I graduated in 1978, and spent four years in their auto shop program. At the end of my senior year several of the guys had built themselves decent cars, and all met up at the closest track to see who had the fastest car. We had a GTO with a 400, A 70 mustang with a 351C, a 55 Chevy with a 350 and a 72 Camaro with a 283. The guy who owned the Camaro didn’t check the specs of the engine he was building and got taken. Then at the last minute one of the Guys showed up with a 60 Rambler with a 390 topped off with Group 19 parts, which was kind of like Mopars Direct Connection factory racing parts. After the trip to the track the Rambler came back as the fastest car, running in the 12’s. That got my attention and I’ve loved AMC ever since. Second in my kind was Mopar with its massive factory support.
Oh my god, I had no idea these vintage reviews existed until now! These are amazing!! Bud Lindemann is full of personality and that driver is one savage beast!
I remember in 1st grade 1978 or 1979 my brother Rob who was a senior in HS we were going to school in his Javelin at the intersection at the end of our road he nailed it and did a 360 he was my hero. I was hooked on muscle cars for ever RIP Rob.
It's very interesting to get to know about the world of motoring in classic Europe, Asian, and America. They were all so different, and interesting in their own way. Now it's all the same.
First of all, this Javelin is a pony car. It's meant to compete with the Mustang, Cougar, Firebird, Camaro, 'Cuda, and Challenger. Muscle cars are more like what you have there with that Chevelle or perhaps a Charger. Second of all, not all imports are garbage just as how not every American car is great. Please understand this. The car community will be much better for it.
In all fairness basically any American car even if it was rare and cool was considered junk at some point for instance a lot of 60s-70s cars were basically treated as junk by the early 90s the reason why there almost untouchable now is the rise in price in the early 2000s (and this comes from a guy who loves classic American cars)
@@jakekaywell5972 you're very wrong. This pony car was considered to be a muscle car like the 428 SCJ Mustang and Camaro SS, Z/28 and the big block Plymouth Valient of 68-69. ANY car with big HP and torque with big performance numbers is considered to be a muscle car with the exception of luxury Marques. Today's 2023 Charger Red Eye will smoke most muscle cars back in this era. No what you're talking about before you attack a person for their post, Wil Farrell
REMEMBER WATCHING THIS TV SHOW BEFORE HEADING TO SCHOOL ON SPEEDVISION. I WAS FLOORED AT HOW SIDEWAYS YOU COULD GET THAT JAVELIN AND IT WOULDNT SPIN OUT fELL IN LUVE WITH THOSE CARS
Poking fun at the Corvette's expense on this one. "Probably the most noticeable changes are the bubbled front fenders, slightly reminiscent of the Corvette. However this similarity end there. Because the Javelin, is a handler."
amc was allways trying to save money, so one of the ways they did that was to use the same block for their v8 engines. (just bored and stroked differently to achive whatever engine size) 290,343,390,401. etc.. great video, thanx for posting. cheers.
That march music cracks me up. "This one time, at band camp..." Back in the day when you could tell cars apart. Today -the past 25 years- we have the copy cat, cookie-cutter syndrome.
Phillip S my impala basically looks like the toyota i parked next to the other day. They aren't even from the same continent and they looked damn near identical. Its sad.
come here in Brazil (no, do not come it's just force of expression. things here are tense) and see our "cars" ... all colored silver, gray and moss. all are small four-door front-wheel-drive hatch, weak, expensive, and alike. you can look at a Peugeot or a Hyundai or Chevrolet or Volkswagen or even a Ford ... All are identical, all without sports appeal or anything else ... All cars made today are bland without content without spirit that makes the user not have the slightest pleasure of having or driving. When I look on the street, I want to cry. I begin to get the desire to move to the US.. but it seems that even in the automobile country people are not interested in cars anymore ... :'(
I love discussing/reliving the forgotten AMC stuff, as you can see. I grew up with them, and was part of a tiny % who saw their potential. Most young folks don't realize, or perhaps don't care, where the Jeep Cherokees came from. Or that the (silly looking) Marlin,like the Barracuda, came out at the same time or before the Mustang.
I had a 64 rambler american back in 74 . It was a neat little car with a way better ride than most cars back then, i never understood why most people were so dismissive of amc back then. A few years later i bought a 70 machine . That car had a lot of torque and a really cool hood scoop with built in tach. Fit and finish was not so good and borg and warner automatic transmission was infamous for poor reliability. But it was a really cool car. I've always liked different cars now I'm driving a kia niro hybrid ( great car) i think that to many people get too set in there ways . I remember feeling sad when amc was gobbled up just for the jeep product line.
