I never cease to be amazed by just how little most people know about the American Motors Corporation, their cars, history and most importantly the performance potential of many AMC cars. I also discovered that even fewer people knew anything about the 1974 – 1978 Matador coupe that brought success to AMC on the NASCAR circuit. I’ve been exploring and working with AMC cars for over half my life now, always finding new and amazing facts, dispelling other peoples myths and just generally ‘Defending the Faith’. – Kelly

Part 1 of 2

I suppose my first conscious contact with the American Motors Corporation occurred some time in the early 1980’s, before I had a driver’s license. My father had bought a 1974 Jeep J-20 that had previously been used by the British Army in Suffield, southern Alberta. The body was in good shape, but its seriously faded paint needed work. With my help as an understudy, Dad did some minor dent filling and painted it yellow with two tone metallic brown highlights. It turned out to be a wonderful vehicle that he has kept in good shape to this day.

Some time after the Dad’s jeep was painted, a friend of ours was moving to Ottawa and had to sell some of his vehicles. As it turned out he was looking to get rid of his red 1973 J-20. It had a 360 2-bl with a T-18 four on the floor. I was first in line. Our friend had bought it at an auction and it had apparently spent most of its life being abused by an oilfield service company. It was in rough shape but the price was right and I had lots of big ideas for it – which is good because it was also barely road worthy. At the time I was only 15 and had no driver’s license anyhow.

Some time before I got my driver’s license my family bought a 1978 Matador station wagon. It was a 360 2-bl car with some minor rust problems. At this point I was working on my J-20 but it was still nowhere near being done, only a few of the mechanical problems had been solved. My dad proposed that if I put some of my body work skills to work on his Matador he would let me borrow it. “Besides,” he said, “you can hone your skills on this car so that when you work on your Jeep you’ll do an even better job”. I agreed and so when I was finished I had a not bad looking maroon Matador station wagon to cruise in.

At the age of 16 every boy wants to get some form of motorized transportation. Having a station wagon was not the coolest to be seen in however it got me there on Friday and Saturday nights. Many of my friends were starting out with sportier cars like Mustangs, Camaros, Maverick Grabbers, Sky Hawks etc. One of my friends, Glen, particularly liked Fords and never missed a chance for a put down directed at my AMC station wagon! Since he avoided every possible chance to be seen in my car he almost never rode in it and thus he didn’t know the AMC secret.

Glen had just gained a new acquisition: a 1966, 289 4-bbl, dual exhaust Comet convertible and he was proud. I have to admit, after spending a few thousand dollars on it, it was a nice looking car. However for a 17-year-old to be driving a ‘hot’ looking car around in a civilized grandma-like fashion is just not hip. So he of course wanted to race everybody with his new acquisition – my Matador station wagon was the closest and most vulnerable target. One Saturday night a bunch of us went out to Roper Road in south Edmonton. At this time Roper Road was a divided half mile four lane strip that dead-ended into the middle of a grass field. There were no businesses built and no other connecting roads. We set the race up starting at 50^th street and headed in the direction of the open field. This way if anything went wrong and someone could not stop, nobody would be at risk except the cars racing – even though we were 17 year old punks we did think of safety once in a while! Several people raced and then my number was up: the moment of truth. According to Glen I was going to get my station wagon butt kicked but hard. We lined up with the flag man in the median. Glen was in the left two lanes and I was in the right two. He raised the convertible top, I pressed the brake, pulled my 727 into drive then first gear and revved the motor to what I thought was about 2000 RPM. The flag came down, I released the brake, my tires squawked, the car squatted down and dug in. Glen was just starting to learn the AMC secret here. At 40 mph we were at a dead tie but soon 50 mph was coming and time for me to hit second gear; when I did, my 727 snapped me back and the speedometer instantly shot up by 5 mph. The Comet did not recover after that and by the time I hit 80 mph I was almost one and half car lengths ahead. I decided it was time to think of stopping, since the grass field was coming up fast. For the rest of the evening Glen was a man of few words – which was unusual for him.

After high school, I didn’t want to go directly to University, I first wanted to figure out what parts of working life I liked, besides the cheque. I decided I wanted to work for Kar Basher, a larger auto wrecker located east of Edmonton. I applied and was hired the same day. One day while working in the Chrysler section I noticed a strange, very unique looking 2 door car, the likes of which I had never seen before. As I got closer, I noticed it was an AMC, an AMC Matador coupe! This was so odd, I was driving a Matador station wagon, but this looked not even remotely related. Yet this coupe was almost the same year as my wagon. Later that week I told Glen about what I had found. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that he knew more about them than me because he said “that’s a totally ugly car man – good for nothing”.

Glen was high on Fords again, and this time he had a ’71 Maverick Grabber. This car had two hood scoops, a 302 4bbl with dual exhaust and a set of wide Goodrich T/As in on the back. He did the body work on it fast and pained it a bright canary yellow highlighted with a black ‘Boss 302’ decal on each fender just behind the front wheels. Even though the car did not have a Boss 302, it had a few non-stock engine upgrades and was significantly faster than his ’66 comet or my station wagon. Furthermore, he was working toward installing NOS in this car. A week after that, I was informed of a Matador coupe for sale. I went to test drive it. It was a light metallic blue ‘74 with few options. It had a 360 2-bbl with single exhaust. Despite the rather pedestrian performance options it sure had a lot more kick than the station wagon. And since I had ridden in Glen’s Maverick I knew what I was up against. Based on what I felt, I bought the car.

To be continued next issue