AHC Save AMC

TheMann said:
Packard joins AMC in 1955, Studebaker following in 1960 or so as they started to flounder.
I'd want Stude on board before the trouble starts, or it risks sinking *AMC...:eek:
TheMann said:
AMC goes looking for a new tire supplier and Michelin bites, buying out Uniroyal and introducing its steel-belted radials into the North American market specifically for AMC. ...use of Michelin / Uniroyal tires and Bendix disc brakes swells throughout the lineup as its customers come to very much like the feel of the radials and the far better stopping power of the disc brake cars.
I like this a lot.:cool:


I'm wondering it this helps make NASCAR safer. Does it mean the *Super Bird/*Torino Cobra aero packages don't get banned? Does something like it also get used in Can Am? On the street?:cool:
TheMann said:
AMC figures out that the long hood / short deck design mid-sized sporty car design Studebaker has in mind could score big, and shoves it to production as the AMC Javelin, introduced in 1962. The result is enormous - AMC sells every Javelin it can make for 27 months and rakes in over four billion dollars in revenue just on the Javelin, providing them with a vast nest egg. AMC's small car languish some as the Rebel, Ambassador, Marlin and Javelin models get the attention - but AMC also during this time develops a aluminum-block versions of its V8 engines with steel liners, considerably reducing weight and improving efficiency. By 1965, cash-flush AMC gives Packard a sizable sum to completely re-do its product line, as well as buying Jeep from Kaiser as the latter finally bails out of the car business. The 1966 AMX is equipped with either double four-barrel carburetors or mechanical fuel injection as well as capacitor-discharge ignition replacing the traditional cap-and-rotor cam-driven ignition system. The company also purchased the foundering American Locomotive Company namely for diesel engine technology and an electrical equipment and electronics division, Michigan Electric. (They'd be glad they did both of these in the future.)
Better & better.:cool:


I'd hope the *Jav/*AMX use the *American chassis, rather than bigger *Ambassador (unlike OTL). I'd also hope there's a *Rebel, a bottom-market Road Runner-like sleeper.:cool:


As said above, I'd see big impact on NASCAR. (Similar to the '85 T-bird?) I also see impact on Le Mans/GT & CanAm. If the aero gets continued, it could have serious knock-ons for fuel mileage.


Does the aluminum FI V8 get applied to the 401 (or 451, which I think the 401 block is capable of being punched out to)? This could really, really heat up the horsepower wars; by 1970, EFI could be standard, without fuel economy being insanely bad.:cool:


Does this get used in the *Ambassador? I'm thinking it, or the *American, would make good police cruisers or detectives' cars. (I picture one as the unit in "Adam 12". Maybe also in an alt-"CHiPs".)


What are the chances for a *Rebel in "Route 66" or "Dobie Gillis"?:cool:
TheMann said:
The late 1960s sees AMC rapidly catching up with Chrysler, and Packard's series of new cars introduced in the 1966-68 timeframe are reasonably successful. But what hits hardest is the development of the I-4 and I-6 series engines, as well as VI-8 and VI-12 variants (which are effectively two I-4 or I-6 engines on a single crankshaft). These thoroughly modern double-overhead-cam, four-valve-per-cylinder engines are big for their size, but are soon known for smooth running, excellent response and prodigious power. The I-4 first sees service in the 1969 AMC small cars - the two-door coupe, four-door sedan and four-door wagon Hornet and the two-door hatchback Gremlin, the latter equipped with a Detroit-first six-speed manual gearbox among other mechanical improvements. GM's unreliable, flawed Vega and Ford's to-be-infamous Pinto are little match for the AMC twins, which in addition to excellent engineering are better-built than their Detroit rivals and are genuine competitors to the imports. The costs of all of the advancements, however, stretch the company, and while the excellent Hornet and Gremlin, the very good Packards, the fast-selling Javelin and AMX help matters, AMC finds itself having to chase markets for the Ambassador, Rebel and Matador, and the more expensive to produce cars don't help matters, though by the mid-1970s its clear that AMC's customer retention is as good as it gets, they face Ford's small car Hail Mary play in the Mark II Escort and Fiesta, and GM by this point was well known to be spending billions on a car meant to bust AMC in the mouth.
I'm seeing GM & Ford being smarter with the *Vega/*Pinto TTL, because they have to be, faced with better & more Nashes, besides the VW Typ 1. That being true, I wonder if the OTL Mustang II isn't badged something else (while the *'stang continues as the *Jav-fighter), & on a better platform. (Also, no Pintobombings.:eek::cool:)


BTW, if there's a hot compact that looks as good as the OTL 'stang II but runs more like a Porsche, could it end up driven by Charlie's Angels?:cool: Could Rockford end up driving a *Jav?:cool:


That said, can I ask for a few things? A FWD transverse I4 or I6 *Gremlin (on the *American chassis? Or maybe even the *Metropolitan?), a *Gremlin "Camino" (prototyped OTL, but never built),:cool::cool: a 4wd *Gremlin Camino,:cool: & a 4wd Packard "T-bird".:cool: (Driven by Banacek?:cool: Or somebody...)
TheMann said:
Renault's relationship with American Motors had been ongoing since the early 1960s, and by the early 1970s the two companies were partners in several developing markets, and by 1974 Renault was selling AMC products in Europe, namely the Rebel and Javelin, and they had a strong interest in the I-4 series of engines. When AMC began looking at the successor to the Hornet and Gremlin in 1975, Renault immediately jumped in, offering a massive cash investment into AMC in return for a sizable share of the company, co-development on platforms and use of its dealer network. AMC accepted the offer, and Renault took a 30% share in AMC in June 1977 despite howls over the cost from French unions. They would soon like the result, though - the Renault 9 and 11 twins became the Renault Alliance in North America for 1979, and the I-4E engine, now equipped with Renix fuel injection, electronic ignition and with a turbocharged and intercooled version available from mid-1979, proved to be more than worthy successors to the Gremlin and Hornet, while the AMC Spirit, which was similar in size class, moved to just a sporty fastback option, and in 1980 the Spirit SX/4 appeared on the scene, equipped with selectable four-wheel-drive and differentials that shifted power to the wheels with the best traction.
I'm seeing a pretty nice *Gremlin, with better styling.:cool: A pretty hot compeitor for the K-car *Shelby Daytona Turbo, too (presuming it still happens).
TheMann said:
The results were immediate - AMC and Renault didn't quite beat the Ford Sierra to the market, but they did beat the rival GM J-bodies, Ford Escort and Chrysler K-cars.
The changes suggest the 60deg V6 X-body doesn't happen.:(:( (I liked the 2.8/3.1 & 3.4L DOHC.) Tho maybe the *Cavalier gets a turbo I4? And maybe the *Fiero a 4.5-5L V8?:cool::cool:
TheMann said:
By 1986, the AMC-Renault deal had become a very different one than it had been ten years before, as AMC's already-excellent engineering had allowed Renault to make better large cars than before, while Renault was scoring in the small car market
I'm wondering if the impact is even wider. Does this mean *AMC engines are shared with Renault partners, or dealt out by Renault? I'm picturing something like the Bertone-bodied Volvo 780 with about a 3L EFI V12, badged as a Packard.:cool::cool::cool: And maybe Volvos with *AMC V8s.:cool:

Also, I'm wondering what happens when Renault decides to get into F1. Does this mean turbo V12s by Packard, instead of OTL's Renault V6s?:cool: Hopefully, the combination of Renault $, AMC engineeering, & Packard quality control, they'd be more reliable than the OTL "teakettles"...


Which also makes me think: does this impact Japan's ability to penetrate the U.S. market? Not only a surviving "major", but one with money & quality on par with Japan's. (Maybe not...)
TheMann said:
The AMC Spirit had been one of the pioneers of four-wheel-drive as a tool for additional traction in a rally car, and it and the Audi Quattro destroyed their competition on rally stages in the early 1980s
:cool: Except for the timing: why can't this be in the '70s? Too hard to get AWD sorted? Or too heavy for too little benefit?
TheMann said:
while the Jeep Comanche pickup began sales in Europe in 1986
Given the *Gremlin Camino, what are the chances for an *AMC *Dakota half-ton? Or for *Gremlin Camino sales in Europe? (For something like the Sera? {Which, IIRC, was a Toy quarter-ton pickup proposal around 1985. It was seriously cool, but never got built.:(})
TheMann said:
The alliance between AMC, Nissan and Renault allowed AMC to retire the descendants of the I-4, I-6 and VI-8 engines in favor of Nissan units for the V6s and joint-venture units for the inline-four and V8 engines. The acquisition also allowed Nissan's struggling pickup truck division to be sold off to AMC while the SUVs remained as Nissans, and Nissan's Infiniti luxury-car division became a much more overtly sporty one after the alliance so as to not run into trouble with Packard's lineup. (Nissan and Packard teamed up for a new big sedan, called the Nissan President in Japan and some parts of Asia and the Packard Executive just about everywhere else, using Nissan V8s or Packard V12s depending on the market.
:cool: I like the idea of a Packard/Infinti cross-pollenation.:cool:

Can you get a "captive import" sooner? I'd love to see something like the Chevy LUV with 4.5L V6 or turbo V6 & AWD.:cool: And something like a 4dr S10.:cool:




With all this said, TheMann, would you object to this being reposted in the Save Packard thread?
 

Driftless

Donor
Given a partnership with Jeep early enough, I can't help wonder why AMC didn't (wouldn't) go with a more car-like AWD vehicle: less Jeepster, more Quattro. (Or Ferguson AWD Jensen?)

I also wonder about an AMC/Jeep equivalent to the Ranchero/Camino. Or is that what the Jeepster was meant to be?

The AMC Spirit had been one of the pioneers of four-wheel-drive as a tool for additional traction in a rally car, and it and the Audi Quattro destroyed their competition on rally stages in the early 1980s

Except for the timing: why can't this be in the '70s? Too hard to get AWD sorted? Or too heavy for too little benefit?

Subaru figured the lightweight AWD way back. They should have been able to go beefier with the horsepower too. Throw in an AMC analog to the first series Subaru Brat for your El Camino/Ranchero comparison.

Or, speaking as a one-time AMC Pacer owner; how about an unholy mating of a Pacer wagon body with a real engine and AWD or 4WD running gear underneath. That would have been a Bronco competitor. My Pacer got mocked a lot, but I really liked tha car - but it really needed a more efficient power train.
 
Driftless said:
Subaru figured the lightweight AWD way back. They should have been able to go beefier with the horsepower too. Throw in an AMC analog to the first series Subaru Brat for your El Camino/Ranchero comparison.
:cool: I'd forgotten about the Brat. I could definitely see *AMC's *Camino in that class. Except I'm seeing it a bit bigger; wider, certainly, & not as high. A captive import pickup strikes me as more Brat-like (or mini-Jeepster).

I have real trouble imagining something like the Brat with a V8--but the *Gremlin version could readily have a 401. (Yeah, I can't figure out why anybody but an inveterate hot rodder would want a 401-powered *Gremlin pickoupe...:p) So figure it's standard with a 250 or so V8, with room for a 401/451...
Driftless said:
Or, speaking as a one-time AMC Pacer owner; how about an unholy mating of a Pacer wagon body with a real engine and AWD or 4WD running gear underneath. That would have been a Bronco competitor. My Pacer got mocked a lot, but I really liked tha car - but it really needed a more efficient power train.
I've always had the impression Pacer styling was a bit half-baked. Maybe that's because of inadequate engineering; IIRC, the Pacer was based on another model. TTL, I picture it being a bit smaller & better looking. As a Bronco competitor, IDK; that'd seem to want a Jeep Cherokee or something.

Honestly, IDK what a 4wd *Pacer wagon is: a Volvo Crosstour? Touareg? That'd create an entirely new market niche.:cool:
 

Driftless

Donor
:cool: I'd forgotten about the Brat. I could definitely see *AMC's *Camino in that class. Except I'm seeing it a bit bigger; wider, certainly, & not as high. A captive import pickup strikes me as more Brat-like (or mini-Jeepster).

I have real trouble imagining something like the Brat with a V8--but the *Gremlin version could readily have a 401. (Yeah, I can't figure out why anybody but an inveterate hot rodder would want a 401-powered *Gremlin pickoupe...:p) So figure it's standard with a 250 or so V8, with room for a 401/451...

