canadiancatgreen found, shot and posted this rusty Concord resting somewhere in the cold Canadian winter. I saw an Eagle just yesterday, but have not seen a Concord in a while. Have you?
More on the Concord:
Classic Curbside Classic: 1981 AMC Concord – The Underdog Learns One More New Trick
This is one car I wish I would have paid more attention to back when there were still nice, lightly used older examples around. But then that was when old Chrysler A bodies were around too, and in bigger numbers.
A friend’s older brother got a used one in the early 80s, but I never got a chance to drive it. The only thing that really bothered me about the early ones was the way AMC made the rear license plate the styling focal point for the rear of the car.
I would image this is a winter beater based on the tires, but I think its past its prime. Not sure how corroded the underbody is. Good for parts, but not much else.
Based on the basket ball goal, the kids in the neighborhood will be glad to see it go!!
First family car I remember was a 1950 NASH AMBASSADOR! Great automobile! Unfortunately George Mason’s plan to combine Nash, Hudson. Studebaker,and Packard did not materialize. Subsequent AMC Rambler Ambassadors, Classics, and Americans gave some decent time. But last attempts were not great! Have to give credit for trying to make proverbial silk purse from a sows ear. Gremlin, Hornet, and Pacers could not cut it. CONCORD was probably the best attempt before terrible merger resulting in sad end for a once ahead of it’s time great auto manufacturer.😎
My Mom had one. I wish you could still buy cars like this. 4.0 liter torquey bulletproof engine, 3.23 rear end gear, fast ratio rack and pinion steering, light weight. AMC parts pickers always picked upline parts from other mfrs.
I had one of these for a while in 1989 or 1990. Mine was a 1983 and it was a good running and driving car. 1983 was their last year. The body looked nice and I remember the early 1980s ads for the factory Ziebart rustproofing. They were advertised as “The Tough Americans.” This was around 1981 or so. I liked the seats of the Concord and wasn’t tired after driving it on a long trip. The Maine winters took their toll on the underbody of the car. Mine needed a new transmission support. The one I had was a low mileage car. I always liked the styling of the car and the 6 cylinder just loafed along at highway speeds. One of these would be fun with a Jeep Cherokee 4.0 Liter transplant under the hood. The Hornet/Concord body lasted until 1988 as the AMC Eagle. From 1970 to 1988. Not a bad run for a car. These cars were pretty much bulletproof with the 6 cylinder. A lot of people didn’t purchase them in the late 1970s and 1980s because they didn’t think AMC would survive. Also front wheel drive was the “new thing.” The Concord seemed dated compared to the GM X Cars and K Cars of Chrysler. They did sell quite a few of them, though. Older buyers liked them. I miss the one I had and sold it for $600.
Those were horrible cars to work on. i worked at a transmission shop and everyone would cringe when one would come in. They had the inline six and a chrysler 904 trans with a jeep transfer case shoehorned into it. The trans hump was so big they had no leg room.. No room underneath to get at anything having to do with transmission work. We would joke that cutting acces holes in the floor would be a good idea. I think the 4wd was the only thing that sold these cars. I saw a station wagon one the other day with collector plates and had a chuckle
This is the RWD Concord. Not the four wheel drive Eagle.
If introduced a year or two earlier, during the start of the domestic luxury compact era, the Concord would have sold a lot better. A legitimate alternative to the Granada, Volare, or Nova.
I’m fairly sure AMC hand-cut the rear quarter windows into the 1980-up Concord and Eagle sedans on the production line. One clue is that the padded vinyl roof was standard on consumer-retail cars, and the ones built without it for fleets had the old 4-light Hornet sedan look.
It’s a shame they couldn’t afford to tool it properly, the extra windows brightened and lightened the car up considerably and offering them without the vinyl toupee would’ve very effectively brought it into the mid ’80s visually (at first glance it’s a Taurus! Well not quite…)
“AMC hand-cut the rear quarter windows”
I’m not saying you’re wrong but can we verify this? Cutting the window into a pressed panel and forming the necessary flange at the same time sounds possible, if the volume was pretty low, but by hand?