Thanks for uploading :) i just purchase a 1971 Javelin AMX and i have these wheels as options it is good reference for me to watch this as i am restoring this totally original car .
Happy to say I can personaly atest to the praises he's giving the Javelin. My 73 Javelin/AMX is great car to drive. It was my daily driver in HS. I was the only kid to drive a classic car of any type to school. lots of fun. still have it 12 years later, but it needs a little work (its a northeast car).
Being smaller AMC was good at exploting the niche market and their design. Their engines were very reliable and Dick Teague was a great designer working on a dime budget. Of course the Pacer was not a high point.
I find that these era muscle cars all had very similar lines...The Javelin, the Mustang Mach 1, and the Charger and Challenger all kind of resemble each other in 70-71. Chevys Monte Carlo had the most distinct look of the group in these years. Great video
I never tire of these old test drives. Mostly I enjoy the video presentation itself, and not the cars they are driving. So campy, but enjoyable. Why tilt the camera? Some weird emphasis? And in all honesty, most of the AMCs that were shown really weren't too bad, given the little or no money AMC had to develop their products. I doubt any worldwide car company today could match that financial efficiency.
Excellent video. I like the honesty of it and I love the car. These were cars (like Ford, GMC and Mopar) that could go from the dealership to the track. The gas crisis started by OPEC really hurt the American Auto industry as did the unions at the time. Who knows what great cars we would have kept coming out with if those things didn't happen.
AMC, despite not having a great budget and management was a very good car company. Almost all their products were weird, but in a really charming weird sort of way. I wish that it was still going on today, and if it does ever come back (which I highly doubt it will), I'm curious to see what they would come up with. No I don't want to see some lame retro-style crap car, I actually want to see a new, original line of cars made by them. I just wonder what they would do if the company was still here today.
I love the dark green with light green on the top combo of this car.. looks nice with the red pinstripe. . Also love the 1971 sst grille. Anyone interested in the Randall automotive gremlins? .. those were interesting amc cars. Rare.
If Chrysler had bought AMC in 1968 instead of years later can you imagine what a 426 Hemi 4 speed AMX would have been like with that light body ? Even the hottest Vette would think twice before trying that. As we all know AMC already have been using some parts from Ford and Dodge rather than develop their own like Autolite carb and i think some GM power steering pumps and later Mopar automatic transmissions
@CamaroAmx i had up to that point learned the old fashion way (my dad didn't know much about AMC either. he stuck to Fords and Dodges) by messing up. it taught me alot about cars. i did alot of firsts in that car (1st time i broke 100mph-156mph, 1st drum brake rebuild, 1st really long burnout, 1st real street race, 1st drunk driving- didn't get caught, 1st drive through really deep snow (11 inches) in a RWD car, 1st bodywork, 1st cool car, loudest car i've ever driven, and on and on).
They were. Unfortunatley, they underwent some chinsy-fying in the last era of AMC. Rocker arms became a weak link then. Nonetheless, a damn good engine. And inline 6-cyls all were smooth, low end torque motors simply because they fire every 60deg, instead of 90 deg in a V8. Mopar Perf still offers a stroked AMC 258cid.
If you cut a coil off the front springs and block lowered the rear leaf spring, you could lower the car about an inch. Wider wheels and tires to fill the fenders. Then the AMX and Javelins would look aggressive and handle well.
@MarksmanLeBlanc yes lead sustitue is required, unless you change the valve seals to harden ones. the AMX and Javelin required leaded fuel until 73, but then you had to run lead fuel every other tank in 73 & 74. since yours has the 390 (earlier engine), lead is required. just go to Autozone (or equivelent) and buy a couple of bottles and add 1 bottle at every fill up. they aren't very exspensive (max $2) if you don't, it begin to smoke and eventualy cause engine damage (i learned the hard way).
The 258ci engine was one of their best 6cyls. Zillions made. Chrysler kept it even after they bought AMC, eventually replacing it with the 3.7L V6, and now their Pentastar Engine. It was an evolution of the Hudson straight 6s, which not too many know were +300HP killers that won NASCAR many a times. Hudson offered them with 4bbls, big cams & pistons, etc. At the time, the Hudson Hornets were lighter and better handlers then the rest.
