Correct! It's the Mercury counterpart to the glass-roofed Ford Skyliner before that name was attached to a retractable hardtop. I imagine Sun Valley drivers must've baked in the summer!
Those AMC coupes were supposed to be on a smaller chassis, but cash shortages and dumb management forced the larger and rather ungainly result. I've seen pictures of them on the compact chassis and they actually looked decent. You're right, the Javelins were good lookers in their time, but sales were hurt by AMC image as an economy car company and their financial situation.
Good call on the 62 Buick coupe. For some reason even though GM Fischer bodies were probably the tightest of the Big 3, GM convertibles always had loose, floppy looking convertible tops that tended to puff up in the wind compared to Ford and Mopar back then.
AMC was doing pretty good in the late 60's. The AMX/Javelins, Rebel Machines and the Scramblers (SC Ramblers) were pretty hot cars. It was the Matador [non-permissible content removed] Pacer/Gremlin era that did them in, IMO.
That Mercury Sun Valley brings back memories from 50 years ago for me.
I was in college in the late 50's (yeah, I'm 70 now, so put the calculators away)
I had a 1954 Monarch Sun Valley (the Canadian equivalent of the Mercury).
It was white with a green top....the glass roof had a zip-in fabric liner to shade things if it got too hot inside. This car was very cool...with duals and a great sound that had all the power stuff too....including windows and seat.
If you could not get "lucky" in this car....you must have looked like Quasimodo!
I think if they had thrown a few extra bucks into the Matador coupe and sprung for hidden headlights, it would have made a world of difference. Either have them hidden in the grille, or pop up above it, but getting rid of those awful bug-eyed headlights and their associated bulges would have cleaned up the car immensely.
One nifty feature those Matador coupes had was roll-down rear windows. With a/c becoming so popular, most people probably didn't care anymore, but it was still a thoughtful touch, and one becoming increasingly rare in 2-door cars.
The weird thing about the Matador coupe is that it looks nothing like the Matador sedan.. It's like they gave the same name to two completely different cars...
Now that I think about it.. Hyundai is doing the same thing with the name Genesis... :surprise:
Well as berri mentioned about 10 posts back, the coupes were supposed to be on a smaller chassis but it was second-guessed. This is not the first time that AMC did this. The original concept for what became the Marlin was on the American chassis (called the Tarpon) and looked really good. The idiot CEO, Roy Abernathy, nixed that idea because you couldn't put a V-8 in it, and forced it onto the larger Classic chassis. Everyone knows the result, both visually and financially. Ironically, within a couple of years they were putting their new V-8, which came in displacements up to 390 ci, in the American. If they had stuck with the original plan, the Tarpon/Marlin would have been a pretty credible competitor to the Plymouth Barracuda which, although not a blockbuster like the Mustang, had a fair amount of success. This decision was only one of many by Abernathy which supported a diagnosis of recto-cranial inversion and, I think, contributed greatly to AMC's downfall.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
I think it's just a simple fact checking error. Either the paper is wrong or they've confiscated so much stuff, they're rushing to catalog it for sale and transposed some numbers.
Fiat Barchetta - circa 2002 onwards. They have sold this here, but sadly not RHD, so it has never been a big seller. It's a nice little car, in the price bracket that years ago would have been the Spitfire or Midget/Sprite, slightly cheaper than an MX-5.
Don't forget the creme car, which I think is a '49 DeSoto. Can't tell which series, but I'm guessing a Custom, with the big whitewalls. Isn't the black car a '49-50 Chevy?
I think you may be right about that Plymouth. I'm not sure the last car is a Pontiac because I thought they all had that streamliner chrome decorating the middle of the hood back then? Maybe an Oldsmobile instead?
You're right. The 53 or 54 Pontiac had that cross piece on the grill similar to the picture IIRC. The crosspiece is what I keyed on. It's an open elongated oval. What cars had that? The emblem with the 12-18 inch chrome line through it looks like Pontiac rather than Oldsmobile...
A larger version of that photo reveals that the black car on the extreme right is definitely not a Poncho. link. It looks like a '50 or '51 Chevy to me, the Olds had different headlight surrouds.
My Grandpa owned an Olds similar to the 88 in the pic, not sure if it was the same year.
Comments
The styling seems to have a vaguely Pininfarina flavor. But the taillights sort of remind me of either an early Peugeot 504 or a generic GM sedan.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
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I never understood what happened to AMC styling in those years. Just a few years before, they'd had really beautiful cars - like this:
At one point in the late 60's I thought AMC might even stage a come-back
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I was in college in the late 50's (yeah, I'm 70 now, so put the calculators away)
I had a 1954 Monarch Sun Valley (the Canadian equivalent of the Mercury).
It was white with a green top....the glass roof had a zip-in fabric liner to shade things if it got too hot inside. This car was very cool...with duals and a great sound that had all the power stuff too....including windows and seat.
If you could not get "lucky" in this car....you must have looked like Quasimodo!
Those were the days my friend!
Doug
Hmm. The only time I ever actually tried to get lucky in a car, I came out looking and feeling like Quasimodo. Then again, it was a Fiat 850. . .
Let the games resume!
[Spoiler - yep, it's a plug for a Straightline story. You guys are needed to set some folks straight].
One nifty feature those Matador coupes had was roll-down rear windows. With a/c becoming so popular, most people probably didn't care anymore, but it was still a thoughtful touch, and one becoming increasingly rare in 2-door cars.
Now that I think about it.. Hyundai is doing the same thing with the name Genesis... :surprise:
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Did you get a good deal? Be sure to come back and share!
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Shame about that two-piece windshield. . .
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
So the year is in dispute.
I would guess that a 1964 DB5 would be worth more than a 1954 DB2/4.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
My Grandpa owned an Olds similar to the 88 in the pic, not sure if it was the same year.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
The car under the ARVIN sign is the one I thought was a Pontiac. But it's not.
Can you post a link to the larger picture?
That last car has an unusual upper grill bar which made me think it was a Pontiac. But maybe it's a Chrysler product?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,