When I spotted this Concord wagon posted at the Cohort by nifticus, I assumed it was an aftermarket or home-brew woody job. It just doesn’t work well, being so low, and so poorly integrated with the design, especially that front section. The clean Hornet-Concord just doesn’t lend itself well to this. But when I Googled “Concord Woody wagon”, I realized that this was a factory job.
Here it is, straight from Dick Teague’s studios.
The AWD Eagle wagon also got the woody treatment, but this one works much better, for what it’s worth.
I guess they just had to be different, for difference’s sake. The Concord got the short end of this wood stick.
I actually found this quite attractive. Faux or not, I thought it looked nice. 🙂
I like it too! Not your typical woodgrain treatment!
It looks like someone tried to hide a rough bondo job on rusted out doors an easier way than sanding it properly and paint, but then Ive never liked these plastic wood things a real woody yep they look great but these nar awful.
From the factory, that’s the way to go. Those wood panels are mostly there to cover the rust, as the rust barely shows up during normal lifespan of the vehicle ( 15-20yrs ) and many other cars used chrome at the time.
Nowadays nearly all companies use plastic. Look at the plastic rocker panels and wheel well moldings.
And yet, just yesterday (I am visiting Pennsylvania where the State Bug is the Tin Worm) I spotted a not-that-old Mercedes with rust bubbles in the metal above the rear lower quarter valence. At least on that one, all that happened was that the tin worm crawled higher up.
This is a BC Lower Mainland car for sure and that means there is a good, very good, possibility of ZERO rust on this car. For example, last winter we didn’t have one day of freezing weather. Because the climate is so mild, there is little road salt, and the roads tend to be smooth, since the aren’t cracking in the spring thaw.
Go to Vancouver Island. That is the best area for old cars I have ever seen, low kms and great condition.
Have a look at this:
http://victoria.craigslist.ca/cto/5294605639.html
http://victoria.craigslist.ca/cto/5255222874.html
Well, when the plastic stayed, it looks alright. It will be a great horror on the day it falls off.
It’s not as well done as the Eagle or earlier Hornet but not as bad as some that seem to follow the “more wood is better” approach. Take the ’80s Ford Escorts – IMO the lower edge of the woodgrain should’ve been at side molding level leaving it consistent across the whole car, rather than dropped super-low within the wheelbase.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/1981-Ford-Escort-Country-Squire-.jpg
I agree that the front and rear parts are a little awkward, but the “low wood” doesn’t really bother me. It might have been nicer had they taken the light trim up over the wheel openings to connect the sections (a la Olds Custom Cruiser) but then again, maybe they tried that and it looked worse.
I will also agree that the Eagle’s version looked better.
And it looks better than this.
Wow. There’s a model I wasn’t aware of! The front end is attractive, but they mated a woodgrain look with the high contrast graphics popular at the time, and came up with something a bit strange….
Even around the windows!
As far as “unusual dinoc” treatments go, those Monacos have always been among my favorites! This Concord…not so much.
My first thought is that maybe this was a cost-cutting measure. Looking at pictures of a ’72 Hornet Sportabout woody, the “wood” surrounds both the door handles and the side-marker lights, which I’d assume would take more care and precision to fit – a problem this Concord doesn’t have.
That said, I always liked the tail-panel of the ’78-only Concords.
I thought maybe that front section was carried over from the older Hornet which had a forward-leaning grille that would have meshed better with it. But no, Hornet wagons (’77 and earlier) had a different shape for its fake-wood trim.
I have to ponder what even the scant number of people buying AMC Concords in the early ’80s saw in this car that made them choose it over the newer alternatives. What gets me about the Hornet/Concord/Eagle wagon is that ridiculously high cargo area liftover – the hatch door only opens to the an inch above the taillights, not down to the bumper like every other wagon.
AMC employees and loyalists were buying the leftover designs, but were declining. When the Alliance came around, they sold well to AMC fans, for a short time.
Someone maybe went to look at an Eagle AWD and then said “too much for me”. “Well, we got a regular wagon on the lot ready to go”. Or someone older wanted a car with the “bugs worked out of it”?
la673
I don’t think AMC intended these to be compared to other wagons. By their own definition these weren’t originally wagons, but “Sportabouts”.
From its’ ’71 launch through ’75 the Hornet Sportabout’s only direct competitors were imports. The Pinto and Vega wagons were much smaller two-door cars with only four seats, the midsizes were scarcely smaller than full-size cars and some years the Sportabout outsold all other Hornets combined.
True, but the Concord Wagon dropped the ‘Sportabout’ term, and was maybe aimed at Volare and Fairmont wagons.
The Eagle definitely looks better. The Concord takes the Oldsmobile route of slathering the wood trim on the bottom (which I never cared for) but adds the sin of too prominent simulated ash moulding which chops it up visually.
It’s all personal preference, but for me this form of “wood” never works, and never did.
Without the smarter wheel trim and richer coloured paint of the brochure shot, the red car looks so dreary and down spec I assume it must have been an entry level car, possibly with optional “wood”. And for a wagon, that rear hatch appears toi have a very high lip
I agree. “How not to do wood” – don’t put it on anything post-1952! An exception can be made for cars where the wood was actually part of the structure, otherwise it is just a funny-coloured, excessively-weathering two-tone.
