The other Hornets

[Monk]

Speaking of AMCs.........in the '80's I was deep into 'em
3 AMX's
1 Javelin
2 SC/Ramblers
Here's a little gem........super car...........produced by an AMC dealer back then

[JamesMayberryIII]

When you're backs are up against the wall. You tend to spend wisely.
I doubt anyone at AMC thought it be wise to spend cash they didn't have in the early 70's on promoting the hornet as a race car. Performance and h/p were dirty words at that point, and motorsports was and still is a tiny part of the vehicle buying public.
The climate was not right for promotion of the hornet as a racer, It made more sense to promote it as an "new" car that fit with what buyers of the day wanted. at a fair price. .
Blaming them for not going down that rabbit hole of race car promoting is silly. knowing that they didn't have the cash to just blow/waste money . Would having thrown their hat in the ring of motorsports with the 70's hornet helped them as a company, no one knows. But when you only have so much money to play with,priorities of say new vehicle production and design trumps. going out to play racer on week ends.

[DanStokes]

I always wanted a Hudson since that’s my last name. I’m building a Hudson dealership right now for our annual model show we have in town. I’ve built 4 hornets so far, one was a model of the fabulous Hudson Hornet. I wish I could find a Hudson truck to build for it..

Troy - I lived in Ypsilanti, MI for several years and it was the home of the last Hudson dealership. That dealership is now a car museum and is really neat. Jack Miller was the proprietor of the dealership and evidently he sold it with the understanding that all his nifty stuff (Hudson brand motor oil, antifreeze, accessories, etc.) would be on public display forever. The basis of the museum is Jack's accumulation of a lifetime and includes a Marshall Teague back-up engine still in it's crate as well as Doc Hudson - the real one. I've sat in Doc. Jack's DD was either a '47 pickup or a yellow/white '53 Hollywood hardtop. The museum has other stuff made in Ypsi including some Corvairs and other goodies. Sounds like a visit you would enjoy.

Dan

[Gateclyve Photographic]

When you're backs are up against the wall. You tend to spend wisely.
I doubt anyone at AMC thought it be wise to spend cash they didn't have in the early 70's on promoting the hornet as a race car. Performance and h/p were dirty words at that point, and motorsports was and still is a tiny part of the vehicle buying public.
The climate was not right for promotion of the hornet as a racer, It made more sense to promote it as an "new" car that fit with what buyers of the day wanted. at a fair price. .
Blaming them for not going down that rabbit hole of race car promoting is silly. knowing that they didn't have the cash to just blow/waste money . Would having thrown their hat in the ring of motorsports with the 70's hornet helped them as a company, no one knows. But when you only have so much money to play with,priorities of say new vehicle production and design trumps. going out to play racer on week ends.

Maybe so. But Hudson's back was against the wall in the early '50s. And guys like Smokey Yunick and Vince Piggins (yes, the legendary dean of GM racing originally honed his skills at Hudson) made a splash with a relatively tiny budget.

Also the Granatellis managed to make some motorsports noise with Studebaker as it was exiting the car business to become an investment concern.

AMC did invest in motorsports in the '70s. Penske ran a factory Matador with Bobby Allison in NASCAR. Penske won SCCA Trans-Am championships with AMC too. And Team Highball in IMSA most certainly had factory support. Later on, the Archer Brothers ran Jeeps in SCCA truck racing. As previously pointed out, Wally Booth and the Randall dealership in Arizona had some motorsports involvement as well.

BTW, any factory can outsource much of a motorsports program quite easily. Just as OEMs can (and frequently do) make dealers spend thousands upon thousands of dollars upgrading dealership facilities, carrying inventory, buying ads and stocking parts departments as conditions of keeping dealership franchises, they could require dealers to compete in motorsports with the OEM's products (directly or through sponsorship advertising) on local and/or regional levels. .

Factories can also fairly cheaply outsource high performance parts development. as well (AMC actually did this a bit with Edelbrock back in the day). The aftermarket can often do it quicker, cheaper and better than an OEM with a kickstart of seed money and access to factory support.

My point was just a simple marketing observation that AMC abandoned the brilliant motorsports heritage of the Hornet and then, when they resurrected the nameplate, AMC didn't do much to tie in their then current efforts (both in the showroom and the race track) with the Hornet's proud history. I note that this is not an observation unique to AMC and I have made it about other OEMs in other time periods.

I COULD BE WRONG. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DISAGREE. EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO THEIR OWN OPINION. AND I FULLY SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGE THE AIRING OF DIFFERING VIEWPOINTS.