I was thinking of the original Brat just as an example of how lightweight you could go with an AWD config. They had surprisingly good off-road/bad-road performance; provided the depth of snow/slush/mud wasn't too deep - not a lot of ground clearance. Still the originals were pretty tiny - just over a ton in weight and 174"/442 cm in overall length, I beleive. As you note, not enough room for a V-8, or even a V-6
 

Driftless

Donor
I've always had the impression Pacer styling was a bit half-baked. Maybe that's because of inadequate engineering; IIRC, the Pacer was based on another model. TTL, I picture it being a bit smaller & better looking. As a Bronco competitor, IDK; that'd seem to want a Jeep Cherokee or something.

Honestly, IDK what a 4wd *Pacer wagon is: a Volvo Crosstour? Touareg? That'd create an entirely new market niche.:cool:

Go wash that terrible thought out of your mind! ;) The Pacer was a "unique and interesting" icon of style for it's era. This is somebodies homebuilt version of a4x4 Pacer wagon
 
Driftless said:
I was thinking of the original Brat just as an example of how lightweight you could go with an AWD config. They had surprisingly good off-road/bad-road performance; provided the depth of snow/slush/mud wasn't too deep - not a lot of ground clearance. Still the originals were pretty tiny - just over a ton in weight and 174"/442 cm in overall length, I beleive. As you note, not enough room for a V-8, or even a V-6
I recalled the Brat sitting a bit taller. And no, I never imagined the Brat with a V8; the *Gremlin version would.
Driftless said:
Go wash that terrible thought out of your mind! ;)
No.:p
Driftless said:
The Pacer was a "unique and interesting" icon of style for it's era. This is somebodies homebuilt version of a4x4 Pacer wagon
That wagon body isn't hideous. The round headlights in square buckets is odd.:confused: The grille needs a bit of work, too.
 
I'd want Stude on board before the trouble starts, or it risks sinking *AMC...:eek:

I was thinking that the 1958 steel shortages and the incoming introduction of the small cars from everyone would be what forces Studebaker to realize the obvious, that their eventual decline is all but inevitable and that their best way of saving as many of their jobs and positions as possible is to join American Motors, namely with the pony car design they were working on, which would become TTL's Javelin.

I like this a lot.:cool:

I'm genuinely surprised drum brakes lasted as long as they did on cars - discs are far simpler, easier to maintain and work better, both in terms of single-stop ability and resistance to brake fade.

I'm wondering it this helps make NASCAR safer. Does it mean the *Super Bird/*Torino Cobra aero packages don't get banned? Does something like it also get used in Can Am? On the street?:cool:

I doubt it makes too much of a difference, unless the tiremakers in question choose to enter into racing. Michelin in North American racing in the 1960s is an interesting idea, namely because the tall tires of the time in Indycar racing might be changed by the lower profile tires. If they do jump in, I guarantee that Goodyear, Firestone, Federal and the other makers involved at the time would switch to steel-belted radials very quickly.

As far as making things safer, I doubt it. Tires didn't really cause too many issues until years later, and NASCAR has traditionally been slow as molasses to adopt change, and I doubt that changes here.

I'd hope the *Jav/*AMX use the *American chassis, rather than bigger *Ambassador (unlike OTL). I'd also hope there's a *Rebel, a bottom-market Road Runner-like sleeper.:cool:

What I had figured for this is that the Javelin chassis would be the one used on the Rebel (which is introduced about 18 months after the Javelin), and yes the Rebel does get the Rebel Machine treatment, using pretty similar to Javelin SST running gear inside a Rebel body.

As said above, I'd see big impact on NASCAR. (Similar to the '85 T-bird?) I also see impact on Le Mans/GT & CanAm. If the aero gets continued, it could have serious knock-ons for fuel mileage.

NASCAR does see AMC show up with the aluminum-block engines starting in 1965, the first aluminum-block AMC being a 294 cubic inch unit (3.75" bore, 3.33" stroke), but they would eventually be punched out to 4.25" bore and 4.125" stroke, which gives 468 cubic inches. AMC's overhead cam engines proved a big advantage in 1966 and 1967 until NASCAR slapped them with RPM limits to slow down their horsepower advantage. (The most common NASCAR motor from AMC was the AMC 428, which is a Gen-2 aluminum block with a 4.125" bore and 4.0" stroke.)

Outside of NASCAR, the biggest place this motor makes waves is in Can-Am, with the Eagle Can Am cars using a big-inch version of this motor in 1966 and 1967, but in 1968 starting with a 335 ci twin-turbocharged version of this engine (which rapidly grew to a torquier 364 ci unit), which in 1969 claimed the Can Am title with Dan Gurney's All American Racers, and the turbocharged AMC-powered cars proved good competitors to the mighty McLaren M8, Chaparral 2G and Porsche 917 competitors of the time.

The Javelin was also a formidable competitor right from the start in Trans Am, first claiming the Trans Am title with Peter Revson and the AAR Javelin in 1968, winning again with Steve McQueen in another AAR Javelin in 1971.

Does the aluminum FI V8 get applied to the 401 (or 451, which I think the 401 block is capable of being punched out to)? This could really, really heat up the horsepower wars; by 1970, EFI could be standard, without fuel economy being insanely bad.:cool:

The Gen-2 AMC V8 engine in this world has variants of 294, 310, 320, 335, 364, 377, 401 and 428 cubic inch variants. Fuel injection is an expensive option on most of the cars, though a fair number of Packards and higher-end AMC models (Javelins, Ambassadors and AMXs) use fuel injection. All use aluminum engine blocks and the best heads available from Detroit at the time. These units, however, don't last long - they are retired by the VI-8 and its many derivatives by 1976, most of the remaining applications of these engines being shut down by the 1974 energy crisis.

The Javelin here gets a rep for being more of a corner carver than a dragster - think less Chevelle SS454, more Camaro Z/28 - and the AMX takes that a step further thanks to a shorter wheelbase, fiberglass bodywork and other weight reduction measures as well as a stiffer chassis. (The Javelin SST and AMX join the Corvette as being the first cars to come with anti-lock brakes in 1968, and all three cars come with it as standard.) That being said, an AMX with a supercharged version of those motors could smoke just about anything, and most of the American Motors-running Woodward Avenue street racers quickly pushed their motors all the way out to as much as 468ci, and superchargers were common occurences.

Does this get used in the *Ambassador? I'm thinking it, or the *American, would make good police cruisers or detectives' cars. (I picture one as the unit in "Adam 12". Maybe also in an alt-"CHiPs".)

Oh yes. :D AMC is plenty happy to offer Ambassador cop cars, and cop-package Ambassadors by 1968 use the 428ci motor, as well as mega duty brakes (with ABS, and water cooling as an option), double shocks and heavy-duty springs, reinforced chassis, four-speed automatic transmissions, locker differentials and faster steering boxes. (Ambassadors built after 1969 use rack-and-pinion steering, making things better still. AMC also offered police-package Rebels and Javelins, and many of these became truly awesome highway patrol and chase cars.

I'm seeing GM & Ford being smarter with the *Vega/*Pinto TTL, because they have to be, faced with better & more Nashes, besides the VW Typ 1. That being true, I wonder if the OTL Mustang II isn't badged something else (while the *'stang continues as the *Jav-fighter), & on a better platform. (Also, no Pintobombings.:eek::cool:)

I'm not, both because its a convenient excuse to introduce the Gremlin and Hornet as ways to bust the Big Three in the mouth :)D) and also because the presence of all of the smaller cars, as well as the Volkswagen Type 1 and Karmann Ghia, Datsun 510, Toyota Corolla, BMW 2002, Honda Civic and lots of other imported small cars didn't make Detroit look ahead. The Vega was designed as an import fighter and had the potential to do a good job of it, but it had a number of design flaws (some of them truly idiotic, like not using galvanized steel in the wheel wells or plastic liners in the gap between the fenders and cowl and carburetor machining changes right before production which caused over-fuelling incidents) which ultimately ruined the car's reputation, and the Pinto was designed from the start to be dirt cheap and as such corners were cut in the design - Ford knew right from the start that the fuel tank placement on the Pinto was a design flaw but felt it better to pay off the victims of the Pinto's design flaws. Here, that flaw when compared to the Vega and Gremlin in particular kicked them in the nuts hard, and after several rounds of damning lawsuits, Ford realized that the Pinto was beyond saving and brought the British Mark II Escort to North America for 1975, followed by the then-new Fiesta in 1977. The Fiesta sold fairly well, but the escort, thanks to excellent design and being hilariously-fun to drive, scored massively, convincing Ford of the intelligence of 'World Cars', resulting in the second-gen Fiesta and third-gen Escort as well as the Sierra all being sold in North America, and resulting in a rather different Taurus when it was introduced in 1985.

BTW, if there's a hot compact that looks as good as the OTL 'stang II but runs more like a Porsche, could it end up driven by Charlie's Angels?:cool: Could Rockford end up driving a *Jav?:cool:

I can imagine Rockford with a Javelin. Like the Camaro and Mustang, here it never goes out of production. :cool:

As far as Charlie's Angels, what I was thinking for them a Mustang II early on, but I did have the idea of the three of them each having their own fun car - one with a Cosworth Vega, another with an Escort RS1800, a third with a Gremlin X and a fourth an imported sports car of some sort. (Triumph TR8, maybe?)

That said, can I ask for a few things? A FWD transverse I4 or I6 *Gremlin (on the *American chassis? Or maybe even the *Metropolitan?), a *Gremlin "Camino" (prototyped OTL, but never built),:cool::cool: a 4wd *Gremlin Camino,:cool: & a 4wd Packard "T-bird".:cool: (Driven by Banacek?:cool: Or somebody...)

All Gremlins were RWD from 1970 until their end in 1978, and retrofitting FWD and a transverse engine involves redoing the entire chassis, so I don't think that goes. What I had in mind there was that the chassis being worked on for the second-gen Gremlin becomes the AMC Spirit when Renault comes. I did also have the idea of a Metropolitan small sports car, but I'm not sure how well that would sell, particularly with the Spirit and the Renault Fuego around. (And maybe the Matra Murena, too.)

The Gremlin Camino, though, must happen. That idea makes way too much sense in the 1970s to not do, considering the state of fun cars in America at the time, the love of trucks and vans and the popularity of the Subaru BRAT. (Look up the Pinto Cruising Wagon to see what I mean by how sad that era really was.) I'm gonna have to think about what to name that....

I'm seeing a pretty nice *Gremlin, with better styling.:cool: A pretty hot compeitor for the K-car *Shelby Daytona Turbo, too (presuming it still happens).

I had the AMC Spirit be a smaller rear-drive sporty coupe, but when the SX/4 comes into being in 1980 and the Renault Fuego comes stateside, I'm thinking that all Spirits get the four-wheel-drive system and turbocharged PRV V6 engines, becoming a smaller and somewhat-cheaper Audi Quattro, in order to clear the way for the Fuego, which stateside uses Renix-injected AMC engines, with the Fuego Turbo being a Renault turbo system and Renix fuel injection on an AMC I-4 engine. The Spirit becomes the AMC SX/4 in 1986 and lasts until 1993, and its popularity allowing AMC to equip lots of other cars in its lineup with all wheel drive.

And yes, the Shelby Daytona does still happen, and Chrysler doesn't use that awful Mitsubishi V6 in this world either.

The changes suggest the 60deg V6 X-body doesn't happen.:(:( (I liked the 2.8/3.1 & 3.4L DOHC.) Tho maybe the *Cavalier gets a turbo I4? And maybe the *Fiero a 4.5-5L V8?:cool::cool:

The X-bodies were such a piece of crap that I'd just as well leave them alone, though we can still make the engines come to pass.

