For this Rough Start find, we decided to adjust the budget a bit. The 1973 American Motors Javelin we found is the perfect candidate for a restoration or a project base, and we liked the car too much to pass it up. At $6,500, it’s out of the normal five thousand dollar range, but combine a complete car, a unique shape, and a deceased brand and you wind up with the perfect combination for a teardown car.
With one year left to go before AMC ditched the Javelin body for the questionable looks of the Matador coupe, the Javelin was still wearing it’s new-for-1971 body but had received a new taillight panel that ditched the full-width design for four individual lights. You could still get the full range of engines, but power levels had dropped, not only due to the new rating system, but because of the new smog equipment. Overall, AMC had made a solid pony car competitor, but they just didn’t have quite the pull that Ford’s Mustang and Chevrolet’s Camaro had.
This 360/727 Torque-Command version is a pretty solid middle-of-the-road model that had managed to age well enough. If it looks like a time capsule, it is…it sat in a garage since 1983 and with exception of the carpet, which was ditched because it smelled “like a dead rat”, it’s pretty much all here. The banana cream paint combination isn’t our favorite, but whatever. Now, the sincere question: would you restore it, or is this Javelin going to make the leap from weak-sauce pony car to the fat-tired road course wonder that it should be?
Craigslist Link: 1973 American Motors Javelin
If she was mine, I’d freshen up the interior, drive train and paint. Then leave it alone. Nice find, by the way.
My dad has one in the paint shop now. He just finished freshening the motor and transmission and we ran it up and down the road before starting bodywork. The 360 has a unique sound and in near stock form will haul ass.