

It's amazing how times have changed. I was telling someone about this blog last night and he mentioned that he always wanted a Triumph Spitfire. A couple of quick mouse clicks and I was able to print out a list of 7 nice ones that were for sale within a 100 miles radius of where he lives.
In 1983 I decided to buy a Sunbeam Alpine. I made the decision in maybe January, but didn't buy one until June. The reason it took so long had nothing to do with time or finances or any of the usual stuff that keeps us from buying a car, the problem was finding one. I'd have to wait each week for the new edition of WantAdvertiser, AutoTrader, or some such publication to appear at the local supermarket and then look for an ad. Most of the time there weren't any Sunbeams listed for sale. Each month I'd wait for Hemmings to show up. Hemmings usually had a few Sunbeam ads, but very few, if any, had pictures. I wasn't about to drive from Massachusetts to Ohio to look at a car that may or may not be a rust bucket.
I finally found a Sunbeam. The woman I was dating at the time spotted one listed in her local newspaper and told me about it. I bought it, but it was wrecked shortly after I registered it when a girl in a Ford F-Something pick-up crossed over into my lane and hit me head-on. The Sunbeam took the hit amazingly well and I was unhurt, but the car was totaled by the insurance company. I wanted another Sunbeam, but the idea of going through the whole "waiting for publications" thing wasn't appealing, so I bought a MGB that was sitting at a local car lot. (I did wind up buying another Sunbeam a few years later)
If that had happened today I could have jumped online and within seconds found 20 ads for Sunbeam Alpines. Most would have had high quality pictures and good descriptions (Remember, back in the day of just print ads you paid by the word for the ad. The less words you used, the less it cost you. People wanted to save money, so, to put it bluntly, the descriptions usually sucked.) I could have replaced my wrecked one within 24 hours.
We have it pretty good today.
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We need to reassemble AMC's management team and let them run Chrysler and GM.
Looking back, it is truly incredible what AMC did with the very little money and resources they had.
The Wagoneer wasn't the only breakthrough SUV AMC created. The Cherokee was the first mid-sized 4 door SUV. GM had to scramble to come up with the S10 line, Ford eventually introduced the Explorer, but the Jeep Cherokee was the first (and, in my eyes, still the best - I've owned several). Every mid-sized SUV available today is here because of what AMC started with the Jeep Cherokee.
3 comments:
So right on both ccounts.
I have a different view about AMC: they only survived as long as they got government contracts. That is why in the 1970s all the government cars were Hornets and Concords. They were designed and built to meet GAO specifications for fleet purchase. You mention the Pacer. This was a classic case where they should have spent their R&D on engineering a front-wheel-drive car, instead of a re-style of the Hornet/Gremlin.I'm not sure what the US auto industry needs right now, but it can't be a return to cars designed to meet a bean-counters' budget for battalions of bureaurocrats.
alden
I have to agree with Alden. AMC didn't create cars, they assembled them. Most parts were sourced from other manufacturers. The Rambler was well thought out car back in the fifties, but the Hornet and Gremlin were just the same car with different bodies 25 years later.
Jason
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