As far as the Cavalier goes, there isn't a turbocharged version, but not a lot of people cared - in this world the 1979-1983 period saw the Japanese import makers end up a little rattled when they see what turns up out of America (and the French partners American Motors and Chrysler have). The Renault Alliance, AMC Spirit and Rebel, Ford Escort MkIII, Fiesta MkII and Sierra, the Chrysler K-cars and the General Motors J-cars are here all incredible pieces. The Sierra and Spirit are rear-driven while the others are all front-driven. General Motors here learned their lessons from the Corvair and Vega (which is why the X-bodies never exist here) and when the J-cars hit the road in summer 1981, they come after six years of development - and they come with MacPherson strut front suspension and multilink rear suspensions, four-wheel disc brakes with ABS, powerful fuel-injected Quad-Four engines of 142 to 185 horsepower, five-speed manual and four-speed automatic gearboxes, galvanized-steel chassis construction and much better body fabrication. They proved to be pretty good on fuel efficiency, beautifully assembled (GM's production of them in the first year was slow because of their demand for better assembly quality), very well equipped and an absolute hoot to drive (particularly the Cavalier Z/24, which added faster steering, tougher brakes, a limited-slip differential and remote-reservoir shocks to an already good platform), and the Cadillac Cimarron version proved to be a hard sell at first but came to be well liked as more people realized just how good it was.

One of the results of this world is that the fun small cars that grew in Europe in the 1980s came here, too. The Renault Fuego, AMC Spirit, Chevrolet Cavalier Z/24, Ford Escort XR3i and Sierra 500 and Dodge Daytona quickly made sure people didn't have to be rich to have a fun car. The later Ford Fiesta XR2 and Dodge Colt Daytona (a license-built Peugeot 205 GTi) just added to the fun.

As for the Pontiac Fiero, it hits in the same week as the Toyota MR2 in 1984 - and the two are instant rivals, the MR2 the smaller, more maneuverable and more frugal of the two, with the Fiero being the faster and grippier of the two. The two remain rivals through two generations, but both become a lot bigger, fatter and more expensive, before they both get culled in the mid-90s, only to come back as more back-to-basics lightweight sports cars in the early 2000s.

I'm wondering if the impact is even wider. Does this mean *AMC engines are shared with Renault partners, or dealt out by Renault? I'm picturing something like the Bertone-bodied Volvo 780 with about a 3L EFI V12, badged as a Packard.:cool::cool::cool: And maybe Volvos with *AMC V8s.:cool:

A short-stroke AMC VI-8 engine makes its first appearance in European cars with the Renault 25 in 1983, and yes it does appear in Volvos, firstly in Canadian-assembled 760s starting in April 1984, and then in the European-market 780 Bertone coupe and many 760s starting in early 1986.

Packard largely runs as its own brand, easily racing through the 1980s both by expanding its global presence (Thank You Renault :)) and by living with the decadent 1980s in America. The introduction of the new Packard lineup in the 1980s - the V8-powered Packard Constellation (a Seville/Continental/5-Series/300E sized upper-mid-level luxury sedan) and the V12-powered Packard Twelve (a large DeVille/Town Car/S-Class/7-Series/XJ12 competitor sedan), along with huge Packard Pacifica large luxury coupe and the Packard Evolution folding-hardtop convertible. The company eventually builds a smaller Packard (the Packard Sabre, which is built on the same chassis as the Renault Safrane, though this uses AMC's newest 3.5-liter 24-valve V6, introduced in 1991) and the company establishes a strong presence in Europe as well as being the second-largest of America's luxury brands. The company also builds the king-of-the-mountain Packard Executive in 2001, designed and built to be a rival to the awesome Cadillac Sixteen and Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Also, I'm wondering what happens when Renault decides to get into F1. Does this mean turbo V12s by Packard, instead of OTL's Renault V6s?:cool: Hopefully, the combination of Renault $, AMC engineeering, & Packard quality control, they'd be more reliable than the OTL "teakettles"...

Formula One's engine rules from 1966 until 1987 limited naturally-aspirated engines to 3.0 liters and forced-induction ones to 1.5-liters. Renault's turbocharged V6 was sized the way it was to allow a 1.5-liter variant to be used in Formula One, a 2.2-liter version to be used in the Renault-Alpine A442 Le Mans racer and a naturally-aspirated 2.0-liter engine to be used in Formula Two racing. Packard doesn't have a major racing presence, but AMC by 1980 was focusing its efforts on Indycars (they began to race at Indy in the late 1960s, and the VI-8 engine is used in turbocharged as an Indycar racer at various times from until 1971 until 1984), rallying (The Spirit SX/4 wins the World Rally Championship in 1982 and 1983, in both cases narrowly beating out arch-rival Audi) and IMSA Sports Car Racing, in the last case with the VI-8 engine originally being used until the company begins using a 4.4-liter turbocharged V12 starting in 1984 in the back of a Lotus 96SC, used famously in IMSA by Team Lotus North America and by Bruce Leven's Bayside Disposal Racing.

In this world, Formula One has a rather different history - American involvement drops some after Gurney's 1967 title, but from 1976 until 1981 Colin Chapman changes that by making Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt teammates at Team Lotus, with Foyt winning the World Title in 1977 and Andretti winning the title in 1978. Lella Lombardi and the Zakspeed use a very good chassis and awesome turbocharged Mercedes engines to win the title in 1979, and for the 1980, 1981 and 1982 seasons Formula One's divisions cause the series to be split into the two series, and one result of that is that both competing sides make a massive push to have American fans on their side, resulting in lots of American racers - Rick Mears, Mark Donohue, Elliott Forbes-Robinson, Hurley Haywood, Eddie Cheever (who found himself with a factory Renault ride), Tim Richmond and Johnny Rutherford, among others - driving in Formula One, and with the deal that ended the Formula One split (negotiated out by Jim Clark and Dan Gurney), America was in the middle of the Formula One world. Renault quite liked this - they could use their Formula One success to advertise the success of their turbocharged cars, and in the FISA Formula One season of 1982 Francois Cevert, Eddie Cheever and Alain Prost finished first, second and fourth in the championship for the factory Renault team.

Which also makes me think: does this impact Japan's ability to penetrate the U.S. market? Not only a surviving "major", but one with money & quality on par with Japan's. (Maybe not...)

Japan got its foothold in the late 1960s and into the 1970s as Detroit messed up a lot of things. Their share of the American auto market is rather smaller in this world (here, GM, Ford, Chrysler-Peugeot/Citroen and AMC-Renault-Nissan) between them hold about 75% of the American automobile market. Japan doesn't have the position they have IOTL, but none of them have gone away (though Chrysler owns a controlling interest in Subaru, GM in Isuzu and Ford with a large stake in Mazda) and indeed there are more players here thanks to the presence of Renault and Peugeot/Citroen through their partners and Fiat, which here is still owned by the Italian government, though after a massive series of lawsuits and legal issues in the late 1990s has given up Alfa Romeo and Maserati to General Motors.

:cool: Except for the timing: why can't this be in the '70s? Too hard to get AWD sorted? Or too heavy for too little benefit?

More of the latter than anything else. 4WD systems are heavy, and on cars with body-on-frame construction weight is already a problem.

Given the *Gremlin Camino, what are the chances for an *AMC *Dakota half-ton? Or for *Gremlin Camino sales in Europe? (For something like the Sera? {Which, IIRC, was a Toy quarter-ton pickup proposal around 1985. It was seriously cool, but never got built.:(})

The half-ton truck here is the Jeep Gladiator, while the Jeep Comanche is the smaller pickup truck, a rival to the Dodge Dakota, Chevrolet S-10 and Ford Ranger. That being built is a given considering the size of the pickup truck market in North America.

As far as the Gremlin Camino being sold in Europe, that I doubt - Subaru never sold the Brat there, and I cannot see there being much of a market for it, as well as the problem of AMC not having much of a market there before the Renault tie-in.

With all this said, TheMann, would you object to this being reposted in the Save Packard thread?

Go ahead. :)
 
That wagon body isn't hideous. The round headlights in square buckets is odd.:confused: The grille needs a bit of work, too.

More than the Pacer needed help in that department
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marathag said:
More than the Pacer needed help in that department
amc-matador-07.jpg


orth-2-t.jpg
eisen-79-1-t.jpg
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Most of those lights aren't terrible... The "back-raked" window is a bad idea, too, no argument.
TheMann said:
I was thinking that the 1958 steel shortages and the incoming introduction of the small cars from everyone would be what forces Studebaker to realize the obvious, that their eventual decline is all but inevitable and that their best way of saving as many of their jobs and positions as possible is to join American Motors, namely with the pony car design they were working on, which would become TTL's Javelin.
Sensible. Stude'd need to rationalize some, but that's easy enough under "new" management.
TheMann said:
I'm genuinely surprised drum brakes lasted as long as they did on cars - discs are far simpler, easier to maintain and work better, both in terms of single-stop ability and resistance to brake fade.
Ditto.
TheMann said:
I doubt it makes too much of a difference, unless the tiremakers in question choose to enter into racing. Michelin in North American racing in the 1960s is an interesting idea, namely because the tall tires of the time in Indycar racing might be changed by the lower profile tires. If they do jump in, I guarantee that Goodyear, Firestone, Federal and the other makers involved at the time would switch to steel-belted radials very quickly.

As far as making things safer, I doubt it. Tires didn't really cause too many issues until years later, and NASCAR has traditionally been slow as molasses to adopt change, and I doubt that changes here.
Maybe not. I ask based on the OTL blowout issues around 1969 (IIRC), which AIUI connected to the high speeds of the Super Bird.

You may be right about it not mattering...
TheMann said:
What I had figured for this is that the Javelin chassis would be the one used on the Rebel (which is introduced about 18 months after the Javelin), and yes the Rebel does get the Rebel Machine treatment, using pretty similar to Javelin SST running gear inside a Rebel body.
I should be clear, here: I meant both on the OTL American chassis; OTL, the Rebel was on the longer Ambassador WB, which IMO was a mistake. If they're both a bit smaller, they'd make better rods. (Ditto the ex-PD cars... Maybe the *Ambassador parts will swap across, tho...:p
TheMann said:
NASCAR does see AMC show up with the aluminum-block engines starting in 1965, the first aluminum-block AMC being a 294 cubic inch unit (3.75" bore, 3.33" stroke), but they would eventually be punched out to 4.25" bore and 4.125" stroke, which gives 468 cubic inches. AMC's overhead cam engines proved a big advantage in 1966 and 1967 until NASCAR slapped them with RPM limits to slow down their horsepower advantage. (The most common NASCAR motor from AMC was the AMC 428, which is a Gen-2 aluminum block with a 4.125" bore and 4.0" stroke.)

Outside of NASCAR, the biggest place this motor makes waves is in Can-Am, with the Eagle Can Am cars using a big-inch version of this motor in 1966 and 1967, but in 1968 starting with a 335 ci twin-turbocharged version of this engine (which rapidly grew to a torquier 364 ci unit), which in 1969 claimed the Can Am title with Dan Gurney's All American Racers, and the turbocharged AMC-powered cars proved good competitors to the mighty McLaren M8, Chaparral 2G and Porsche 917 competitors of the time.
:cool::cool: While I'm not a particular fan of CanAm, anything keeping it from being "The McLaren Show" gets my vote.;)

My only beef is the 428. I'd far rather it be an "odd" displacement, like the 401 or something, just because of the Ford 428. That said, it's not a deal-breaker.
TheMann said:
The Javelin was also a formidable competitor right from the start in Trans Am, first claiming the Trans Am title with Peter Revson and the AAR Javelin in 1968, winning again with Steve McQueen in another AAR Javelin in 1971.
:cool:
TheMann said:
The Gen-2 AMC V8 engine in this world has variants of 294, 310, 320, 335, 364, 377, 401 and 428 cubic inch variants. Fuel injection is an expensive option on most of the cars, though a fair number of Packards and higher-end AMC models (Javelins, Ambassadors and AMXs) use fuel injection. All use aluminum engine blocks and the best heads available from Detroit at the time. These units, however, don't last long - they are retired by the VI-8 and its many derivatives by 1976, most of the remaining applications of these engines being shut down by the 1974 energy crisis.

