AMC Matador In NASCAR

[Eagle Kammback]

[Brootal]

I never really liked those cars, but seeing them set up like that, they look KILLER!

[Route 66 Rambler]

It's the only way to make 'em look right...  a tad of rake to the stance, and stuff 'em fulla "tyres".

With NASCAR in my neighborhood this weekend, I always remember Penske/Donohue.  I'd like to make a clone of that car, except as a four-seater, and use it for a cab to run fans up to the track, on open headers.

Penske and Donohue were a genuine threat in NASCAR, and were recognized as exactly that.  Keep in mind that the SS/AMX's, Trans Am wins, record books re-written, etc. were fresh in people's minds at this time.  Wally Booth was busy becoming the first guy under 8 seconds, in a Gremlin, then becoming the first under 7, with a Hornet.  Maskin & Kanners was the twin threat alongside Booth, and they faced off in the finals one season.  TWO record-setting AMC Hornets on the line at the same time.  Team Highball was out dicing it up with the best in the world on the SCCA tracks.

There was no telling what was going to happen to the regulars in your sanctioning body, once the Ramblers came to town. There are many stories of their trials in NASCAR.  They were running 360's against big blocks, and sometimes winning.

Their first win was towards the end of '72, Mark Donohue at Riverside.  The NASCAR regulars couldn't drive any better on a road course then, than they do now.  He smoked the ridge runners badly.

Penske used Donohue as a pit crew member, and ran disk brakes, which was NOT done in those days.  Donohue drove with both feet, gas and brake, and he was an incredible, uncatchable distance ahead, when he pitted to change brake pads.  They took a very long time, actual minutes to accomplish the pad change, and were in dead last when he pulled out...

He still caught and lapped the field.  1972, now.  This was the old, Rebel-shaped Matador, the Flying Brick!  They ran that body style for a little longer, through '73, and a few more wins.

When the new aero coupe body came in, they were actually competitive, and something had to be done by the Frances.  There are stories of restrictor plates, AMC cheating with illegal heads, Penske/Donohue trying to certify an aerodynamic front end package, sort of like a Dodge Daytona or Plymouth Superbird, which was bungled by both sides from start to finish.  There were ALWAYS spoiler and weight questions, and the arguments to go along with them. Suffice it to say, this was a VERY well-inspected car. It was more like a boxing match than a racing affiliation.
mike

[Route 66 Rambler]

As a small side note, I believe the blue/yellow car at the top is in a different league than NASCAR.  I think that's possibly Jocko Maggiacomo driving in ARCA.

[AMX]

I was wondering about the later style filled quarter windows in the first and last photos. Wasn't that done with a padded vinyl top, maybe even Barcelona II only? I wonder if they painted over vinyl tops for these race cars?

[Brootal]

Good info Route66.

How's it go?...

If you ain't cheatin'
You ain't competin'

 

[Route 66 Rambler]

It's one of those things like the Super Stock AMX drag cars, with too much information, most of it not good.  Good information stretched out of shape, etc.  Missing information filled in by legend. One story has it the opera windows were brought in to improve aerodynamics legally on the track version.  Virtually the entire shape of the car is intended for NASCAR Grand National use.  It doesn't really strike you as the usual AMC sleeker, lighter, smaller, nimble look for the street.

If you've ever taken apart an opera-window car, they are very crudely done, with riveted sheetmetal covering most of the original window, then a stencil is cut out of the middle of the sheetmetal.  At least ALL of the GM's and Fords I have done were like that.  If it's the same with an AMC, they probably just cut the sheetmetal down past the rivets, welded the panels in, and ground to smooth it.  If you look at the Maggiacomo ride at top, there is also a beveled insert in the opera window, that's not in place on the Penske machine at the fence on the bottom.  It's bare sheetmetal on the roofs. The vinyl padded roof material would never survive these races.  This was when NASCAR really began to mature, and speeds in the 170's-190's were just as common then as they are today.

The chief difference being, that these were true stock bodies that mostly started with delivery at a dealership, not tube-chassis formula cars with plastic skins.
mike

[Brootal]

Why is it that they didn't/don't run side glass? You would think that would stuff with the aero characteristics drastically.

Or is it just that those good ol' boys need to be able to hang their arm out the window and spit the chewing tobacco out?

[IowaEagle]

Probably for safety.   Though your reasons might have merit.

[Route 66 Rambler]

I think it's just a backwards-thinking safety idea.  They crash so often, they need to be extracted quickly to move the race along.  Less debris and car damage, and hopefully, less stuff to cut or crush a human, either the driver, or track officials and recovery crew.  Just like a demolition derby.

