Earlier this week, I had mentioned how living frugally and our general conservation of funds might have allowed for my family to take an extended road trip. When I was a teenager in the summer of 1990, my family went to Niagara Falls. Were there any shots taken of me with the falls in the background? Maybe, but I couldn’t find any. Any pics of the Maid of the Mist? If they exist, they didn’t end up with me.
I did, however, ask for a picture of me behind this 1973 (or ’74) AMC Javelin AMX in the lot at the park. It was a complete geek-out-freak-out moment while waiting in the queue for the boat ride for this car-hungry teen who was convinced that a Javelin of any year would some day grace my driveway. It’s still one of my dream cars. That day, this Javelin might as well have been a celebrity whose autograph I had just asked for and obtained. I was grinning from ear-to-ear for the rest of the day, probably unable to concentrate on anything else.
It’s incorrect to assume that the Javelin was the slowest-selling car of its type just because it came from little AMC. Ponycar sales were dying by the dawn of the ’70s, but in ’73, the Javelin sold about 27,500 units (including 4,980 AMXs) against 22,200 Plymouth Barracudas. Javelin sales ticked up to 29,500 units the next year, its last, against 11,700 Barracudas. Curiously, the same number of Javelin AMXs were sold in both 1973 and ’74. Only nine more ‘Cudas were sold for ’74 than Javelin AMXs. The sporty AMC clearly had its fans in its day, and still does. There’s also something to be said for crossing the finish line in anything other than in last place.
Niagara Falls, New York.
Summer 1990.
Click here for my expanded thoughts on the AMC Javelin.
Absolutely, for all the love the E body Barracuda gets today, they sold horribly when new. Or maybe the Javelin/AMX hit its target more accurately than most other AMC cars of the day.
I always liked these, though they suffered from the same kind of cheap hard plastic-itis that the Mopar E body cars were afflicted with. I know this because I got to spend a fair amount of time in the one that belonged to a friend’s mother – a bright red 72 AMX. They look better without that vinyl roof.
Agreed about the vinyl roof, but I will say this about it – I think it actually flows well with the lines of the car. One couldn’t say that about every fastback equipped with one.
For 73&74 with the full length treatment I agree the bare top works better but the 71-72s came with a unique roof stamping with a T top style indentation that only looked right with the vinyl roof option checked off to fill the space.
I always thought that this was one of the most “muscular” looking muscle cars, and although I lusted after a ’73 Barracuda (the deal fell through!) I ended up with a ’70 Charger, later followed by a ’74 Challenger. I can attest to the hard plastic door panels, etc., as I still own the Challenger, and the better appointed interior Charger! Never did get to own a Javelin though *SIGH*! 🙂
I think you hit the nail on the head – the 1971 – ’74 Javelin seemed like a very literal manifestation of the idea of a muscle car by having actual “muscles”. And it was tastefully done, to my eyes. A shame about its plasticky interior, but I think I could learn to live with one. I do like the way the dashboard curves around the driver similar to the concurrent Pontiac Grand Prix.
I agree with you.
A Javelin is a car to photograph and remember. My sister, who loves old cars, had one, but it wasn’t a clean example. Needed a lot more work than she could have given it. However, it was a great car to enjoy and repair, and repair, and repair. JP is correct too, the interior suffered from Mile High sun roasting, and the plastics were cooked and brittle. Consequently, there were many things in the Javelin that was difficult to replace. She sold it to another who wanted one.
Speaking of massive front end overhang, I mean – look at that! WOW.
Count me as another Javelin fan. Liked it since I saw it in childhood in a car book from the public library. I can’t remember see one in real life. Fun fact: these were buildt in Germany by Karman for a couple of years.
I loved the first Javelins, and after getting used to the shortened wheelbase, the original AMX. But sorry, I’m not a fan of the bloated restyle. Right down their with the ‘71-73 Mustang. It would have made a fine Matador, but not a Javelin.
It’s a great picture and speaks well of your unselfconscious that you’d take it with a tour group passing by! The car itself has a glorious MadMaxian patina to it, or maybe it’s just the lighting…some here will be trying to figure out the options on the Sable behind you!
Thanks, Jim. I was actually pretty self-conscious as a teenager, but that I was comfortable being photographed with this Javelin in front of all those people speaks to how much I loved the Javelin.
I still have that Nelson Mandela t-shirt I was wearing in this picture in my stack of t-shirts. I had ridden a bus that summer from Flint to Detroit with other people from University of Michigan to the old Detroit Tigers stadium to see Mr. Mandela speak. He didn’t show for some reason, but I remember Winnie Mandela speaking. And the bus breaking down on the freeway on the drive back to Flint.
About the Sable, one of the first things I looked for was the special heated windshield! That seemed like such high-tech stuff back then.