While this is different, I’m not sure I’d say it’s wrong. When a company uses the same body shell for more than 2 or 3 years, it can be difficult to keep customers interested.
That vinyl is protection for the rust prone areas.
I could go either way on this one. Yeah, not really as good-looking as a full side treatment (or even a little higher and better spaced, like on the the Eagle shown), but maybe it was a bit cheaper option, too. On a color that doesn’t contrast quite as much (like the brown in the brochure photo), I’d give it a pass, especially for someone who really wanted the Di-Noc treatment on an AMC budget. Frankly, it’s about on par with the grey plastic lower body cladding that was so de rigueur later on, which was mostly the provenance of Pontiac products.
What’s really noteworthy, as others have pointed out, is the high liftover height to get into the aft cargo area. This may have been another reason hatchbacks, in general, fell out of favor after a certain period of time.
Escort Country Squire. Now there is an oxymoron!
To quote Professor Fate:
“Up, Max! Up!” It looks like the trim just slid down to the bottom. The Eagle is much better looking (Never thought I’d use those words….)
The low wood panels remind me of how the young guys wear their pants nowadays.
AMC they tried, didn’t they? There was something about their reach exceeds grasp attitude that was charming, but I have to say that the Concord/ Eagle have to be some of the worst styled vehicles that I can think of. I never was a fan of the faux wood paneling (or any wood paneling, really), but somewhere between these and the Dodge Aspen’s faux wood makes one really grateful that it was a fad that had long died out.
If they had put Pacer R&D $ into a new generation Hornet/Gremlin, they’d have done OK. But they still had pressure from imports and Big 3.
Re Wood trim, it did last from the late 40’s well into the 80’s on wagons, so not really a ‘fad’.
Fwiw I don’t care for woodies when it’s the more modern fake type (DiNoc). This looks no better or worse than the rest to my eyes. AMC wagon (Hornet/Concord) means they have a winner afaik. I certainly would drive them. Please make mine a 258/auto.
I’m one of the weirdoes who likes the vinyl woodies. I think AMC did some of their best woodie work on these two in ’72 and ’73. Whether you like your wood on top
71 Ambassador, from the brochure
That green wagon is absolutely beautiful. I’ll have one in burgundy with the upper wood and the matching red interior.
What a looker!
. . . or on bottom, they had the one for you!
Okay, that’s just odd-looking. I like the upper treatment on the green car, but not this one!
Thought you all might enjoy this homemade fake woody. Found this on the LSU campus in 2006.
The wood on the bottom must have been a thing for a while. As I heard someone offer once, changing the trim is cheaper than changing the sheetmetal, and this was still in the era of changing styling for the sake of changing styling.
Liking that Pacer woody wagon a lot!
It looks dorky and it’s a wagon. I’LL TAKE IT!!!!!!!
Since it’s my favorite modern wagon body, I’ll definitely take it!
Years ago I had an Eagle wagon that looked identical to the one in the 3rd picture except for the “wire wheel” covers. Same brown color, same fake wood on the sides. I do prefer that treatment to the Concord’s. I suppose that AMC was trying to differentiate between models as best they could on a shoestring budget.
“… that Vinyl is for rust-prone areas …”
A non-breathable material applied to an outer, already painted surface, does little to protect the panels from anything except maybe road grime and mechanical abrasion. But it does help to trap moisture against the outer surface of the steel, allowing it to rust from both sides at once!
Without that vinyl, you only have to worry about the rust that works it’s way out from the non-protected, poorly painted and frequently moist inner-side of the body panels.
I think the paint color of the car makes a huge difference when there is pseudo-wood involved…bright red with wood looks silly blues don’t look good to me, white generally looks OK, beige looks OK, black can even be OK. Warm tones generally look better with wood.
Everybody here knows I am an AMC Concord fan – I had 3 of them in the early ’90s! AMC was trying to differentiate the new Concord from the old Hornet from which it sprang so they couldn’t just use the same wood graining pattern. I think it looks ok, but the wheels and tires just don’t do the first car any justice. Compare the second pic with the whitewalls and the rally-style wheels, and I think that looks much better. Also the wood tends to look better on browns and beiges or darker reds like the Pacer pictured above.
I guess when Eagle came out AMC figured 3 model years was enough in between them and Hornet and so reverted back to pretty much the same wood grain pattern used before Concord came out, again desperately trying to make the new 4WD line look different. AMC did a lot of things wrong back then but the Concord was definitely an improvement over Hornet, and Eagle set new standards for what a 4WD vehicle could be.
This is an example of how the details can ruin a good basic shape. I’ve always liked the rakish looks of these Sportabouts, from the first Hornets to the last Eagles. But the featured car? Vertical bar grille? Nope. Doesn’t mesh well with the curves of the rest of the design. Strange wood placement? Nope. Extremely basic wheel covers? Nope. Not with the wood trim, anyway. Hood ornament? Nope. Not with those wheel covers.
It also occurs to me how much cleaner the rear view of this design got when they went to the wraparound taillights/indicators. These inset units look like the early 70’s relics they are.