For one brief year, I owned an AMC Javelin (the AMX version). My dad (after the radiator hose came loose on the old Oldsmobile and scolded him to the ninth-degree) had come to agree that it had to go. This was spoken about 24 hours after visiting the emergency room, and getting some pain killers and special salve.
A week passed, and we drove around for one afternoon and looked at three or four car lots in the region, and here in the Muscle Shoals area was this practically new AMX sitting there. I figured there was zero chance that he'd sign up to this car....which it was an odd episode where he had no problem. First, it was a muscle car....V8, with 210 horsepower (yes, it burned a hefty amount of gas). Second, it looked like some 'fireball' or some vehicle inviting trouble. Third, and most serious of all....it was AMC (my dad was sold on Fords). The Oldsmobile? I think on trade-in value....we got a $100.
The story with this AMX? The sales guy sat there and laid out this epic story.
Such-and-such guy with money....laid out cash to buy this AMX for his precious 16-year old daughter in the spring of 1975 (in Franklin county). The family actually flew up to Detroit and picked up the car (some grand adventure). Somewhere in the spring of 1976, the daughter ends up in relationship and pregnant. Her dad decides to resettle the daughter into a church-atmosphere and the AMX has to go....so they bring it to the dealer and gets it back onto the market. Perhaps in some way, the car was an invitation to trouble.
So I drove this car for roughly one entire year. When I went off to the Air Force....with the tour to Germany....I figured that was enough and told my dad to go ahead and sell it.
Looking back, that car burned gas like crazy. If it weren't for the farm gas-tank that my dad had.....the monthly gas bill would have driven me crazy. I doubt that I got more than 13 mpg. Image? Absolutely....it was a car that gave you an image.