The Javelin here gets a rep for being more of a corner carver than a dragster - think less Chevelle SS454, more Camaro Z/28 - and the AMX takes that a step further thanks to a shorter wheelbase, fiberglass bodywork and other weight reduction measures as well as a stiffer chassis. (The Javelin SST and AMX join the Corvette as being the first cars to come with anti-lock brakes in 1968, and all three cars come with it as standard.) That being said, an AMX with a supercharged version of those motors could smoke just about anything, and most of the American Motors-running Woodward Avenue street racers quickly pushed their motors all the way out to as much as 468ci, and superchargers were common occurences.
:cool::cool: Don't forget, tho, the shorter WB means better weight transfer, so a Rebel on the OTL American platform would be better all-around. Jav, too. Probably a few pounds lighter, to boot.
TheMann said:
Oh yes. :D AMC is plenty happy to offer Ambassador cop cars, and cop-package Ambassadors by 1968 use the 428ci motor, as well as mega duty brakes (with ABS, and water cooling as an option), double shocks and heavy-duty springs, reinforced chassis, four-speed automatic transmissions, locker differentials and faster steering boxes. (Ambassadors built after 1969 use rack-and-pinion steering, making things better still. AMC also offered police-package Rebels and Javelins, and many of these became truly awesome highway patrol and chase cars.
I'm loving this.:cool::cool::cool: I can just picture pirating the HD goodies from a surplus detective's car onto a wrecking yard *American & stuffing in a 468 with Hookers & a Holley aftermarket EFI.:cool::D
TheMann said:
its a convenient excuse to introduce the Gremlin and Hornet as ways to bust the Big Three in the mouth :)D)
I'm not opposed to that.:p I don't see GM or Ford TTL just taking it & doing nothing.
TheMann said:
because the presence of all of the smaller cars, as well as the Volkswagen Type 1 and Karmann Ghia, Datsun 510, Toyota Corolla, BMW 2002, Honda Civic and lots of other imported small cars didn't make Detroit look ahead. The Vega was designed as an import fighter and had the potential to do a good job of it, but it had a number of design flaws (some of them truly idiotic, like not using galvanized steel in the wheel wells or plastic liners in the gap between the fenders and cowl and carburetor machining changes right before production which caused over-fuelling incidents) which ultimately ruined the car's reputation, and the Pinto was designed from the start to be dirt cheap and as such corners were cut in the design - Ford knew right from the start that the fuel tank placement on the Pinto was a design flaw but felt it better to pay off the victims of the Pinto's design flaws. Here, that flaw when compared to the Vega and Gremlin in particular kicked them in the nuts hard, and after several rounds of damning lawsuits, Ford realized that the Pinto was beyond saving and brought the British Mark II Escort to North America for 1975, followed by the then-new Fiesta in 1977. The Fiesta sold fairly well, but the escort, thanks to excellent design and being hilariously-fun to drive, scored massively, convincing Ford of the intelligence of 'World Cars', resulting in the second-gen Fiesta and third-gen Escort as well as the Sierra all being sold in North America, and resulting in a rather different Taurus when it was introduced in 1985.
Fair points, & I don't think you're wrong, exactly. I'd expect tougher competition would force changes, unless senior management is a lot stupider than I think--& judging by the OTL Pinto, they might be.:rolleyes:
TheMann said:
I can imagine Rockford with a Javelin. Like the Camaro and Mustang, here it never goes out of production. :cool:
I like it. I also presumed it'd survive, which is also good. Which leaves me thinking we'd see Danny Williams complaining about McGarrett driving his in the "5-0" reboot.:p
TheMann said:
As far as Charlie's Angels, what I was thinking for them a Mustang II early on, but I did have the idea of the three of them each having their own fun car - one with a Cosworth Vega, another with an Escort RS1800, a third with a Gremlin X and a fourth an imported sports car of some sort. (Triumph TR8, maybe?)
IRL, that makes sense, but from a TV production standpoint, no. You'd get all one company: 'stang IIs, or Jav & Gremlin, or Vega, or (IDK) 'cuda. Which automaker wants the PR most? And is the deal with the show's producer, or the network? IDK; since both "5-O" & "CA" used Fords OTL, & both were on CBS...
TheMann said:
All Gremlins were RWD from 1970 until their end in 1978, and retrofitting FWD and a transverse engine involves redoing the entire chassis, so I don't think that goes.
My thought is, TTL's *Gremlin is a clean sheet, so it could be FWD from the get-go. Unless you mean the FWD isn't available soon enough.
TheMann said:
What I had in mind there was that the chassis being worked on for the second-gen Gremlin becomes the AMC Spirit when Renault comes. I did also have the idea of a Metropolitan small sports car, but I'm not sure how well that would sell, particularly with the Spirit and the Renault Fuego around. (And maybe the Matra Murena, too.)
I'm not sure something so small would do well in the U.S., but it might in Europe, with better styling. As said, I'd love it as an option for '60s gassers, too, but...how common would it be? And how much a headache would it be to stuff in a 392 or 426, or a 428 cammer, compared to the Anglia? IDK.
TheMann said:
The Gremlin Camino, though, must happen. That idea makes way too much sense in the 1970s to not do, considering the state of fun cars in America at the time, the love of trucks and vans and the popularity of the Subaru BRAT. (Look up the Pinto Cruising Wagon to see what I mean by how sad that era really was.) I'm gonna have to think about what to name that....
:cool::cool::cool: This just keeps getting better.:cool:
TheMann said:
I had the AMC Spirit be a smaller rear-drive sporty coupe, but when the SX/4 comes into being in 1980 and the Renault Fuego comes stateside, I'm thinking that all Spirits get the four-wheel-drive system and turbocharged PRV V6 engines, becoming a smaller and somewhat-cheaper Audi Quattro, in order to clear the way for the Fuego, which stateside uses Renix-injected AMC engines, with the Fuego Turbo being a Renault turbo system and Renix fuel injection on an AMC I-4 engine. The Spirit becomes the AMC SX/4 in 1986 and lasts until 1993, and its popularity allowing AMC to equip lots of other cars in its lineup with all wheel drive.

And yes, the Shelby Daytona does still happen, and Chrysler doesn't use that awful Mitsubishi V6 in this world either.
That looks good, too.
TheMann said:
The X-bodies were such a piece of crap that I'd just as well leave them alone, though we can still make the engines come to pass.
I do think they were pretty boring, but I recall when they came out, & I was a fan. (Maybe it was the oddness: they didn't have the same 350/TH350 of every damn hot rod in every damn magazine. :rolleyes:) I never owned one, so I have to confess ignorance of any quality issues.
TheMann said:
As far as the Cavalier goes, there isn't a turbocharged version, but not a lot of people cared - in this world the 1979-1983 period saw the Japanese import makers end up a little rattled when they see what turns up out of America (and the French partners American Motors and Chrysler have). The Renault Alliance, AMC Spirit and Rebel, Ford Escort MkIII, Fiesta MkII and Sierra, the Chrysler K-cars and the General Motors J-cars are here all incredible pieces. The Sierra and Spirit are rear-driven while the others are all front-driven. General Motors here learned their lessons from the Corvair and Vega (which is why the X-bodies never exist here) and when the J-cars hit the road in summer 1981, they come after six years of development - and they come with MacPherson strut front suspension and multilink rear suspensions, four-wheel disc brakes with ABS, powerful fuel-injected Quad-Four engines of 142 to 185 horsepower, five-speed manual and four-speed automatic gearboxes, galvanized-steel chassis construction and much better body fabrication.
That's as good as I could ask for, I think.:cool: I suggested the turbo because I don't think the J-body could fit the 3.4 DOHC or 90deg V6, which I'd rather use.
TheMann said:
They proved to be pretty good on fuel efficiency, beautifully assembled (GM's production of them in the first year was slow because of their demand for better assembly quality), very well equipped and an absolute hoot to drive (particularly the Cavalier Z/24, which added faster steering, tougher brakes, a limited-slip differential and remote-reservoir shocks to an already good platform), and the Cadillac Cimarron version proved to be a hard sell at first but came to be well liked as more people realized just how good it was.
A high quality Z/24 that's better built with more zip, stone stock?:cool::cool: I'll take 2.:p (Tell me the 90deg V6 will fit...:p)
TheMann said:
One of the results of this world is that the fun small cars that grew in Europe in the 1980s came here, too. The Renault Fuego, AMC Spirit, Chevrolet Cavalier Z/24, Ford Escort XR3i and Sierra 500 and Dodge Daytona quickly made sure people didn't have to be rich to have a fun car. The later Ford Fiesta XR2 and Dodge Colt Daytona (a license-built Peugeot 205 GTi) just added to the fun.
Also nice. I'm wondering if the OTL Scorpio turbo gets into the 'stang ('stang II?) or Fiesta; I'd love to see it with the Ranger dual plug & intercooling, too.
TheMann said:
As for the Pontiac Fiero, it hits in the same week as the Toyota MR2 in 1984 - and the two are instant rivals, the MR2 the smaller, more maneuverable and more frugal of the two, with the Fiero being the faster and grippier of the two. The two remain rivals through two generations, but both become a lot bigger, fatter and more expensive, before they both get culled in the mid-90s, only to come back as more back-to-basics lightweight sports cars in the early 2000s.
If the Fiero doesn't get turned into a cafe racer with an Iron Duke I4, I'm happy. Happier if there's the V6, & happier still with the V8, but...:p
TheMann said:
A short-stroke AMC VI-8 engine makes its first appearance in European cars with the Renault 25 in 1983, and yes it does appear in Volvos, firstly in Canadian-assembled 760s starting in April 1984, and then in the European-market 780 Bertone coupe and many 760s starting in early 1986.
:cool:
TheMann said:
Packard largely runs as its own brand, easily racing through the 1980s both by expanding its global presence (Thank You Renault :)) and by living with the decadent 1980s in America. The introduction of the new Packard lineup in the 1980s - the V8-powered Packard Constellation (a Seville/Continental/5-Series/300E sized upper-mid-level luxury sedan) and the V12-powered Packard Twelve (a large DeVille/Town Car/S-Class/7-Series/XJ12 competitor sedan), along with huge Packard Pacifica large luxury coupe and the Packard Evolution folding-hardtop convertible. The company eventually builds a smaller Packard (the Packard Sabre, which is built on the same chassis as the Renault Safrane, though this uses AMC's newest 3.5-liter 24-valve V6, introduced in 1991) and the company establishes a strong presence in Europe as well as being the second-largest of America's luxury brands. The company also builds the king-of-the-mountain Packard Executive in 2001, designed and built to be a rival to the awesome Cadillac Sixteen and Rolls-Royce Phantom.
I like these. Maybe it's the hot rodder in me, but I can't resist the idea of a canyon-carver able to dice with the 'vette or Virage. Maybe it's also contrary to Packard's philosphy...:(
TheMann said:
Packard doesn't have a major racing presence, but AMC by 1980 was focusing its efforts on Indycars (they began to race at Indy in the late 1960s, and the VI-8 engine is used in turbocharged as an Indycar racer at various times from until 1971 until 1984), rallying (The Spirit SX/4 wins the World Rally Championship in 1982 and 1983, in both cases narrowly beating out arch-rival Audi) and IMSA Sports Car Racing, in the last case with the VI-8 engine originally being used until the company begins using a 4.4-liter turbocharged V12 starting in 1984 in the back of a Lotus 96SC, used famously in IMSA by Team Lotus North America and by Bruce Leven's Bayside Disposal Racing.
I like it. I was thinking less Packard Racing than Packard-Repco or Packard-Cosworth (so to speak).
TheMann said:
In this world, Formula One has a rather different history - American involvement drops some after Gurney's 1967 title, but from 1976 until 1981 Colin Chapman changes that by making Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt teammates at Team Lotus, with Foyt winning the World Title in 1977 and Andretti winning the title in 1978. Lella Lombardi and the Zakspeed use a very good chassis and awesome turbocharged Mercedes engines to win the title in 1979, and for the 1980, 1981 and 1982 seasons Formula One's divisions cause the series to be split into the two series, and one result of that is that both competing sides make a massive push to have American fans on their side, resulting in lots of American racers - Rick Mears, Mark Donohue, Elliott Forbes-Robinson, Hurley Haywood, Eddie Cheever (who found himself with a factory Renault ride), Tim Richmond and Johnny Rutherford, among others - driving in Formula One, and with the deal that ended the Formula One split (negotiated out by Jim Clark and Dan Gurney), America was in the middle of the Formula One world. Renault quite liked this - they could use their Formula One success to advertise the success of their turbocharged cars, and in the FISA Formula One season of 1982 Francois Cevert, Eddie Cheever and Alain Prost finished first, second and fourth in the championship for the factory Renault team.
I'll say I've never been particular fan of any American driver (Gilles first, then Ayrton, then Lewis), but I like this. If it offers chances for, say, Tracy or Carpentier, even better. If it also means Cevert doesn't get killed, & avoids the Alain-Ayrton feud (but not the dicing), better still.:cool:
TheMann said:
Japan got its foothold in the late 1960s and into the 1970s as Detroit messed up a lot of things. Their share of the American auto market is rather smaller in this world (here, GM, Ford, Chrysler-Peugeot/Citroen and AMC-Renault-Nissan) between them hold about 75% of the American automobile market. Japan doesn't have the position they have IOTL, but none of them have gone away (though Chrysler owns a controlling interest in Subaru, GM in Isuzu and Ford with a large stake in Mazda) and indeed there are more players here thanks to the presence of Renault and Peugeot/Citroen through their partners and Fiat, which here is still owned by the Italian government, though after a massive series of lawsuits and legal issues in the late 1990s has given up Alfa Romeo and Maserati to General Motors.
:cool: (Tho really, Maser at GM?:eek::eek::eek: Not bought by Packard? {Too wankish?:p})
TheMann said:
More of the latter than anything else. 4WD systems are heavy, and on cars with body-on-frame construction weight is already a problem.
And *AMC hasn't switched wholesale to unibody?:confused:
TheMann said:
The half-ton truck here is the Jeep Gladiator, while the Jeep Comanche is the smaller pickup truck, a rival to the Dodge Dakota, Chevrolet S-10 and Ford Ranger. That being built is a given considering the size of the pickup truck market in North America.
I'm fine with that.
TheMann said:
As far as the Gremlin Camino being sold in Europe, that I doubt - Subaru never sold the Brat there, and I cannot see there being much of a market for it, as well as the problem of AMC not having much of a market there before the Renault tie-in.
Fair point. Second (third?) generation, on a Renault platform?
 
