As you recall, because it only just happened, the Gormogons have been ruminating over their memories of the AMC motor company (which stood the American Motor Company motor company, apparently). For you youngsters, AMC was a car company that made cars from 1954—one of its earliest leaders was George W. Romney—when it evolved out of two other struggling companies: Nash and Hudson. AMC stopped production in 1983, and its lines were eventually acquired by Chrysler under the Eagle name.

Further, as the oldsters will attest, AMC cars were everywhere, and their absence from American consciousness is a little shocking. Imagine one day realizing that no one, nowhere was driving a Cadillac anymore. Gone. Just like that.

Readers here know we have been discussing the AMC Pace and the AMC Gremlin, both cars with a bad reputation that deserved only most of it. The Czar maintains that the Pacer was better than the Gremlin, only because the Gremlin and its mechanical and performance woes made its name peculiarly apt.

But AMC had a couple of successes, too.

The Czar best remembers the 1972 version  in this electric blue color.

The Javelin was AMC’s answer to the lower-cost pony cars of the 1960s; yes, they joined the race too late, but the car was designed pretty much as a Mustang killer. To its credit as a respository for all things geeky, Wikipedia has a very good page on the Javelin, showing it in its many forms and styles.

The Czar enjoyed its long, long hood and its muscled-up fenders, as well as its slightly triangular nose. While the name Javelin was a little light in the marketing department, it could turn heads when it rumbled past. In the very early 1970s, someone in the area had one—the Czar remembers it because it was a stunning purple color with white stripes down the hood. Crazy.

The styles changed a bit over the years, but our favorite was this style, with the famous lime green and black cladding.

Additionally, lest we forget, the AMC AMX was a serious car. Arriving right in the Boss GT design days of the very early 1970s, the AMX was a V8 that won a boatload of design and performance awards, and AMC suddenly found itself a niche in drag racing. Imagine! The old Nash Rambler cutesy-poo small car company was getting head nods from Camaro, Mustang, and Challenger owners.

Of course, AMC screwed up the marketing and distribution of the car, and seeing one back in the day was a rare treat; today, they are ridiculously rare. Eventually, the AMX was cancelled and its design elements were merged into a new generation Javelin in 1971. Again, Wikipedia has about every flavor of the AMC AMX for you to look at.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.