They run 43 cars, so it's sort of like a 4 or 5 class event at a lot of SCCA or FIA races, traffic-wise.  And of course, once you're below that top 10 on the drivers list, the skill level drops off drastically.  You're right about the aerodynamics.  Closed GT cars at LeMans etc. can hit 230 plus.
mike

[mramc]

I remember talking to one of the salesman at AMC dealer back in the day. Seems the bigger
rear window acted like an air brake, so AMC did the special opera window treatment to correct the problem(in NASCAR). The salesman told me some out side company did a lot of the rear window treatments for AMC and AMC made it a special optional package. The workmanship was not the best and all the cars converted had vinyl roofs to cover up the sloppy workmanship that the out side company did. I'm not sure what they did on the latter cars .
I may have a press kit on the opera windows some where. I'd have to look it up. It's kind of funny in a way as AMC raced the Matador D/L which had the opera window and not the Matador X which did not have the opera window.As I recall the original conversion was some like $1700  or $700 (?) cost per car for AMC and they could not get any where near that for the opera window styling treatment, so they lost money probably ever car with that window they made. LRDaum

[IowaEagle]

Interesting. 

[Route 66 Rambler]

I took apart one of those 80's Hurst Olds cars.  They didn't even remove the glass for those 1/4 windows at the factory.  This car in particular, the sheetmetal cover for the 1/4 glass didn't even cover the whole window.  The top front corners and bottom rear corners weren't even covered, except by the padded roof material.  The opera window itself is just a plastic or metal frame that basically lays right on top of the glass surface.  It looks like a porthole-type window, like an airliner, but it's really just a frame laying on top, with the rest of the window blanked out, by interior and exterior metal sheets, and whatever trim, liky vinyl roof on outside, and headliner-type material on inside.
mike.

[GT360]

This is possibly the first picture ever taken of the AMC NASCAR Matador on the track.

[Route 66 Rambler]

Outstanding contribution, there, GT!  I used to eat this stuff up in the magazines, all the test photos of racers and factory prototypes.  In between Cottonwood, Arizona, where I grew up(about 12 miles south of Sedona), and Prescott to the west, stands Mingus Mountain, about 9600 ft. The road reaches around 8200 feet topping out, and it's typical Western tight winding switchbacks all the way up and over the mountain, then about 15 miles of arrow-straight road into Prescott.

There are a number of climbs like that in that area, and the automakers all have proving grounds in the Phoenix area.  We used to see test rigs with all that canvas and fiberglass hanging off 'em, just like the spy photos.  One of the guys in my National Guard unit was a test driver for GM, and he would actually work both jobs at once by driving the car up to Flagstaff for drills, complete with test robot in the passenger seat and all those huge cabinets of testing equipment all over everything, and filling up the back seat etc.  He figured he could trust his Guard buddies, and GM figured so too, because they let him take them.

In Cottonwood, there was a pizza place right across the street from my house, with a '69 BBO Javelin SST 390, and a 1970 dark green Javelin SST 390 in my driveway at the time.  These Jaguar guys always stopped and ate at that place, they used to look at my cars, let me look at the Jags, which looked a lot like SAABs with all that crap on them.  Their drivers were almost exclusively from Europe.  When we saw each other on the road, they would challenge me all the time, when I would be driving to Prescott to see family or friends, National Guard business etc., and it was a hair-raising time up there on that hill, there are things I did then, that I would never dare to repeat as a grown man.  We were ALL idiots.  But that was before Arizona exploded with people, and most of the roads had hardly any  traffic back then.  That Corvette commercial where they showed the car leaving the ground on a hard curve in the pines, was filmed on Mingus Mountain.

Quite a rambling thought from just a magazine picture.  I just really, really liked spy photos, sometimes we would see the cars later.

Not a NASCAR story, I guess, but the spy photo is really cool.  It's going into the RustBucket.   
-mike

[Brootal]

Check this out. Just saw it on the weekend and thought it was very cool. Car was originally green, so that's why he went with this particular colour scheme. We chatted briefly and he knew about the whole R/W/B thing, but thought it would be too much for a street car.

I reckon it's pretty cool.

[Route 66 Rambler]

That is pretty cool.  Very nice looking Rambler Matador.  Did you get the year of the car?  I couldn't tell until the last picture that the car is Right Hand Drive.  The car itself appears to be taken care of very well...

[ramblinfsj]

OK, that is the coolest Matador I've ever seen! The paint scheme is awesome and it even has my favorite beverage on the side. The rear of the car reminded me of a Ford GT 40 for some reason. Does the guy road race the car?

[Brootal]

That is pretty cool.  Very nice looking Rambler Matador.  Did you get the year of the car?  I couldn't tell until the last picture that the car is Right Hand Drive.  The car itself appears to be taken care of very well...

Pretty sure he said the first time it was registered was '76, but it has some '74 bits on it. It's just had a fresh paint job, so that's why it looks so nice.

ramblinfsj - I think the deleted bumpers really help the looks of the car, really tidies up the design. It's just a street car, definitely no racer.

[Route 66 Rambler]

Yeah, bumpers get in the way of a lot of AMC body styles.  Gremlins look really good with no bumpers.

[IowaEagle]

Was the front valance chromed?  It looks kind of Javelin?AMX ish that way.