Maybe not. I ask based on the OTL blowout issues around 1969 (IIRC), which AIUI connected to the high speeds of the Super Bird.

You may be right about it not mattering...

The question there would be whether the extra unsprung weight of the steel-belted radials is an acceptable tradeoff for greater reliability at speeds. The reason a lot of slicks remained bias-ply tires for so long was that, and it took Michelin until the late 1970s IOTL to make metal-belted radials light enough that they didn't exact an unsprung weight penalty. On a very heavy stock car, the steel-belted radials may well be an advantage, but on the flip side (and knowing the weight reduction measures the cars of the time went to in an attempt to be competitive) you may well trading tire failures for potential suspension damage. Which one works better, I have no idea.

I should be clear, here: I meant both on the OTL American chassis; OTL, the Rebel was on the longer Ambassador WB, which IMO was a mistake. If they're both a bit smaller, they'd make better rods. (Ditto the ex-PD cars... Maybe the *Ambassador parts will swap across, tho...:p

Here, there isn't really a suitable chassis for the car after AMC figures that putting their sporty car on the Rambler chassis would end up compromising the car (probably a correct assumption) and so the Javelin got a completely new chassis to be built on. I figured you were mentioning OTL, but that doesn't happen here - as AMC uses technical advancement to get one up on its big, lumbering Detroit rivals, they decide that the incoming Rebel should use the Javelin chassis as the two are fairly similar overall length. One result of this is that the Rebel is fairly wide for a mid-sized car, but that didn't bother AMC all that much.

:cool::cool: While I'm not a particular fan of CanAm, anything keeping it from being "The McLaren Show" gets my vote.;)

Can-Am here merges with the United States Road Racing Championship in 1964 (IOTL, the USRRC collapsed in 1968), and from 1965 to 1974, where IMSA took over from the SCCA of sanctioning the major sports car series after the energy crisis doomed Can-Am. In that period, though, Can Am cars competed in the world's biggest sports car races (including the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring and Six Hours of the Glen) that were held in North America. McLaren dominated 1966 and 1967, while Chaparral won in 1968, Eagle in 1969, McLaren taking the title back (briefly) in 1970, Eagle again in 1971 (one of the big new additions of the 1971 Can-Am Eagles is a chassis made mostly of titanium and Kevlar bodywork), Porsche in 1972 and 1973 and Shadow in 1974. The series also had lots of other marques and makes competing - privateers not using McLarens often had Marches or Lolas, and Ferrari, Ford, Matra, Lotus and Nissan took cracks at Can-Am as well as the established powers, though of these only Ferrari got anywhere - the Ford factory cars suffered from poor handling and were reliability nightmares and the others usually had great handling but not enough power to truly be competitive.

Can-Am short races were always just them, but the longer events usually had them racing with FIA Group 4, 5 and 6 cars as well as Trans-Am machines and other GT entries - and indeed, Trans-Am Mustangs, Camaros, Javelins and Barracudas were the beasts of the World Sportscar Championship's GT categories, owning them to such a degree that Ferrari developed racing versions of the Ferrari Daytona just to run the Americans off of the podium. (This didn't work all the time, it must be said.) The sport's popularity and the speed differentials involved (particularly poignant after a number of big crashes at several tracks in the mid-60s) resulted in the smaller sports cars leaving the races by 1967 - and one result of this was the first 2.5-liter Porsche 911s to go fast enough to compete in these races. The end of Can Am was the impetus for the big GT era of IMSA, dominated by variants of the Porsche 935, Corvette Stingray and BMW M1 until the beginning of the GTP era in 1981.

My only beef is the 428. I'd far rather it be an "odd" displacement, like the 401 or something, just because of the Ford 428. That said, it's not a deal-breaker.

The main reason for this is that a 4.125" bore and a 4.0" stroke gives you a displacement of 428 cubic inches, and AMC IOTL almost always used the displacement of the engines as the way they were identified.

I'm loving this.:cool::cool::cool: I can just picture pirating the HD goodies from a surplus detective's car onto a wrecking yard *American & stuffing in a 468 with Hookers & a Holley aftermarket EFI.:cool::D

I can see lots of the cop-car goodies being used by the hot-rodders too, and those which don't use the parts using them as inspiration for what to modify on their car. It's not EFI, though - electronic fuel injection was not common until the 1980s. Mechanical fuel injection, sure, but for a hot-rodder they'd be far more likely for motors like these to be using tunnel-ram intake manifolds and dual carburetors than fuel injection.

I'm not opposed to that.:p I don't see GM or Ford TTL just taking it & doing nothing.

Fair points, & I don't think you're wrong, exactly. I'd expect tougher competition would force changes, unless senior management is a lot stupider than I think--& judging by the OTL Pinto, they might be.:rolleyes:

I don't think I'd call the flaws of the Vega and Pinto as being the products of stupidity so much as it was a misplaced view of what was important for these cars. The two primary goals for the Pinto was that it had to weight less than 2000 lbs and cost less than $2000, and both the Vega and Pinto were built with one goal - eradicate the Volkswagen Beetle and its derivatives, the Toyota Corolla, Datsun 510 and other small imports, then disappear as quickly as possible so that consumers would gravitate back to larger (and more profitable) cars. This AMC, being that smaller cars have always been part of the company's identity, is not so naive, and while Ford and GM cut corners on their small cars in the hope of maximizing profit, AMC knows that the small imports aren't likely to go away, so the job they needed to do was get the Hornet and Gremlin absolutely bang on so that they could take down their imported rivals. Differences of opinions and priorities, mainly, and here both GM and Ford would learn the hard way that such small cars were not going away, and therefore the best course of action to destroy the imports was to simply make better rivals. The problem is that they realized this a decade too late.

I don't think this is gonna be different here, namely because Detroit never thought too much of AMC's efforts, and I simply assumed that their naivete about the way of battling imports would last long enough for the Gremlin to join the imports in blowing it to pieces.

IRL, that makes sense, but from a TV production standpoint, no. You'd get all one company: 'stang IIs, or Jav & Gremlin, or Vega, or (IDK) 'cuda. Which automaker wants the PR most? And is the deal with the show's producer, or the network? IDK; since both "5-O" & "CA" used Fords OTL, & both were on CBS...

The arrangement I had in mind were entirely based on the idea that the production company didn't have a contract with an automaker or importer, I agree that if such a deal did happen that their products would be the ones used by all of the characters, but if this is up to the show's producers, it is very possible.

My thought is, TTL's *Gremlin is a clean sheet, so it could be FWD from the get-go. Unless you mean the FWD isn't available soon enough.

FWD would involve designing a whole new gearbox and differential arrangement as well as chassis, and FWD was almost unheard of in small cars at the time - the Pinto, Gremlin and Vega were all rear-drivers, as were the Volkswagen Beetle, Datsun 510, Toyota Corolla, BMW 2002, Triumph Dolomite and most other imported small cars, with just the Austin Mini and Maxi and the Honda Civic being front-wheel-drive, with the Civic being absolutely tiny and both the Mini and Maxi being known for either being a bastard to work on (Mini) or being horribly unreliable (Maxi). In 1970, going with front-wheel-drive for something the size of a Hornet or Gremlin is probably a technical step too far.

I do think they were pretty boring, but I recall when they came out, & I was a fan. (Maybe it was the oddness: they didn't have the same 350/TH350 of every damn hot rod in every damn magazine. :rolleyes:) I never owned one, so I have to confess ignorance of any quality issues.

The X-bodies had two major design flaws which both effected safety - the steering rack was located on the firewall on early cars, which resulted in any subframe movements having a substantial effect on the steering, causing the cars to be absolutely infamous for torque steer - and GM, in a truly ballsy-but-stupid move, made sure magazine test cars had the relocated steering rack, which meant they were not effected by this. (Even beyond this, a very large number of production X-Body cars had major fluid leaks from the power steering system, which is trouble on top of trouble for a car with major torque steer issues.) The cars also had major problems where the cars locked up their rear brakes under hard braking pretty much all the time, which meant they were seriously difficult to control in emergency situations. The problems were so bad that the NHTSA had to order GM to fix every single one of the X-bodies, and fought a lawsuit over just how shit the brakes were. Beyond that, X-bodies had very poor interiors (what genius thought that almost-Velour upholstery and vertical tape decks were good ideas?), would rust out even faster than the Vegas did (holes in the bodywork of two-year-old cars were not unheard of) and were badly assembled in pretty much every case.

So yeah, GM NOT making those cars would probably be a rather big improvement for them. The people GM had not turned off with the Vega probably were with the Citation, and with more than a little good reason.

Let me put it this way with OTL Detroit 1980s quality:

- Grandma bought a 1981 Citation off the showroom floor. She sold it three years later, when it had 58,000 kilometres on it. It was on its third transmission, the radio didn't work properly, the power windows only worked on the driver's door and it had been completely resprayed because the front fenders had rusted all the way through, and the dealer didn't paint the new fenders properly. And that didn't include the recalls for steering and suspension problems. Grandma's next car? A Honda Accord.
- Grandpa had a 1981 Ford Fairlane. That thing, in addition to being one of the ugliest cars ever made, had the worst seats ever, and its engine caught fire four months after it was new because the jackass who had installed the carburetor on it hadn't done it properly and the seal between it and the intake manifold failed, spraying fuel on the exhaust headers. That thing also boiled over about every week or so, and this was in Canada. He hated that thing so much he demanded his company take it back a year after he got it. Grandpa's next car? A Toyota Camry, which he hated to death.
- Mom had a 1986 Taurus, whose life lasted just over two years. Why? It's transmission came apart while the car was driving in the express lanes of Highway 401 in Toronto, and when it came apart the car decelerated rapidly, causing Mom to be hit from behind by an 18-wheeler. Result of that? Basilar skull fracture (which thankfully didn't cause her any permanent injuries), broken collarbone and four broken ribs, and the car's chassis buckled to the point the rear doors were jammed shut, every piece of glass in it including the windshield was broken and the only bodywork components not trashed were the front bumper and fascia. Mom to this day has NEVER driven another American car, and in recent times she swears by European cars.
- Uncle had a 1985 Dodge Caravan, unfortunately with the Mitsubishi 2.6-liter engine. In addition to the fact the thing couldn't get out of its own way the engine ate an alternator at less than a year old, a head gasket when it was two years old and the motor's bottom end came apart four months after the end of the warranty. He managed to get the dealership to rebuild the van with the V6 engine, which subsequently also had transmission trouble months after it was fixed.