Wow, you saw Mandela in 1990?! Very cool. I was trying to figure out what that T-shirt was of, thanks for explaining it! When I was your age we were still spinning The Specials’ “Free Nelson Mandela” – which still holds up as a great song and did a lot to publicize his plight/fight.
https://youtu.be/AgcTvoWjZJU
There still is (or was) an AMX around these parts… I took this shot in 2017 by Phyllis’ July 4th block party on Division St.
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Great shot of one of my favorite angles on the Javelin. Not a bad line on it.
And thanks to you, I now have some reading to do about Phyllis’s Musical Inn! Looks like a really great place. Now that I don’t drink anymore, the only lounge that’s still on my radar to go to (for now, anyway) is the Green Mill Jazz Cocktail Lounge in Uptown. I’d pay a cover just to listen to all that great live jazz and sip on a soda water with a splash of cranberry and a lime wedge. (With a big tip.)
Oh man do I have some stories about Green Mill. Had a friend who worked there so I’d take the L up after hours and end up hanging out there late nights with her and the house band.
If you ever want to go to Phyllis’ let me know, I live over here and I’ll even buy your water and cranberry 🙂
Definitely – sounds like a great plan!
I like Jim’s Mad Max reference above. It speaks to my best friend’s favorite movie at the time, as well as his car, a bright orange 1974 Javelin that he fixed up. He even installed a Pierre Cardin interior out of a junk yard example.
At the time, he and I knew nothing of Australian cars, but we both thought that the hero car in Mad Max was some sort of Javelin. Turns out is was an Aussie Falcon. I don’t know, but I think for a couple of teenagers at the time, one could see how we could easily mistake an Aussie Falcon for a Javelin. See the picture below…
Anyway, I’ll be a contrarian here and say I like the second generation Javelins better than the first (perhaps biased as my friend and I had many good times in his Javelin), but he always liked the first gen AMX the best, despite owning a second gen Javelin.
Seeing a beautiful bright green first gen AMX at a car show before the pandemic though has soften my stance on the first generation cars, to the point I like them now (almost) as much.
RS Rick, I remember reading about your friend’s Javelin with the Cardin interior swap. I think that was pretty genius. Every time I see a picture of one of those interiors, I think I would buy a vintage jacket that looked like that and wear it on weekends.
The XB Falcon is definitely giving me Javelin vibes – almost like a Javelin crossed with a ’71 Mustang Mach I Sportsroof.
I honestly don’t know that I’ve observed a clear preference for one generation of Javelin over the other. Opinion seems to be pretty evenly divided, except for AMC fans of all of them (like me).
I was watching an episode of “CHiPs” on DVD last weekend where a ’68 or ’69 Javelin was in one of those staged wrecks, and I was like, “Noooooo!!! What a waste!” I’m that guy who shouts at his TV from time to time.
How can anybody watch CHiPs and not have a drink?
In reality, you’d never mistake one for the other. For mine, the XA and XB’s are vastly better looking, and, by way of comparison, have virtually no front overhang!
However, I can see a good case for the AMX being the better-looker: it’s got a bit of ’70’s Ghandini-esqueness about it, something muscled-up and a touch flamboyant-exotic.
I believe that Chrysler E body production didn’t make it until the end of the ’74 model year, coming to a stop in March or so. If the Javelin continued to be manufactured until the summer of ’74 that may account for the AMC’s higher numbers.
Bob, this absolutely makes sense. Thanks for pointing this out!
A ’74 should have bigger black rubber bumpers than a ’73. These look too small for 5 mph protection. It’s odd that some cars avoided having monster full-width bumpers, at least in the first few years.
I had a plastic model of this generation Javelin that ended up hot pink. Now I can’t remember what the original color was, but I don’t think it was pink.
I looked at pictures of both the ’73 and ’74 Javelins from the rear, and I honestly can’t tell the difference in either the size or placement of the rubber bumper guards between the two years. In any case, no ’74 Javelin I’ve seen looks like it could withstand a 5 mph rear collision with minimal damage. AMC / the Javelin might have been exempt from that requirement like the Chrysler E-Bodies due to low production, or something. I’m not entirely sure.
It’s weird to think about with how iconic the E bodies are but there are more the LX Challengers by huge numbers on the streets now than there ever were back then.
These are real love/hate designs, and I used to fall into the hate camp but I’ve completely reversed track to the love side. The 68-70s were very clean and tidy, sure, but they’re borderline anonymous unless you spec them in some lurid paint color with the go pak stripe/scoops that frankly clutter them. The 71s bulging hips and front fenders are really unique, and while many are calling them bloated, the body structure of these is exactly the same as the 1968-70s, the doors, trunklid and rear bumper are even carried over. This 73 is as boring in color as it gets – silver and white, but it manages to stand out a mile! I will say though these second gen Javelins have the same issue second gen Firebirds have, they NEED that ducktail spoiler to look right.