However, I will not apologize to anyone for my unabashed belief that for 120+ years motorsports has been a spectacular, efficient way for any automotive company to promote their products, and support for grassroots motorsports with factory engineeered parts and OEM models suitable for competition has always been an excellent way to build a brand. Always. And it always will be so long as vehicles are raced!

[chevybuytroy]

Troy - I lived in Ypsilanti, MI for several years and it was the home of the last Hudson dealership. That dealership is now a car museum and is really neat. Jack Miller was the proprietor of the dealership and evidently he sold it with the understanding that all his nifty stuff (Hudson brand motor oil, antifreeze, accessories, etc.) would be on public display forever. The basis of the museum is Jack's accumulation of a lifetime and includes a Marshall Teague back-up engine still in it's crate as well as Doc Hudson - the real one. I've sat in Doc. Jack's DD was either a '47 pickup or a yellow/white '53 Hollywood hardtop. The museum has other stuff made in Ypsi including some Corvairs and other goodies. Sounds like a visit you would enjoy.

Dan

Definitely would enjoy that. Mu great uncle has a Hudson gas pump I’ve wantec forever. We have the duesenberg museum about an hour away from me in auburn. I try to go there once a year. Kruse auction has a museum there also that my son loves cause it has a lot of movie cars in it and a bunch of Carl Casper’s vehicles

[RockJustRock]

Looking at the thread *I* conclude AMC did just fine in performance and motorsports in the 70s. If anything they OVERSPENT when the Big 3 cut back. Penske did not come cheap. I doubt he was drawn to the brand by any engineering miracles out of Kenosha. When they wanted to go drag racing they went to Hurst for the SS AMX program. AMC did the right stuff, the world was just going wrong.

[RockJustRock]

After hours of brain wracking I stand by Wikipedia that AMC did not exist before '70. If you wanted a 69 Javelin or AMX you went to a Rambler Dealer and ordered one from American Motors. American Motors was what Rambler was from the beginning but they didn't use AMC as a BRAND until '70.

Calling a 68 Javelin an AMC is like calling a Chevy Truck a GMC.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

Maybe so. But did they spend wisely?

The bang-for-buck gold standard might be what Vince Piggins and his supporters did clandestinely in the '60s and '70s at GM . . . when GM was officially "out of racing."

In that time, his operation . . . using the same budget techniques he first employed at Hudson in the early '50s . . . managed to almost completely take over American grassroots motorsports, develop at least one incredible showroom legend (Z/28 Camaro), and shovel well-placed subsidies to maximum impact racers which build up "cred" (e.g. Grumpy Jenkins, Jim Hall) All for spending that was a fraction of what Chrysler and Ford were budgeting for big-league professional motorsports (at least prior to 1970).

Vince's operation was perfectly poised to take advantage of the void that occurred when Chrysler and Ford abandoned their professional subsidy program.

Chevrolet also built the "SS" sub-brand into a consistent image that even the most automotive oblivious tended to notice was something special.

Zora and Vince also kept Corvette at the forefront of American performance during most of the period as America's only two-seat true sports car (1968-70 AMX notwithstanding), which added an important "halo" to all of the brands products that was unmatched by the rest of the Detroit automakers.

READ Zora's memo . . . It's the blueprint . . . It's still valid.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

After hours of brain wracking I stand by Wikipedia that AMC did not exist before '70. If you wanted a 69 Javelin or AMX you went to a Rambler Dealer and ordered one from American Motors. American Motors was what Rambler was from the beginning but they didn't use AMC as a BRAND until '70.

Calling a 68 Javelin an AMC is like calling a Chevy Truck a GMC.

The fact that one went to a Rambler dealer to buy a car that didn't say "Rambler" anywhere on it (but did say "product of American Motors") doesn't make it a "Rambler AMX" or a "Rambler Javelin." . . . My late second cousin and I had this same argument fifty-one years ago!

BTW, I'd be very interested in hearing from AMX/Javelin owners and club members on this point . . . What is the official club position on whether or not any 1968-70 AMXs and Javelins are Ramblers? Does anyone's title documents say "Rambler" on them?

[RockJustRock]

Like Penske was a bad investment? Somebody MIGHT have done it better? Is that all you have left? Chevrolet functioned well as a rebel force. Saved a lot of money on liability insurance too. The big thing Chevy did right was use high rise manifolds and Holley carbs on their image producing engines and still offered the cheap stuff under the same trim. A zillion 302,327, 350, 396, 427 and 454 owners ran around claiming they had the "good stuff" when they didn't. Hell, on a Z-28 you had to install the damn cross ram yourself to get the kind of power the magazines raved about.