To be fair, after the Taurus and the Citation, my family's luck got better. Dad's 1982 Suburban lived for 23 years and 522,000 km, and it only died because of a careless dump truck driver, and Grandpa's 1985 Monte Carlo SS is still out there, though today its owned by an enthusiast who has largely rebuilt it. But there is a reason why a lot of North American car buyers look at American cars and assume that they are inferior in terms of reliability to Asian counterparts. The recent problems with GM's ignition systems and Chrysler's litany of recent issues proves that despite decades of lessons, some dumb shitbricks in Detroit STILL haven't gotten the damn memo.

That's as good as I could ask for, I think.:cool: I suggested the turbo because I don't think the J-body could fit the 3.4 DOHC or 90deg V6, which I'd rather use.

To be fair, the Cavalier could use a V6 engine. I highly doubt the 90-degree engine would fit, but the 60-degree engine did.

If the Fiero doesn't get turned into a cafe racer with an Iron Duke I4, I'm happy. Happier if there's the V6, & happier still with the V8, but...:p

The Fiero in this world was built as a small sports car, with the goal of being a car primarily for enthusiasts, though GM also pointed out that the car would be an excellent car for an everyday commuter. They weren't wrong, but with a 185-horsepower Quad Four engine, five-speed manual gearbox, limited-slip differential, excellent chassis and great brakes, the TTL Fiero is anything but a cafe racer.
 
TheMann said:
The question there would be whether the extra unsprung weight of the steel-belted radials is an acceptable tradeoff for greater reliability at speeds. The reason a lot of slicks remained bias-ply tires for so long was that, and it took Michelin until the late 1970s IOTL to make metal-belted radials light enough that they didn't exact an unsprung weight penalty. On a very heavy stock car, the steel-belted radials may well be an advantage, but on the flip side (and knowing the weight reduction measures the cars of the time went to in an attempt to be competitive) you may well trading tire failures for potential suspension damage. Which one works better, I have no idea.
Noted. My thinking is, the heavier stockers make bias-plies more prone to blowout & so make radials more attractive. They might push NASCAR toward lighter bodywork, & maybe smaller cars (tho I think that part's unlikely).
TheMann said:
Here, there isn't really a suitable chassis for the car after AMC figures that putting their sporty car on the Rambler chassis would end up compromising the car (probably a correct assumption) and so the Javelin got a completely new chassis to be built on. I figured you were mentioning OTL, but that doesn't happen here - as AMC uses technical advancement to get one up on its big, lumbering Detroit rivals, they decide that the incoming Rebel should use the Javelin chassis as the two are fairly similar overall length. One result of this is that the Rebel is fairly wide for a mid-sized car, but that didn't bother AMC all that much.
What I was (am) getting at is the shorter WB. I would imagine the G1 *Jav/*Rebel still being on a Rambler platform, tho, per the OTL 'stang. If the alt-Jav (G1 or no) is smaller than OTL (& I presume alt-AMC management is a bit smarter about it), your proposal works fine for me.;)
TheMann said:
Can-Am here merges with the United States Road Racing Championship in 1964 (IOTL, the USRRC collapsed in 1968), and from 1965 to 1974, where IMSA took over from the SCCA of sanctioning the major sports car series after the energy crisis doomed Can-Am. In that period, though, Can Am cars competed in the world's biggest sports car races (including the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring and Six Hours of the Glen) that were held in North America. McLaren dominated 1966 and 1967, while Chaparral won in 1968, Eagle in 1969, McLaren taking the title back (briefly) in 1970, Eagle again in 1971 (one of the big new additions of the 1971 Can-Am Eagles is a chassis made mostly of titanium and Kevlar bodywork), Porsche in 1972 and 1973 and Shadow in 1974. The series also had lots of other marques and makes competing - privateers not using McLarens often had Marches or Lolas, and Ferrari, Ford, Matra, Lotus and Nissan took cracks at Can-Am as well as the established powers, though of these only Ferrari got anywhere - the Ford factory cars suffered from poor handling and were reliability nightmares and the others usually had great handling but not enough power to truly be competitive.

Can-Am short races were always just them, but the longer events usually had them racing with FIA Group 4, 5 and 6 cars as well as Trans-Am machines and other GT entries - and indeed, Trans-Am Mustangs, Camaros, Javelins and Barracudas were the beasts of the World Sportscar Championship's GT categories, owning them to such a degree that Ferrari developed racing versions of the Ferrari Daytona just to run the Americans off of the podium. (This didn't work all the time, it must be said.) The sport's popularity and the speed differentials involved (particularly poignant after a number of big crashes at several tracks in the mid-60s) resulted in the smaller sports cars leaving the races by 1967 - and one result of this was the first 2.5-liter Porsche 911s to go fast enough to compete in these races. The end of Can Am was the impetus for the big GT era of IMSA, dominated by variants of the Porsche 935, Corvette Stingray and BMW M1 until the beginning of the GTP era in 1981.
I like the greater variety a lot.:cool::cool: Any thoughts on how the street cars benefit?
TheMann said:
The main reason for this is that a 4.125" bore and a 4.0" stroke gives you a displacement of 428 cubic inches, and AMC IOTL almost always used the displacement of the engines as the way they were identified.
I got that part.;) What I was thinking was, why not (say) 4.08" bore/3.68" stroke, or 4.165" bore/4" stroke, or something?
TheMann said:
I can see lots of the cop-car goodies being used by the hot-rodders too, and those which don't use the parts using them as inspiration for what to modify on their car. It's not EFI, though - electronic fuel injection was not common until the 1980s. Mechanical fuel injection, sure, but for a hot-rodder they'd be far more likely for motors like these to be using tunnel-ram intake manifolds and dual carburetors than fuel injection.
Agreed, most rodders would use tunnel ram or dual plane & 2x4bbl. I had in mind pirating factory EFI from wrecking yards. In any case, it sounds like a TL I'd like a lot.:cool:
TheMann said:
I don't think I'd call the flaws of the Vega and Pinto as being the products of stupidity so much as it was a misplaced view of what was important for these cars. The two primary goals for the Pinto was that it had to weight less than 2000 lbs and cost less than $2000, and both the Vega and Pinto were built with one goal - eradicate the Volkswagen Beetle and its derivatives, the Toyota Corolla, Datsun 510 and other small imports, then disappear as quickly as possible so that consumers would gravitate back to larger (and more profitable) cars.
My thinking was, facing stiffer competition from AMC, they'd have to make the cars better. OTL, AMC wasn't really strong enough to be a real threat; TTL, it would be. No?
TheMann said:
The arrangement I had in mind were entirely based on the idea that the production company didn't have a contract with an automaker or importer, I agree that if such a deal did happen that their products would be the ones used by all of the characters, but if this is up to the show's producers, it is very possible.
For the TV producer, maybe that makes sense. For the car company, not really. Would they want to provide essentially freebies, only to have competition showcased? I wouldn't.
TheMann said:
FWD would involve designing a whole new gearbox and differential arrangement as well as chassis, and FWD was almost unheard of in small cars at the time - the Pinto, Gremlin and Vega were all rear-drivers, as were the Volkswagen Beetle, Datsun 510, Toyota Corolla, BMW 2002, Triumph Dolomite and most other imported small cars, with just the Austin Mini and Maxi and the Honda Civic being front-wheel-drive, with the Civic being absolutely tiny and both the Mini and Maxi being known for either being a bastard to work on (Mini) or being horribly unreliable (Maxi). In 1970, going with front-wheel-drive for something the size of a Hornet or Gremlin is probably a technical step too far.
:eek: Maybe I'm too much a product of the '80s.
TheMann said:
X-bodies had two major design flaws which both effected safety - the steering rack was located on the firewall on early cars, which resulted in any subframe movements having a substantial effect on the steering, causing the cars to be absolutely infamous for torque steer - and GM, in a truly ballsy-but-stupid move, made sure magazine test cars had the relocated steering rack, which meant they were not effected by this. (Even beyond this, a very large number of production X-Body cars had major fluid leaks from the power steering system, which is trouble on top of trouble for a car with major torque steer issues.) The cars also had major problems where the cars locked up their rear brakes under hard braking pretty much all the time, which meant they were seriously difficult to control in emergency situations. The problems were so bad that the NHTSA had to order GM to fix every single one of the X-bodies, and fought a lawsuit over just how shit the brakes were. Beyond that, X-bodies had very poor interiors (what genius thought that almost-Velour upholstery and vertical tape decks were good ideas?), would rust out even faster than the Vegas did (holes in the bodywork of two-year-old cars were not unheard of) and were badly assembled in pretty much every case.
:eek::eek::eek: I don't even know what to say to that... This is arrogance, or stupidity, I thought GM had outgrown in the '50s.
TheMann said:
The recent problems with GM's ignition systems and Chrysler's litany of recent issues proves that despite decades of lessons, some dumb shitbricks in Detroit STILL haven't gotten the damn memo.
Yeah. I thought that was a fluke. Looks like it's not.:mad:
TheMann said:
To be fair, the Cavalier could use a V6 engine. I highly doubt the 90-degree engine would fit, but the 60-degree engine did.
The 2.8/3.1 did, but the 3.4 was wider; I don't think it would. OTOH, the Beretta could have used the 90deg V6 or even the 305 or 325. (GM prototyped one.)
TheMann said:
The Fiero in this world was built as a small sports car, with the goal of being a car primarily for enthusiasts, though GM also pointed out that the car would be an excellent car for an everyday commuter. They weren't wrong, but with a 185-horsepower Quad Four engine, five-speed manual gearbox, limited-slip differential, excellent chassis and great brakes, the TTL Fiero is anything but a cafe racer.
:cool::cool: I'll take two of those, too.:p

Thinking of the Fiero/MR2 duel, what happens to the FIAT X1/9 & Porsche 914/916?
 
I like these. Maybe it's the hot rodder in me, but I can't resist the idea of a canyon-carver able to dice with the 'vette or Virage. Maybe it's also contrary to Packard's philosphy...:(

I wouldn't say contrary to philosophy so much as market size concerns. By the 1980s there are an awful lot of imported sports cars on sale in North America, of which the Corvette was just one - you also had the Porsche 911, 928 and 944, Nissan 300ZX, Toyota Supra, Mazda RX-7, Lotus Esprit, Ferrari 308 and Jaguar XJS all largely gunning for the same market, and soon you'll have the Acura NSX, Dodge Viper and BMW M3 to think about too, and that assumes that Renault doesn't decide to start selling the Alpine A610 in North America and Nissan never brings the Skyline GT-R over. Really, the market's rather full, and Packard doesn't really need a sports car to really make its point. The image of Packard within AMC and Renault would be the king of luxury sedans, an American Mercedes-Benz. They can easily do it, but remember that Mercedes didn't start making corner carvers until the 2000s.

I'll say I've never been particular fan of any American driver (Gilles first, then Ayrton, then Lewis), but I like this. If it offers chances for, say, Tracy or Carpentier, even better. If it also means Cevert doesn't get killed, & avoids the Alain-Ayrton feud (but not the dicing), better still.:cool:

Well, if I go with the TLs I developed for this, the Senna-Prost feud still happens and is actually more ugly than OTL, because Senna eventually shoves Prost out at Brabham, and the two clash repeatedly during 1990 and 1991 while Prost is at Ferrari and Senna drives for Brabham, culminating in an infamous 1991 Japanese GP where Prost rams Senna off the road, handing victory to Nigel Mansell, but where a subsequent disqualification of Prost sees Senna clinch his second world championship and mouth off to Prost about it, which subsequently results in a fistfight in the pit lane. Prost retires from F1 in 1993, Senna in 1995, though Prost goes into team ownership in 1999 and Senna goes to race with childhood hero Emerson Fittipaldi in Indycars, narrowly losing the 1997 Indycar title to Al Unser Jr but taking both the title and the Indy 500 in 1999, before one last tour of duty in F1 filling in for an injured Ralf Schumacher at Williams in 2000. Both did a lot of sports car racing in the 2000s.