@jeepster02 You got me pegged, I am a GM person. By the way I wasnt touting the fact I have a Buick GN to be cocky, I just think its a classic example of awesome aggressive looks and power, back in the 80s when both were frowned upon. At the car shows its considered a muscle are. After some thought about it you are correct about the Monte...it was for most of its life a 2 door soft riding touring type car with fancy decals , but I always loved its look.
Holly panic stop Batman!! 209 feet sounds very scary in modern times. Just glad in 2020 we can toss out those weak brakes for some nice big brake upgrade kits.
If I may add one more thing The Javelin would have been better looking without the fender top wheel buldges and yet it still looks classy 50 plus years later.
I knew the Jeep straight-six was a durable engine that went way back, but didn't know it went as far back as Hudson, that's quite impressive. My '98 Cherokee has nearly 200,000 miles and still runs strong.
LateNightCable , I’ve now owned two wrangler TJs of that era. I prematurely got rid of the 98 cuz of frame worries but it’s still running somewhere today , I just know it. And after a year of missing it badly , I got another - another TJ ! 4.0 straight 6 for me. I didn’t trust the 3.8 at the time, still don’t (I hear the latest ones are bad ass though, many refinements in and out , some well overdue ).
These are great video clips. I'm surprised we didn't all get killed in the cars of the 70's. Of course we would not have had the seat belts on either. Probably kids standing up in the back seat too. I'll just keep my new pick-up, Thank you very much.
People didn't "all get killed " in these 70's cars because people in the seventies had common sense. Nowadays people want their cars to park, drive, stop all automatically because society is a bunch of lazy stupid lawsuit crazy linatics.
@MarksmanLeBlanc I'd watch for rust (body parts are hard to come by). Always run it with lead fuel (you can buy lead substitute at any auto store). The points ingnition is a pain in the rear, so I'd upgrade to electronic (jegs and summit have ones for AMC). Since AMC used some parts from other companies (the trans is a Chrysler 727 but with an AMC bolt pattern. the ignition is GM and the carb is a Ford/Autolite). other then that just watch for the normal things to do when buying a used car.
This is how we drove our Rebel Machines on a daily basis. In my case, while drinking a Pepsi in on hand and eating a 1/2 Lune Moon with the other. We didn't have cup holders, just round dents in the glove box door. A major shortcoming that still irks me.
Indeed...I've been told a lot of this has to do with the old bias-ply tires they used back then. You put modern steel belted radials on these cars and the handling is transformed. But there's no denying modern cars are better, hand over fist.
@MarksmanLeBlanc yeah, by 73 everyone else had switch over to all unleaded. AMC was a little behind. Mine has the 304, but it has some factory optional speed parts (Group 19 parts) like roller rockers, higher compression pristons and factory headers (but the headers are shot to hell after 40 years). my dad still refuses to believe its "just" a 304. he says it runs like a 401 (a freind of his had a 401 AMX when he was in HS that my dad rode in alot). since its the 360, you have 727 (if an auto).
For the most part, the difference between a Pony Car and a Muscle Car were the car's size relative to the rest of the lineup. Pony cars typically rode on shorter wheelbases and overall smaller dimensions, while a Muscle car had somewhat reasonable space to be used as a family car. Compare a Mustang to a Gran Torino, a Camaro to a Chevelle, or a Barracuda to a GTX. Chrysler blurred the line a bit with their E-body pony cars, because the engine they wanted to fit had ridiculous dimensions.
Or that the modern 3.7L & 4.7L Chrysler engines were initially designed by ex-AMC engineers, still on the payroll, as per Mopar Performance Tech's discussion with me last year. (Sorry about 3 replies. RU-vid limits how many characters, so I had to split my response up in 3 parts.)
@deloreanman14 The 0-60 runs will also improve greatly as well. I raced a few modern cars with mine and beat them. Never got to race a real modern performance car, but alot of 80s/90s performance cars felt the sting of my little 304 V8 auto 73 AMX (headers, shift kit and upgraded valvetrain and air shocks). My 73 AMX handles like a dream, better then my 93 Z28 but the Camaro does get better MPGs.
AMC had no Big or Small Block V8. They had 3 generations of engines. The first was from the Hudson/Packard era, and the latter 2 were their own new design and were almost identical; just varying in deck height. And yes, they made a 327, 360, and a 390. And no, they weren't Chevy's, Mopar's, or Ford's.
