1980 Jeep DJ

From the mid-1950s through the mid-1980s, the DJ delivered most of America's mail.
* "DJ" stands for Dispatcher Jeep. The Jeep now called the Wrangler was sold for decades as the CJ, or Civilian Jeep.
* The vehicle is very different from CJs of the same era. It has a lighter frame, rear-wheel-only drive and a DJ-only 5-slot grill. A lot of them had transmissions from Chrysler, and they had engines from several sources.
* I have no idea what that extra radiator/cooler attached to the grill does.

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1959 Nash Metropolitan convertible

A favorite of both collectors and Weird Al Yankovic, the Metropolitan was the only really small car you could buy from an American brand in the 1950s. Every single car (except for the Corvette) made by General Motors in 1959 qualified as "full-size". Sure, American Motors sold "compact cars", but they were actually pretty big vehicles.

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1970 AMC AMX

Previously known almost exclusively for boring compact cars, American Motors in the mid 60s was expanding in all kinds of different directions. One of those was a two-seater sports car concept called "American Motors experimental" or AMX. In 1968 the AMX got the green light and 19,000 cars were built over the next three model years.

From cubsideclassic.com: "The AMX was a true performance car—its chief rival was the Chevrolet Corvette—which cost over $1,000 more—and was capable of speeds up to 130 mph, with engine options topping out at 315 hp and 425 lb./ft. of torque.  The AMX incorporated a number of industry-first, safety-minded features that were recognized by the American Society of Automotive Engineers when they awarded the AMX the "Best Engineered Car of the Year" award for both 1969 and 1970."

This final model-year AMX features the 1970-only functional cold ram-air induction system.

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1956 Rambler Custom

In my last post I mentioned that in the fall of 1956, American Motors tried to introduce the first car with electronic fuel-injection but ultimately killed to idea due to the complexity of the system. If they'd gone ahead, the unattractive sedan you're looking at would have been the fastest car in America. Even without the horsepower boost provided by fuel-injection, the 1957 Rambler Rebel (the pillarless-hardtop version of the car pictured) boasted a 327 c.i. V-8 with up to 255 hp. Combine that with the lightweight construction of the Rambler, and you've got a car with a 0 to 60 time of 7.5 seconds.

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1979 AMC Concord DL

Perhaps you've seen the Simpsons episode Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield, in which Marge repeatedly alters her Chanel suit because she can't afford a new one. Apply that same idea to a car, and you've got the AMC Hornet-Concord-Eagle.

In the fall of 1969, AMC introduced its new Hornet model as a compact car for the budget-minded. Now flash forward a decade. Compact cars are becoming more popular, and AMC is trying to stay in the game but they don't have the money needed to engineer new models. So AMC adds plush seats, a vinyl top and... um... color-coordinated wheel covers to the Hornet. Now it's a unique "luxury compact". Sounds crazy, right? Incredibly enough, this gambit actually worked - this car sold 100,000 copies in 1979 alone. Who can explain anything from the 70s?

And if that isn't unlikely enough, AMC pulled the same trick again a couple of years later when they put the same old bodies atop their new Jeep-derived chassis, thus creating the Eagle - the first four-wheel drive "crossover". Even the old Gremlin got turned into a 4x4. Good times!

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1981 AMC Eagle SX/4

When people think of the AMC Eagle, they mostly remember the station wagon version of what was at that time America's only 4-wheel drive car. But the Eagle was available in other forms, including two-door and four-door models. The SX/4 combined the new 4-wheel drive platform with the old Gremlin chassis (which dated all the way back to 1970) and the Spirit hatchback body (which was based on the Hornet/Concord body, which also dated to 1970). The Eagle 2-door was also available as a "kammback" which was a clever way of saying it had the old Gremlin body. I have seen one of these very rare Eagle-Gremlins in Seattle and hope to photograph that one as well.

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1977 AMC Hornet Sportabout wagon

The Hornet was a new car for American Motors in 1970. This same basic station wagon body staggered all the way to the 1988 model year atop the all-wheel drive Eagle chassis. Chrysler Corp. then purchased AMC and closed their Kenosha, WI factory.

The most famous Hornet is of course the 1974 model X used in the corkscrew-jump in the James Bond film The Man With the Golden Gun.

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