New 2005 GC

I'll bite out of a sense of devilment :-)

ok, lets take the waggy. Good axles, good chassis, fair transfer case ( 229 at any rate), great gearbox. nice and roomy inside. But. big overhangs, especially at the back, stupid carb and engine controls, wiring that tries to imitate det-cord, leaks from everywhere you can think of, *really* stupid rear window, poor quality dash and instruments. Gas tank lacks protection also. That was AMCs responsibility - on the whole a good design, but somewhat lacking nevertheless.

I think you are being entirely fair to the GC - it wasn't built to be as offroad capable as the Wrangler, and nor was the Waggy. (although I accept that IFS is going entirely too far).

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wag> > the '05 GC is not really a Jeep at all. It is a "something" loosely based

Dave Milne did pass the time by typing:

Actually IFS does cure the dreaded death-wobble common to solid front axles. First time the ZJ had death-wobble I seriously considered trading it in that evening.

It's just not possible to use greatness and AMC in the same sentence.

I remember the Gremlin. Rented one once because they had run out of all other vehicles. Small and uncomfortable, but heavy and slow. The crappiest looking seats I ever saw in a car; they were hard with thin padding, too. Pushing down the pedal to shift into passing gear caused the engine to roar loudly, but no actual acceleration occurred.

My great-uncle owned a 60s Rambler. Once when he was visiting us, he was trying to get the carburetor adjusted right. I saw when he was working on it that the carb body was PLASTIC. I don't think that was the wave of the future in carburetor technology, because I never saw one since.

Another person I knew owned a top-of-the line Rambler, mid-60s vintage. It was a two door car, and when you folded the seat forward to get into the back seat, it left a big metal trim piece (a chrome thing that covered the hinge) sticking out into the opening that was perfect for barking your shins on.

Those are the design and engineering achievements I think of when I hear AMC.

There weren't street versions of the Javelin or AMX with that kind of horsepower, net or gross unless your name was something like Mark Donohue. More representative of AMC after the early 50's were the Matador and Pacer, with odd moments of performance such as the Hurst SC/Rambler.

Little of the heritage of the Hudson Hornet, Terraplane Super, Nash Ambassador twin-plug Straight 8, Essex, Nash-Healy etc. type thinking remained.

L.W.(ßill) Hughes III proclaimed:

And the Gremlin was at the BOTTOM of that particular dungpile.

With AMC brakes and suspension, it would be much more exciting than necessary.

Should we tell him that most native Germans consider the Mercedes to be nothing more than a glorified taxicab? Not that any of the superior Nash/Hudson engineering remained after being gobbled up by AMC. Hell, Bill is probably old enough to remember the old Hudson racing cars.

twaldron proclaimed:

Not on planet Earth.

I have attnews's posts filtered, but now I regret it, this has got to be the funniest post to Usenet in the last year or so....