Gilles is the 1983 World Champion and stays at Ferrari until he leaves F1 to make room for Prost at the end of 1989, after four seasons of tutoring Stefan Bellof about F1. Villeneuve, however, is more involved in Ferrari - when Enzo dies in 1988, he leaves his company to the men he feels can best guide in the future, a list which includes Villeneuve and Bellof, as well as Luca di Montezmolo, Bobby Rahal, Gianpiero Moretti and Niki Lauda, among a few others. The result is that while Fiat pays the bills, Montezmolo and Rahal (who both IOTL and ITTL a very astute businessman) turn the company's road car divisions around and in addition to F1 decide to restore the lustre of the team's sports car racing past, as well as racing Indycars. The result is an Indycar title in 1990 for Villeneuve for the Scuderia Ferrari North America Indycar team, a 1-2-3 in the 1993 Indy 500 (led by Rahal, with Villeneuve second and Tim Richmond third) and winning Le Mans outright with the 333SP in 1997. Jacques never tried to ride on his father's coattails (a fact both were proud of) though he and dad did race each other, and today Villeneuve is one of the chief test drivers for the company, and still a seriously capable driver.

Neither Paul Tracy nor Patrick Carpentier ever race Formula One, though Villeneuve does (never world champ, but eleven wins in F1 for McLaren between 1996 and 2004) and so does Greg Moore, who at Gilles' recommendation is the new partner to Alex Zanardi when Bellof hangs up his helmet in 2000. America's 1980s F1 presence sinks as Andretti, Foyt and Donohue head for Indycars, but Rick Mears, Eddie Cheever and Danny Sullivan ably cary the flag, with Mears finishing second to Senna in the 1987 world championship and Al Unser Jr. doing the same to Ukyo Katayama in the mighty Williams-Renaults in 1993.

But what gets the most American attention is in 1995, when Jeff Gordon comes to Formula One, brought there by Ford and Jackie Stewart and jumping into the car having smoked the competition in British F3 in 1993 and in Formula 3000 in 1994. Gordon wins his first World Championship by outdueling Michael Schumacher in 1997, and then winning a second world title by out-racing the field and out-strategizing Alex Zanardi, Ross Brawn and the Ferrari team in 2002. Gordon raced in F1 until 2012, but perhaps the most remarkable part of the story began at a charity karting event in 1995. Competing in the event was a ten-year-old British boy who happened to be ludicrously talented, who famously said "I want to be your teammate one day, Mister Gordon." Twelve years later, Lewis Hamilton was indeed Gordon's teammate, and two years after that, Jeff was Lewis' wingman on his way to his first F1 title. As of 2015, Gordon is partners with Jackie Stewart in the Stewart/Tyrrell team and is enjoying a retirement from full-time racing, but if he's known to race any Ford there is when he feels like it, from Panoz Le Mans cars several times to the Indy 500 in 2006, 2007 and 2008 to the Bathurst 1000 in 2012, where he and Lewis were partners in a FPV Falcon and came home third after leading 27 laps on the mountain. Lewis is still driving for Stewart/Tyrrell, and in 2015 his teammate is Canadian James Hinchcliffe, though Lewis has a number of proteges of his own, and one of those is a black American woman who won the Indy 500 in 2014....

Cevert also has a story. He races in F1 until retirement in 1984, though he does make other appearances for Renault for years afterwards (particularly in the Indy 500 in 1985, 1986 and 1987) and most famously filling in for an ill Thierry Boutsen in the 1989 French Grand Prix and very nearly winning it after starting 17th on the grid. Cevert in the process gets married, has two boys and three girls and becomes a businessman, joining Renault's board in 1986 and Elf Aquitane's board in 1987, becoming the boss of the latter and then the chairman of Total in 2001 after Elf and Fina's merger. He raced for the first time in a decade in the 2001 24 Hours of Le Mans with his sons, finishing third overall. Cevert retired from the chairmanship at Total in 2012, days after his 70th birthday. Today, one son races in GP2, the other in the World Sportscar Championship, and his elder daughters became fashion designers, the younger one an actress who won an Oscar in 2008.

:cool: (Tho really, Maser at GM?:eek::eek::eek: Not bought by Packard? {Too wankish?:p})

The Maserati and Alfa Romeo deals were done by Fiat to stop GM from winning a lawsuit that would cost the Italian government billions. In short form, what happened is that Fiat was nearly insolvent by the early 1990s. GM recapitalized the company and got a sizable stake in the firm out of it, but organizational and financial problems persisted, and GM's attempts at helping Fiat earned them nothing but immense scorn. The Italian government nationalized Fiat in 1998 and effectively told GM to bugger off, for which GM sued them in European courts. Knowing GM would win and take them to the cleaners as a result, GM got a sizable cash payout, all of Alfa Romeo and Maserati, 20% of Fiat's stake in Ferrari and half of Magnetti Marelli, in the process trading Alfa Romeo, Maserati, the Ferrari stake and half of Magnetti Marelli in return for stomaching about $18 Billion in lost investment. GM took that deal, came to agreements with the managers and workforces at Alfa Romeo and Maserati and told them to have at it. The result is a series of awesome Alfas that sell hundreds of thousands of units in North America in the 2000s, touring car titles all over the place and eventually a new Alfa Romeo Formula One team, starting in 2015. GM may not have liked the loss, but they have come to love having Alfa's input on their European divisions, which make better cars as a result. (Lotus, owned by GM since 1986, also serves the same purpose and just as well, as well as GM's money allowing for Lotus to make lots of new cars in the 1990s and 2000s.) :)
 
TheMann said:
I wouldn't say contrary to philosophy so much as market size concerns. By the 1980s there are an awful lot of imported sports cars on sale in North America, of which the Corvette was just one - you also had the Porsche 911, 928 and 944, Nissan 300ZX, Toyota Supra, Mazda RX-7, Lotus Esprit, Ferrari 308 and Jaguar XJS all largely gunning for the same market, and soon you'll have the Acura NSX, Dodge Viper and BMW M3 to think about too, and that assumes that Renault doesn't decide to start selling the Alpine A610 in North America and Nissan never brings the Skyline GT-R over. Really, the market's rather full, and Packard doesn't really need a sports car to really make its point. The image of Packard within AMC and Renault would be the king of luxury sedans, an American Mercedes-Benz. They can easily do it, but remember that Mercedes didn't start making corner carvers until the 2000s.
Noted. I was thinking the competition was more limited: Jag, maybe Ferrari (not the 308, but more the 275), BMW, Aston, M-B, maybe Lexus & TTL's alt-Tbird (presuming it's a Lincoln, not a Ford), rather than the 'vette or Esprit & 308. Point taken, tho.
TheMann said:
Well, if I go with the TLs I developed for this, the Senna-Prost feud still happens and is actually more ugly than OTL, because Senna eventually shoves Prost out at Brabham, and the two clash repeatedly during 1990 and 1991 while Prost is at Ferrari and Senna drives for Brabham, culminating in an infamous 1991 Japanese GP where Prost rams Senna off the road, handing victory to Nigel Mansell, but where a subsequent disqualification of Prost sees Senna clinch his second world championship and mouth off to Prost about it, which subsequently results in a fistfight in the pit lane. Prost retires from F1 in 1993, Senna in 1995, though Prost goes into team ownership in 1999 and Senna goes to race with childhood hero Emerson Fittipaldi in Indycars, narrowly losing the 1997 Indycar title to Al Unser Jr but taking both the title and the Indy 500 in 1999, before one last tour of duty in F1 filling in for an injured Ralf Schumacher at Williams in 2000. Both did a lot of sports car racing in the 2000s.

Gilles is the 1983 World Champion and stays at Ferrari until he leaves F1 to make room for Prost at the end of 1989, after four seasons of tutoring Stefan Bellof about F1. Villeneuve, however, is more involved in Ferrari - when Enzo dies in 1988, he leaves his company to the men he feels can best guide in the future, a list which includes Villeneuve and Bellof, as well as Luca di Montezmolo, Bobby Rahal, Gianpiero Moretti and Niki Lauda, among a few others. The result is that while Fiat pays the bills, Montezmolo and Rahal (who both IOTL and ITTL a very astute businessman) turn the company's road car divisions around and in addition to F1 decide to restore the lustre of the team's sports car racing past, as well as racing Indycars. The result is an Indycar title in 1990 for Villeneuve for the Scuderia Ferrari North America Indycar team, a 1-2-3 in the 1993 Indy 500 (led by Rahal, with Villeneuve second and Tim Richmond third) and winning Le Mans outright with the 333SP in 1997. Jacques never tried to ride on his father's coattails (a fact both were proud of) though he and dad did race each other, and today Villeneuve is one of the chief test drivers for the company, and still a seriously capable driver.

Neither Paul Tracy nor Patrick Carpentier ever race Formula One, though Villeneuve does (never world champ, but eleven wins in F1 for McLaren between 1996 and 2004) and so does Greg Moore, who at Gilles' recommendation is the new partner to Alex Zanardi when Bellof hangs up his helmet in 2000. America's 1980s F1 presence sinks as Andretti, Foyt and Donohue head for Indycars, but Rick Mears, Eddie Cheever and Danny Sullivan ably cary the flag, with Mears finishing second to Senna in the 1987 world championship and Al Unser Jr. doing the same to Ukyo Katayama in the mighty Williams-Renaults in 1993.

But what gets the most American attention is in 1995, when Jeff Gordon comes to Formula One, brought there by Ford and Jackie Stewart and jumping into the car having smoked the competition in British F3 in 1993 and in Formula 3000 in 1994. Gordon wins his first World Championship by outdueling Michael Schumacher in 1997, and then winning a second world title by out-racing the field and out-strategizing Alex Zanardi, Ross Brawn and the Ferrari team in 2002. Gordon raced in F1 until 2012, but perhaps the most remarkable part of the story began at a charity karting event in 1995. Competing in the event was a ten-year-old British boy who happened to be ludicrously talented, who famously said "I want to be your teammate one day, Mister Gordon." Twelve years later, Lewis Hamilton was indeed Gordon's teammate, and two years after that, Jeff was Lewis' wingman on his way to his first F1 title. As of 2015, Gordon is partners with Jackie Stewart in the Stewart/Tyrrell team and is enjoying a retirement from full-time racing, but if he's known to race any Ford there is when he feels like it, from Panoz Le Mans cars several times to the Indy 500 in 2006, 2007 and 2008 to the Bathurst 1000 in 2012, where he and Lewis were partners in a FPV Falcon and came home third after leading 27 laps on the mountain. Lewis is still driving for Stewart/Tyrrell, and in 2015 his teammate is Canadian James Hinchcliffe, though Lewis has a number of proteges of his own, and one of those is a black American woman who won the Indy 500 in 2014....

Cevert also has a story. He races in F1 until retirement in 1984, though he does make other appearances for Renault for years afterwards (particularly in the Indy 500 in 1985, 1986 and 1987) and most famously filling in for an ill Thierry Boutsen in the 1989 French Grand Prix and very nearly winning it after starting 17th on the grid. Cevert in the process gets married, has two boys and three girls and becomes a businessman, joining Renault's board in 1986 and Elf Aquitane's board in 1987, becoming the boss of the latter and then the chairman of Total in 2001 after Elf and Fina's merger. He raced for the first time in a decade in the 2001 24 Hours of Le Mans with his sons, finishing third overall. Cevert retired from the chairmanship at Total in 2012, days after his 70th birthday. Today, one son races in GP2, the other in the World Sportscar Championship, and his elder daughters became fashion designers, the younger one an actress who won an Oscar in 2008.
That's a great world.:cool: It looks like the racing was better, too.:cool::cool:

Minor gripe: Gilles only once Champion?:(:p And none of Cevert's daughters caught the "fast driver" gene?:p

Am I right Jacques still gets a Championship? (Hopefully doesn't decide to go to *BAR.;))
TheMann said:
Ukyo Katayama
:eek::eek: I would never have thought him capable of it, TBH.
TheMann said:
The Maserati and Alfa Romeo deals were done by Fiat to stop GM from winning a lawsuit that would cost the Italian government billions. In short form, what happened is that Fiat was nearly insolvent by the early 1990s. GM recapitalized the company and got a sizable stake in the firm out of it, but organizational and financial problems persisted, and GM's attempts at helping Fiat earned them nothing but immense scorn. The Italian government nationalized Fiat in 1998 and effectively told GM to bugger off, for which GM sued them in European courts. Knowing GM would win and take them to the cleaners as a result, GM got a sizable cash payout, all of Alfa Romeo and Maserati, 20% of Fiat's stake in Ferrari and half of Magnetti Marelli, in the process trading Alfa Romeo, Maserati, the Ferrari stake and half of Magnetti Marelli in return for stomaching about $18 Billion in lost investment. GM took that deal, came to agreements with the managers and workforces at Alfa Romeo and Maserati and told them to have at it. The result is a series of awesome Alfas that sell hundreds of thousands of units in North America in the 2000s, touring car titles all over the place and eventually a new Alfa Romeo Formula One team, starting in 2015. GM may not have liked the loss, but they have come to love having Alfa's input on their European divisions, which make better cars as a result. (Lotus, owned by GM since 1986, also serves the same purpose and just as well, as well as GM's money allowing for Lotus to make lots of new cars in the 1990s and 2000s.) :)
:eek::cool: Wow. I like the solution. I also like that outcome.:cool:
 
Noted. My thinking is, the heavier stockers make bias-plies more prone to blowout & so make radials more attractive. They might push NASCAR toward lighter bodywork, & maybe smaller cars (tho I think that part's unlikely).

