MY 1976 AMC HORNET SPORTABOUT As we all know there is a large measure of serendipity involved in what cars we like and buy. There’s always the “it-followed me home” or the car just “called” out to me antique car war stories told over cocktails, here’s mine. I suppose that there’s great opportunity for psychobabble as you analyze a car-guy who admires the cars that failed in the automobile marketplace. I have to plead guilty to liking the quirky and unusual, having owned Hudson’s, Hillmans, Austin Healy’s and Studebaker’s in my checkered past but never a Nash or AMC. My Studebaker buddy in Rochester also has a 62 AMC that really caught my fancy as just a fun little tour car. It was a great size for today’s driving and fit my hankering for the unusual, a why be normal kinda thought process but alas he also liked it just as much so it was not for sale. https://www.flickr.com/photos/128390987@N02/15090084644/player/ At our local Club’s annual show in August I got a line on a 60 Rambler described as needing nothing. I followed the lead up and with my Buddy trekked out to a house right on the lake at about 9 o’clock in the morning. As it often happens; the old car’s description I was given happened to be considerably off the mark. The seller was on his second glass of wine (it was after all, 9 AM) and seemed to not own any shoes as he showed the car between deep sips of red wine. The “rebuilt” engine made enough noise as to be scary, paint was rattle-can quality, the headliner was in the trunk and at 35MPH I wasn’t big enough to hold onto the shaking steering wheel; our still sipping seller did say that if I just kept accelerating to 65 or so it would smooth right out. Such are the many and varied meanings of “fully restored.” A month after that disaster I was at the Carlisle Fall, Car show for a few days with my Son in-law and kinda stumbled onto yet another old car for my little fleet. I’ve had it in my head for a while, that I would like a nice, old car to drive on rainy days in Rochester. It is a fact that I greatly enjoy cars of a certain age more than the modern jelly-bean cars, devoid of any personality, that are being produced today. The problem is that convertibles just aren’t fun on lousy days hence my need for a “lousy day” car. Yes, I know that in economics there’s a great difference between wants and needs but honestly, I just don’t care. The “new” old car I found is a 1976 AMC Hornet Sportabout. It has an automatic tranny and sports the old Nash “big” six engine. I like to call it an early SUV; you know, like the Danny Divito of SUVs. Maybe it’s a testosterone thing or perhaps it’s the “Soccer Mom” stigma, but the term station wagon has seemed to become passé in this country. As I see it the modern day “crossover” has taken the place of the old fashioned mom & pop kid and everything else hauler, station wagon of yesteryear. https://www.flickr.com/photos/128390987@N02/15090084644/player/ Call it an evolution process in the vehicular galaxy of classification reminiscent of the confusion that goes with the words “classic” or “restored”. Whatever it may be, the all-American station wagon has evolved and adopted new names like Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) and of course the very newest trendy term would be “crossover” SUV. The very popular new Crossover cars are a combination of both car and truck. By losing the absolute “truckiness” of a work utility vehicle while adding a large measure of usefulness and comfort in a package that you can actually be over five feet tall and fit in without having to fold into a pretzel as you squeeze behind the wheel; they now dominate the automotive Market. We all know that AMC like all of the little, independent car companies (think Studebaker) continually sought “safe” market niches to hide in before inevitably being big footed by the “big three” if their new offering happened to became successful; it was thus how the little Rambler begot the Falcon, Lark and Corvair as soon as it sold enough vehicles to be noticed. The little Hornet Sportabout was an attempt by AMC to market a small, fully equipped little “utilitarian” car while dancing around directly calling it a station wagon. The 1984 Jeep Cherokee was perhaps the vehicle that ignited the movement to smaller utility vehicles that then morphed into the popular “Crossover” SUVs of today but the Sportabout was an early pass at this new market opportunity. These utilitarian yet strangely sporty cars formed an entirely new vehicle class that was very different than the behemoth Country Squires or Suburban’s of the time. So it came to pass that AMC marketed the little Sportabout in an attempt to develop a market for a small, utilitarian vehicle running very counter to the huge cars it competed with. The new, old car I found is an extremely low mileage car with original paint that’s very close to perfect and an interior like it just left the dealer’s showroom, honestly there is nothing that the car needs. I bought it off an old Gentleman from Georgia who in conversation discovered that I drive right past his place on our annual Florida migration; he wants me to drop in and he’ll let me taste some of his homemade Bourbon. He wanted it to go to a “good” home and I guess a Yankee (me) qualified, BTW, a great guy. The Chrome is as new, there’s zero rust anywhere and everything on the car works. All this and I’m only the third owner and the only one not “family”. I’ll need help identifying who made the Ignition system and other components. I normally like to do a very slow “getting to know you” regimen on my old car finds that usually starts with rides around the block and then over a few weeks you go just a little bit farther every day as you discover, fix and tweak the many questionable things that happen over the years to old cars often repaired by a past owner’s brother in-law, the ever-present “Repairs by Bubba”. On this car I decided to drive it rather than have it shipped home; that decision instantly committed me to a high speed run on the interstates starting with the wackiest roads I’ve ever driven on (route I-81 & I-83 through Harrisburg at rush hour) both of which are always chock full of trailer trucks driving at high speed and people desperate to merge from entrance ramps shorter than my driveway. I was lucky, the drive home proved completely uneventful and my new little Hornet ran like a new car at 75+ MPH while delivering 22 MPG. It’s tight, quiet and tracks straight proving once again that luck always triumphs over smarts and skill. The decision to drive an “unknown” vehicle home on the interstates was very reckless on my part. All in all I think I blundered into an unusual little car that’ll be a bunch of fun to drive and tour with. The best part was when “wifey” said it was cute and she liked it; we’re all familiar with the “happy-Wife” thing aren’t we? See you down the road, Murray