Pedro Ramirez bought this yellow 1968 Javelin in 1978. Over thirty years later the AMX rolls as a time capsule of how a car owner would mod out a pony car ten years after it rolled off the assembly line. While the engine and mechanicals have been gone through a few times over the years, the car remains largely as it was purchased from a co-worker in late seventies. Pedro first saw the Javelin while working for Manuel’s Auto Body in Bakersfield, California. The car was driven into work everyday by one of the painters at the shop, and Pedro had his eye trained on the louver-backed four-speed Javelin from day one.
Every day the painter came to work in the AMX, Pedro told himself that he we wanted that four-speed. He loved the four-speed. Had to have that four-speed. The problem was that the car was owned by the painter’s wife. She had no desire to part with the Javelin. This didn’t stop Pedro from reminding the co-worker of his daily obsession with the AMX. One of those days 32 years ago, the Javelin rolled into Manuel’s, and the co-worker told Pedro that his wife wanted to sell the Javelin. He asked if Pedro wanted to buy it. The answer to the question was “Yes, finally!”
Pedro has held onto the AMC since that day. The Javelin now has a 401 AMC V8 mill in place of the original 343, but still packs the original four-speed transmission. Everything else on the car is as was in 1978 with the exception of a few engine mods added and subtracted along the way. A 750 Holley carburetor here. A bumpstick or two there. A hotter spark and some headers on top of that. Some upgrades made more horsepower. A few made less. With thirty something years of ownership Pedro couldn’t just leave the engine alone.
“Come on! 33 years! You have plenty of years to play with it”, said Pedro.
The Javelin had been sitting for about 15 to 19 years up to the point Pedro drove it out to Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield for the March Meet. The layer of seventies on top of the yellow and black paint scheme looked perfect among the sheen of surrounding street and hot rods. When we saw the car on a rainy Saturday down in the Grove at Famoso it was covered in a layer of plastic – not to protect the paint job from the raindrops, but to keep that same rain from removing a dusty patina nearly twenty years of sitting and thirty plus years of proud ownership in the making. Change isn’t always good.
Truly an amazing car. I sincerely hope it stays EXACTLY as it is in these photos.
Great car, great patina, but I think that trying to preserve the “vintage dirt” borders on the obsessive/compulsive, don’t you?
a car wash never hurt anyone….or maybe it did. Never knew a dust patina was so desirable!
I would think the plastic would be used to prevent the leaks that thing is bound to have by now.
The car pictured is NOT an AMX. It is a Javelin with some AMX parts (grille, taillight filler panel, 1970 AMX hood) added on to it. A true 1968-70 AMX ran on a 1 foot shorter wheelbase and was a true two seater. Only on the 1971-74 Javelins was the AMX downgraded to a mere package and not a separate model. Also, the SST package and AMX package could NEVER be ordered together any more than you could get a 68 Camaro that was both an SS and a Z-28. So, this is likely a 1968 Javelin SST with a rear spoiler from either a 1970 Mark Donahue Javelin or a 1971-74 Javelin added to it ( they are the same part as all Javelins shared a common trunk lid and I believe the doors and back bumper as well). I am only surprised that it lacks the Go Package roof spoiler from 1969, as this thing seems to use all the interesting body parts from the 1st gen Javelin and AMX!