In fact, I have seen a Concord recently. There is an abandoned used car lot just outside of town that has a Concord, Porsche 928, Subaru SVX, and a few other gems including a Crosley in pieces and under a cover. I’ve often thought of finding out who owns the property and seeing if I can rescue some of the old metal, but I never have, and I suspect the cars are not long for the world. I haven’t been that way in a while do they may actually be gone by now.
Here’s a screencap:
Looks like Cumberland Co. has a GIS website, if you go look, it tells you who owns the property.
Looks like the GIS is pretty stripped down for that county, as it only gives ownership, but not contact info. My local one gives owners home address, and rarely has the phone number.
Also, as far as Eagles go, there are dozens of us, DOZENS! trying to keep them on the road. I’ve got an ’82 SX4 that I am rescuing from the scrapyard.
The last Concord I saw, almost exactly eleven years ago to the day:
I still see them scattered here and there through rural northern illinois and Wisconsin, usually in varying states of decay and long time non use.
I’m still impressed by the body design, no early 70s body but the Hornet could have fit in so seamlessly in with the “sheer look” that reigned dominant in late 70s and early 80s sedans, Concords and Eagles with little more than a facelift containing square quad headlights looked totally contemporary among the likes of Fairmonts, and Omnirisons.
I think they got it right with the quad headlamp front end in 1979, and the rear update on the Concord/Eagle sedan and wagon for 1980. Having been hauled home from the hospital in a 1978 Concord the day I was born, I was too young to compare these cars when they were first hitting showrooms, but they have always been one of my favorite styled cars of this era. The combination of contemporary squared off elements with many of the curves of the original Hornet strikes a happy line between old school and the extreme boxiness of the Fairmont, early K-Car, and most everything GM styled to lunch off the 1976 Seville. 1981-87 GM trucks also have the same effect on me, being an AMC level refresh of the 1973-80 models (I’ve owned a 1986 for 22 years). Seeing weather conditions where Eagles, Jeeps, 4×4 trucks, and Subarus were the only thing that was moving, probably reinforced my opinions.
A 1979 Spirit GT liftback with a 304 and manual transmission could possibly be my first choice if I were shopping for a new car in this era, while an Eagle SX/4 liftback would be my four wheel drive pick… or maybe a wagon if I needed to haul more than myself and a passenger.
Great point about the 80 taillight change, ironically basically going back to the original Hornet taillight panel shape made it look substantially more modern than the 78-79 rear end.
Haven’t seen one on the road in ages, this example looks quite a bit sadder than the one I owned, but that was thirty years ago
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1980-amc-concord-little-green-concord-you-dont-know-what-i-got/
I had no idea AMC switched to rack & pinion steering. Pretty advanced stuff for a small American car company.
The later Concords were never very common in my area, at least compared to the Eagle. They were sold at Korn Buick-Jeep-AMC in my northwest Montana hometown, and it seems like most people jumped on the 4wd version as soon as it became available. Even taking into consideration that Eagle technically outlasted Concord by five model years, the former was quite a hit, and revered for its abilities well into the next millennium (we didn’t start using road salt, or more specifically- magnesium chloride, until 2002, so most cars with a modicum of rust protection weren’t dead by their tenth birthdays).
The last Concord I specifically remember was a navy blue 1983 wagon that came from Malmstrom AFB, and had supposedly been used as a military ambulance. It had no rear seat(s), the small anodized aluminum American Motors hubcaps, and was in excellent condition when I last saw it in 1996. I was looking at buying it when I needed a car in late 1994, but I ended up buying a 1975 Renault 12 wagon… Weird choice, but it ended well.
“Freezing” after looking at the pic!! lol So bleak.
Saw a Concord several years ago, prior to that, it had probably been a decade or more since I’d seen one. Here it is on google street view.
Someone online said AMC dealers wanted to keep Concorde past ’83, to go against Panthers, Mopar M, and GM G RWD cars, but Renault said “sell the 18i sedan”. Didn’t quite work out.