@MarksmanLeBlanc stick ain't hard. i learned in a 79 4-speed 351M (big block) Bronco on a dirt road w/ a very low 1st gear ("granny gear") and in a silver 89 Shebly Daytona Turbo (1 of only a few 100 made in that color. wish i still had it). be happy to have access to the info of the internet. i didn't have PC untill '01 (over a year after i got the car). i learned from a 71 Javelin Clhilton Service Manual an old man gave me at a gas station to help me with my car. it was quite random really.
Yes, the 343 was their "Typhoon" motor, I believe. A short deck motor, with certain amount of HP potential. I was a good motor, never getting the press that it deserved. It had a great bore & stroke ratio; on par with the Big 3's small blocks. Perhaps AMC never intended to make a killer out of it. On the other hand, the 343s had no problem propelling the big, 4,000lb Matador wagons down the road either.
430 lb. ft is a good torque number for a production 401 in a light car like this. AMC V8s were great engines. Too bad they never became more popular. The bottom ends were pretty tough on these engines, too.
anyone notice this is a sst with a 401 in it?,and Not an amx version?..isnt that an odd combo?..even the wheel is the base version..besides all that,id like to say Thanks for sharing that video :) because its 100% Awesome Memory Central / AMC
Don't get my wrong, I love muscles cars (my favourite is a 1970 Chevelle ss 454 ls6! By far the best muscle car) but they can't turn for shit!! Evidence - see 2:25 in this video!
The stoppers were doing all and more of what was asked. Stood on the pedal and all four wheels stopped moving. Halting an automobile as we all know now, requires much more than stopping a wheel from turning.
just bought a 72' javelin sst, always dreamed of owning one, and noe it's mine!! just finishing up a highly modified 401 for it, and looking for a t10 4speed (car has clutch pedal) some dumbass put a built chev 355/ th350 2,500 stall (in car now) and although it's fast as hell, it should be ALL AMC!
@jeepster02 By the way I would still take the Monte over the Cordoba, although the Cordobas "Rich Corinthian leather" is tempting! :) In the end as far as true muscle cars of the early 1970s, nobody, I mean nobody could touch Mopar..plain and simple..and thats coming from a "GM person"
Although popularly referred to as muscle cars, the smaller cars are more accurately called pony cars. You can still get away with calling them muscle cars most of the time, though. The ultimate size of the car or its engine does not necessarily make the difference, but it's the car's position in the manufacturer's lineup. A Mustang can't really be Ford's muscle car when they already have the larger Gran Torino in that position. Besides, the term "pony car" is named after the Mustang itself.
Only 3 panic stops and no brakes!! WHAO!! Brakes are over rated anyway. Great handling with some body roll... when this seems normal to you, OFFICIALLY... You are a BEAST!!
This was pretty much AMC at the top of their game. Shortly after this they started making some really strange and ugly cars with terrible reliability. Pacer/Matador anyone?
Yup...In driver ed, they had me pilot a '74 2dr Matador. With a 304 V-8 and a full load of student drivers, it was a powerless, slushy handling ride. Perfect for us!! The driver ed teacher got wise to me using cruise control...But he grinned and winked and gave me bonus points using it...:-) This car, and those like it, were many things. Certainly, they are missed...
I had a 74 302 3 speed it was ok but when they went to this bigger body style in 71 the game was over. I just saw some stuff on a AMX/3 to bad it did not make it might have given AMC a second life
I still wonder if this is a pre-production car, or some sort of ringer sent around for testing. Maybe the color is off in the film, but this car appears to have a blue or green interior, with a black exterior with orange, gold or red stripe. An odd combination for sure. Secondly, when they talk of suspension, Bud mentions "....sway bars fore and aft, and traction bars at each wheel." Now, AMC never offered a rear sway bar on the Javelin ..... EVER. And the traction bar at each wheel could be reference to the torque links AMC used to provide on their performance models, but they were NEVER offered on the Javelin. They were however, an over-the counter DEALER item for the Javelin. That's what leads me to think this car has been upgraded from your standard board of fair automobile.
I think the exterior color might be "raven green" the twin canopy top has green vinyl, so the interior is most likely green as well. great looking car IMO. id love to go back in time and order a 71 sst just like this model.. just my 2 cents. cheers.