I can see the point, but I'm not sure that it would if for no other reason than that NASCAR has traditionally very resistant to change. You are correct in your ideas to a large extent, but I just think that Big Bill France wouldn't be too inclined to try too many new things.

What I was (am) getting at is the shorter WB. I would imagine the G1 *Jav/*Rebel still being on a Rambler platform, tho, per the OTL 'stang. If the alt-Jav (G1 or no) is smaller than OTL (& I presume alt-AMC management is a bit smarter about it), your proposal works fine for me.;)

The reason I gave the Javelin its own chassis was because the Rambler chassis of the time was an antiquated design, and thinking that AMC would be aware of what the Javelin was likely to represent. The fact that the Javelin chassis can be used on the Rebel is a nice benefit, and in shortened wheelbase form also on the AMX is good, too. This Javelin is about OTL size, and I'm anticipating the 1963 model Javelin being fairly similar to OTL, with a minor restyling for 1967 followed by the second-generation 1968-69 model looking more like the 1971-later variants with the four smaller headlights and closer to the Challenger in the front as I mentioned earlier. That is followed by a third-generation car which comes onto the market in 1975 or 1976.

I like the greater variety a lot.:cool::cool: Any thoughts on how the street cars benefit?

I would say if there is any benefit from the pony cars racing is that the companies learn about how to make what are fairly heavy cars corner and stop well (Remember that the 1968 Javelin and AMX are among the first cars with anti-lock brakes), which for the smaller muscle cars is an incalculable benefit. I had the idea of a smaller Packard being introduced in 1966 or so fitted with the big Packard V12 to give a V12-powered muscle car but decided against it on account of the problem that such a car doesn't really fit into Packard's image.

As for Can Am, I can see teams figuring out aluminum alloy wheels, growing use of fiberglass and maybe aluminum wheels and mechanical fuel injection, but they were pretty specialized beasts.

I got that part.;) What I was thinking was, why not (say) 4.08" bore/3.68" stroke, or 4.165" bore/4" stroke, or something?

I was designing these cars with 1/8" increments in bore and stroke, because its easier to be precise in design this way, maybe with 1/16" increments at most for growth, but I'd still likely stick to 1/8" increments. After all, these are still by most standards very, very big engines.

My thinking was, facing stiffer competition from AMC, they'd have to make the cars better. OTL, AMC wasn't really strong enough to be a real threat; TTL, it would be. No?

The reason I didn't go with major improvements to the Pinto (though the Vega wasn't all that unsophisticated of a car) is because of what Ford's priorities for the car were. AMC here has good small cars, but GM, Ford and Chrysler are very unlikely to take those cars any more seriously than they did the imports, as the view that small cars were for skinflints lasted really until the 2000s and the aftermath of the SUV boom. Beyond that, they would also look at AMC's success with the Rebel, Ambassador, Matador, Javelin and AMX that they would not think that the Gremlin and Hornet would be game changers for the company. Old prejudices die hard, pretty much.

For the TV producer, maybe that makes sense. For the car company, not really. Would they want to provide essentially freebies, only to have competition showcased? I wouldn't.

Again I agree, but I'm assuming that the producers are deciding what cars are there and they don't care about having a manufacturer give them freebies. If they were giving freebies, yeah you'd want them all to be the same carmaker's products.

:eek::eek::eek: I don't even know what to say to that... This is arrogance, or stupidity, I thought GM had outgrown in the '50s.

Some at GM still haven't outgrown that mess. You'd figure having created a very large number of American car buyers who will dismiss Detroit products as inferior because of their past screwups would teach them, but sadly that definitely wasn't the case with the X-bodies.

Yeah. I thought that was a fluke. Looks like it's not.:mad:

You want the scariest part? One of the major recalls facing Chrysler right now is that Jeep Wrangler, Grand Cherokee and Liberty models have problems where rear impacts could either shear off the fuel filler neck, cause bumper bolts to puncture the (plastic) fuel tanks, or have a piece of another car rip into or puncture the fuel tank. These problems are EXACTLY what the problem with the Pinto was. Chrysler quite literally made the same design error Ford did, and have tried to deal with it in the same manner - but the NHTSA has had it up to here with this, and Chrysler got off lucky in this case (they had install some form of protection for the fuel tank, most of the time in the form of a steel tow bar), though the lawsuit settlements this time are going to U-G-L-Y when they finally hit the courts and the media has been on top of this for a while, stemming from a truly awful accident in Detroit this past March where a eight-months-pregnant 23 year old woman burned to death after an accident where Liberty had the fuel tank go up after the accident. The biggest flaw that has caused Detroit to shed as many jobs and as much cash as it has is stuff like this.
 
TheMann said:
I can see the point, but I'm not sure that it would if for no other reason than that NASCAR has traditionally very resistant to change. You are correct in your ideas to a large extent, but I just think that Big Bill France wouldn't be too inclined to try too many new things.
You're entirely right on the glacial pace of change.:rolleyes: Even if safety is an issue.:mad: I guess it's a tossup; I wouldn't find either outcome impossible to believe. (Yours gets the edge, even if I like mine better.:mad::p)
TheMann said:
The reason I gave the Javelin its own chassis was because the Rambler chassis of the time was an antiquated design, and thinking that AMC would be aware of what the Javelin was likely to represent. The fact that the Javelin chassis can be used on the Rebel is a nice benefit, and in shortened wheelbase form also on the AMX is good, too. This Javelin is about OTL size, and I'm anticipating the 1963 model Javelin being fairly similar to OTL, with a minor restyling for 1967 followed by the second-generation 1968-69 model looking more like the 1971-later variants with the four smaller headlights and closer to the Challenger in the front as I mentioned earlier. That is followed by a third-generation car which comes onto the market in 1975 or 1976.
I get that, & I agree; if I wasn't clear,:eek: let me repeat: so long as they share roughly the same WB as the OTL American, I'm happy.;) (That's how I'd do it, because IMO that's about the ideal.)

I also think having a platform in that size range offers opportunities into the '80s, so it could continue to be useful a very long time.:cool: (I'm thinking of competition to everything from Camaro & Chevelle to Beretta; I'll confess, IDK if a re-engineering for FWD would be needed.)
TheMann said:
I would say if there is any benefit from the pony cars racing is that the companies learn about how to make what are fairly heavy cars corner and stop well (Remember that the 1968 Javelin and AMX are among the first cars with anti-lock brakes), which for the smaller muscle cars is an incalculable benefit. I had the idea of a smaller Packard being introduced in 1966 or so fitted with the big Packard V12 to give a V12-powered muscle car but decided against it on account of the problem that such a car doesn't really fit into Packard's image.
The idea of better stopping, & better handling, in a *ponycar or musclecar IMO is a good thing.:cool:

As for a "Packard musclecar", I can't help think of the 300 letter cars... Yeah, they were overweight & cornered like barges,:p but they were pretty hot. TTL, I'm seeing Packard giving them more than a run for their money in luxury, class, & performance.:cool: (I'm also thinking they'd be better looking--but the proposed '59 makes me think "expensive Edsel".:eek:)
TheMann said:
As for Can Am, I can see teams figuring out aluminum alloy wheels, growing use of fiberglass and maybe aluminum wheels and mechanical fuel injection, but they were pretty specialized beasts.
I'd see that, too. Here's the thing: a lot of that also applies/carries over to NHRA, & that means "trickle down" to street cars. Marginally "stock" hot rods were available; might TransAm/NHRA "homologation specials" actually turn into true showroom stock models, complete with 'glass front ends, decklids, mags, & FI?:cool::cool:
TheMann said:
I was designing these cars with 1/8" increments in bore and stroke, because its easier to be precise in design this way, maybe with 1/16" increments at most for growth, but I'd still likely stick to 1/8" increments. After all, these are still by most standards very, very big engines.
True. I was looking at the OTL designs & thinking these would still (probably) be the starting point(s), even if the exact numbers come out different; going the "easy way" leaves me thinking that's too "Chevyesque", & contrary to the AMC "oddballness" (if you see what I mean;)): better engineered doesn't perforce mean less odd.;) (There's just something inherently attractive about a 401, rather than a 400, or a 421 rather than a 428...:p)
TheMann said:
The reason I didn't go with major improvements to the Pinto (though the Vega wasn't all that unsophisticated of a car) is because of what Ford's priorities for the car were. AMC here has good small cars, but GM, Ford and Chrysler are very unlikely to take those cars any more seriously than they did the imports, as the view that small cars were for skinflints lasted really until the 2000s and the aftermath of the SUV boom. Beyond that, they would also look at AMC's success with the Rebel, Ambassador, Matador, Javelin and AMX that they would not think that the Gremlin and Hornet would be game changers for the company. Old prejudices die hard, pretty much.
So Pinto/Vega as loss leaders, & try to ignore how well the Typ 1, 510, & the like are selling? Yeah, that's all to probable.:rolleyes: Even if the 'vair does better TTL (& I'm guessing it might; maybe Nader gets run over by a *Jav?:p).
TheMann said:
Again I agree, but I'm assuming that the producers are deciding what cars are there and they don't care about having a manufacturer give them freebies. If they were giving freebies, yeah you'd want them all to be the same carmaker's products.
IDK enough about how it's done where the factory is concerned; my sense is, it's always exclusive. (That "promotional consideration" thing, or the end-credit line "vehicles by"...) Otherwise (if the cars are expected to be "expendable"), they're bought at a negotiated price (& I know virtually nothing about that,:eek: beyond a vague sense it's connected to Blue Book value). How (frex) Magnum got the 308, IDK; I imagine it was purchased at cost.
TheMann said:
Some at GM still haven't outgrown that mess. You'd figure having created a very large number of American car buyers who will dismiss Detroit products as inferior because of their past screwups would teach them, but sadly that definitely wasn't the case with the X-bodies.

You want the scariest part? One of the major recalls facing Chrysler right now is that Jeep Wrangler, Grand Cherokee and Liberty models have problems where rear impacts could either shear off the fuel filler neck, cause bumper bolts to puncture the (plastic) fuel tanks, or have a piece of another car rip into or puncture the fuel tank. These problems are EXACTLY what the problem with the Pinto was. Chrysler quite literally made the same design error Ford did, and have tried to deal with it in the same manner - but the NHTSA has had it up to here with this, and Chrysler got off lucky in this case (they had install some form of protection for the fuel tank, most of the time in the form of a steel tow bar), though the lawsuit settlements this time are going to U-G-L-Y when they finally hit the courts and the media has been on top of this for a while, stemming from a truly awful accident in Detroit this past March where a eight-months-pregnant 23 year old woman burned to death after an accident where Liberty had the fuel tank go up after the accident. The biggest flaw that has caused Detroit to shed as many jobs and as much cash as it has is stuff like this.
:eek::eek::confused::confused::confused::mad:

It can't get ugly enough IMO. Between that & the GM ignition switch, some execs belong in jail.:mad: And, just like the banks, none will.:mad:
 
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