[RockJustRock]

The fact that one went to a Rambler dealer to buy a car that didn't say "Rambler" anywhere on it (but did say "product of American Motors") doesn't make it a "Rambler AMX" or a "Rambler Javelin." . . . My late second cousin and I had this same argument fifty-one years ago!

BTW, I'd be very interested in hearing from AMX/Javelin owners and club members on this point . . . What is the official club position on whether or not any 1968-70 AMXs and Javelins are Ramblers? Does anyone's title documents say "Rambler" on them?

Nobody said it was a Rambler. They just said it wasn't an AMC.

I have little respect for the American Motors Club the way they deface classic cars with their Euro looking grille badge.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

Like Penske was a bad investment? Somebody MIGHT have done it better? .

Penske is a winner. If I had the budget for him, he'd always be on the receiving end of my OEM budget.

That being said, if Penske takes up all the money that's necessary to make it happen on the streets and in the grassroots (where any OEM's customers really are), then one could reasonably question whether or not Penske's winning trickles down to building the brand's sales in the showroom and at the parts counter.

Oldsmobile in the 1990s and 2000s is a perfect example of how to blow big money on motorsports without helping in the showroom. Olds had the exotic DRCE and Paul Gentillosi [sp] in SCCA, and Shelby Series 1 (John Rock and Carroll Shelby's great confab), and the IRL engines, and other stuff that didn't dovetail into much of anything actually happening on the streets or in the grassroots. The lack of an attractive showroom high-performance product (and identifiable performance nameplate and sub-brand) gravely wasted the motorsports investment, IMHO.

You've got to have something hot for the fans to buy on Monday if winning on Sunday has any bang for the buck potential. (it's the "Walter Mitty" theory of fan identification) You got to have something that's accessible for the fan boys (and girls) and grassroots competitors to aspire to. Just spending on pro motorsports without a parts department and showroom component is like running a foot race with your fingers over your nose and mouth . . . .

These are just thoughts of one man on the subject (and totally derivative of Zora's ideas) . . . they could be 100% wrong.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

The big thing Chevy did right was use high rise manifolds and Holley carbs on their image producing engines and still offered the cheap stuff under the same trim. A zillion 302,327, 350, 396, 427 and 454 owners ran around claiming they had the "good stuff" when they didn't. Hell, on a Z-28 you had to install the damn cross ram yourself to get the kind of power the magazines raved about.

As to your other point, the successful high-performance cars in the showroom have almost always been what I call "cake mix" cars. In other words, cars that had some off-the-showroom sizzle, but had "headroom" for reasonable owner modifications. The fact that you didn't always get the top-flight racing stuff with an stock SS or Z/28 or Corvette wasn't fatal because most all of it bolted on for a reasonable cost. (Read Zora's memo) And the basic gear was the foundation for highly competitive efforts at local tracks. Excellent bang for the buck.

The '80s 5.0 Mustang tended to follow this same formula. It was just hamstrung by the bean counters and Ford's myopic need to not support reverse compatibly (a different topic for another thread).

[RockJustRock]

Except in most cases the headline makers had better bottom ends.

[RockJustRock]

Penske is a winner. If I had the budget for him, he'd always be on the receiving end of my OEM budget.

That being said, if Penske takes up all the money that's necessary to make it happen on the streets and in the grassroots (where any OEM's customers really are), then one could reasonably question whether or not Penske's winning trickles down to building the brand's sales in the showroom and at the parts counter.

Oldsmobile in the 1990s and 2000s is a perfect example of how to blow big money on motorsports without helping in the showroom. Olds had the exotic DRCE and Paul Gentillosi [sp] in SCCA, and Shelby Series 1 (John Rock and Carroll Shelby's great confab), and the IRL engines, and other stuff that didn't dovetail into much of anything actually happening on the streets or in the grassroots. The lack of an attractive showroom high-performance product (and identifiable performance nameplate and sub-brand) gravely wasted the motorsports investment, IMHO.

You've got to have something hot for the fans to buy on Monday if winning on Sunday has any bang for the buck potential. (it's the "Walter Mitty" theory of fan identification) You got to have something that's accessible for the fan boys (and girls) and grassroots competitors to aspire to. Just spending on pro motorsports without a parts department and showroom component is like running a foot race with your fingers over your nose and mouth . . . .

These are just thoughts of one man on the subject (and totally derivative of Zora's ideas) . . . they could be 100% wrong.

By the 90s and 00s it was all corporate anyway. GM just chose what marque looked like it could use help and had the racers slap that name and skin on their car. They did the same with Pontiac.

Anytime I hear Paul Gentilozzi I like to point out he was a Mopar Drag Racer. The Direct Connection guys respected he was a smart guy and called him their secret weapon.