in "Levis" denim any "New" machine has a chance of a "GLITCH" in them.....does not always mean the entire line of that product is bad, but it is to be expected when a brand new product comes out, thats just the way it is...we just pray we never get one of them | ||
|
Post# 492489 , Reply# 48 1/29/2011 at 20:37 (4,829 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!) |
||
 | ||
|
Post# 492490 , Reply# 49 1/29/2011 at 20:39 (4,829 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!) |
||
|
| ||
|
Post# 492495 , Reply# 51 1/29/2011 at 20:53 (4,829 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!) |
||
|
| ||
|
Post# 492534 , Reply# 52 1/29/2011 at 22:27 (4,829 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD) |
||
|
You are right, as usual, Greg. The front of the cabinet has that distinctive bulge like old Hotpoints. | ||
|
Post# 492558 , Reply# 53 1/30/2011 at 02:23 (4,828 days old) by hydralique (Los Angeles) |
||
|
Marquette . . . I've never heard of these but what a neat looking console! I'd love to see a real photo. Thanks for posting! | ||
| Post# 492655 , Reply# 54 1/30/2011 at 14:46 (4,828 days old) by whirlcool (Just North Of Houston, Texas) | ||
|
Someone mentioned the Matador Barcelona?
| ||
| Post# 492662 , Reply# 55 1/30/2011 at 15:39 (4,828 days old) by whirlcool (Just North Of Houston, Texas) | ||
|
Another problem AMC cars had was with the front end trunion. They would sag after awhile and were pretty costly to fix.
Ah, another AMC car that was around, the Rambler Rebel. There was one down the street from us. I think it was a 67'. The people who owned it had it for a long time. I think they were happy with it.
| ||
|
Post# 492667 , Reply# 56 1/30/2011 at 15:54 (4,828 days old) by moparwash (Pittsburgh,PA ) |
||
How Sad.. | ||
| Forum Index: |
| Other Forums: |
|
|
|
|
|
Comes to the Rescue!