Matt, you make a great point that the in-the-moment Challenger of today is way more popular than its 1970s counterpart. They were not everywhere then the way they are now.
I remember reading about how so many of the parts between the first Javelins and the second ones were interchangeable, and my thought was that the AMC engineers had really done it again – a great job on limited resources to make the second car seem so much different than the first one.
And regarding the rear spoiler, I’d have to agree. The latter-day Javelins need that ducktail spoiler visually the way later ’80s Mustang hatchbacks need them (even if they did incorporate the CHMSL).
There are so many fewer competitors to it as well nowadays if it has to be a coupe, but the LX Challenger is an excellent car in its own right. Very usable, roomy, and a tremendous value – all with comparatively decent visibility, a ginormous amount of versions and engines from mild to wild and even optional AWD to take away the winter argument.
Never a fan of this generation of Javelin/AMX.
I remember my friends and I used to mock the styling. Perhaps because it was a little too “out there” and why the cars didn’t sell very well. But then by the early seventies muscle cars were out and us young Boomers thought compact cars were “cool.”
Joseph on another note, you’ve reminded me how much as a kid I used to enjoy seeing American Pontiacs and Dodges when travelling through the US on vacation. Wide-Trac Pontiacs we wouldn’t get for a few years in the sixties. Great memories!
The Javelin outsold the Barracuda every year except 1970. For 1971-’74, the second gen Javelin outsold the Challenger by about 9,000 units total. The Javelin and Challenger had very similar production numbers in 1971, ’72 and ’73; in ’74 the Javelin led by about 11,000 (E-body production ended in March).
Stumack, thank you for compiling and providing these statistics. I knew the Javelin had been a strong seller out of the gate for inaugural ’68 (over 56,000 units), but had no idea it had outsold the ponies in the Chrysler stable with that kind of frequency. (I also really love the 2nd-gen Barracuda fastback coupes.)
I reckon I’m with you on the Javelin – I’ve always had a thing for the underdog; I’m a Rootes fan after all and isn’t modern Alfa a bit of an underdog to the Germans now?
I suggest your Javelin (or Marlin) would look good alongside my Rapier!
Roger, I’d have to find a first generation Plymouth Barracuda to park next to your Rapier, so we could ask passersby at the car show which car came first! That would be a hoot.
One of my classmates got a new ’73 Javelin during senior year of high school. He had to share it with his younger brother, I wonder how that turned out!
Man, Jose, I can only imagine. I fought with my younger brother enough without things like a beautiful, new ’73 Javelin in the driveway to complicate things.
As a little kid I had that green Matchbox Javelin with the weird black hood “scoop/bump”. It was one of my favorite toys. Then one day I saw the real car and thought something like “That’s an actual car?” It looked so bizarre to me.
Still kind of does. But I like it.
Make mine all black please.
“Lad! I say, LAD! Turn around, for gawd’s sake, will you, that’s the Niagra Falls behind you!”
I love this tale Mr D, as it’s awfully familiar. Immediately, I have flashes of a long and very beautiful day-long hike in the bush when I was a kid, all the while distracted by the idea that that Jaguar XK-150 mightn’t be still in the carpark on our return (it wasn’t). Such is the absurd nature of the car disease.
By dint of a complicated and odd (but slightly boring) history, a small number of most year AMX’s were assembled in RHD way down here in Melbourne, Oz, about four or so crow-miles from right where I am as I write this, so I’ve seen them in the flesh. In a little twist you might like, they were rather pricey (and obviously rare) birds here when new, so there’d definitely be photos in albums from then of kids my age grinning proudly next one somewhere.
Probably of some kid who’s meant to be looking at the Sydney Opera House behind them.
This is great. I remember reading about how the knock-down kit assembled Javelins in other markets (I think it was the Rambler Javelin in Mexico, and maybe even in other countries) being on the expensive side.
I remember reading that the heavily sculpted front and rear side sheetmetal was intended to evoke the C3 Corvette, but the ’71 Javelin never gave me that impression. It looked, to me, like the best of the muscle-car and ponycar worlds, and in my mind, was “redemption” for AMC of having been capable of designing truly thrilling automobiles.
Never much of a 2nd gen Javelin fan, but what’s really interesting are the grilles of the non-AMX cars. For 1971-72, the grille looked remarkably like the 1969-70 Shelby Mustang. Then, for the last two years, AMC moved the turn signals up into the grille and it looked more like a 1971-73 Mustang Mach 1, but without the Mustang ‘corral’ or horse emblem and lower valance turn signals (AMC just left the holes empty).