1970 AMC Javelin Mark Donohue Edition

a lot of power welcome to the episode of jay leno's garage this is another one of my street grabs you know that's where i'm driving around i see a car i'd love to have in the show and i tracked the owner down i saw this at auto books in burbank that's where everybody kind of congregates on saturday all the interesting cars show up this is a 1970 american motors javelin sst 390 with the four speed exactly as the typical enthusiast would order in the day for those that weren't satisfied with mustangs and camaros and barracudas this was the alternative and you don't see them anymore especially as nice as this one this is a nice original car there's not some pebble beach restoration this is just a well-kept well-maintained automobile it belongs to mark fletcher mark come on in i know you're a big american motors guy you've got a couple of these right yeah i have a few hidden that's away yeah and you have the 71 as well that's the hump fender one i do 72 uh same same design right with the 401 v8 in it this one is the purest to me i like this yeah this was dick teague's original design similar to the amx and really uh keeps a clean line you know the independents don't get a lot of credit the studebaker as well as american motors they built some fascinating cars the devante certainly in the studebaker and the lark and american motors since rambler was sort of the grocery getter car when they tried to change their image it's hard to do once people get something in their head that's why acura is really a honda but they change the name and that's why they do it and this i think was i think it's fair to say pretty close to the equal if not more so in some respects than some of the other pony cars are around correct it was this was the idea for trans am racing right and they had mark donahue that they stole from the chevy team right and brought them to the amc team and was very successful with the penske racing and he helped design the rear spoiler and they had to make 2501 of these by april in order to make the first race uh trans am race that season and this car was built april one of the last ones built and it says mark downey right on the table right on the spoiler yeah yeah that's that's pretty cool you know it's a good-looking car is it i think it's a big is it a longer wheelbase than a mustang uh actually very close very close yeah very close uh it's longer than the amx and that they had 12 inches so they could put a back seat in the javelin right they shortened it for the amx yes and it has the borgwarner t10 which is what yes camaro firebird whatever it has to use everybody used the t10 even mustangs that was a great great transmission yep yeah let's open the hood let's show that v8 this one has the ram air package like the amx at yeah and so that's what helped the horsepower rating it was only 315 the year before right raised it to 325 through some better breathing heads as well as the ram air yeah other than the new radiator yes aluminum radiator it appears to be 100 stock it is i bought it from the original owners and uh it had the original radiator when i got it and it over heated the first day i like driving this car right so i made it so it'll drive in southern california and why did it not catch on i mean i certainly think it's as attractive as well i mean it's i have beholder of course but i mean mustang barracuda challenger i don't think it was any less looking no it was a it had its own unique style they tried to keep with the single headlights when other people were going to four headlights in 70 and 71. but uh it's a original dictate design it's actually a rambler american right subframe underneath it's a unibody right and they started with that and they it's a little wider than the american and and longer but uh very basic rear-wheel drive four-speed and uh a great handling car and what did this cost out the door this one cost the original owner who i've spoken with i bought it from him a little over four thousand dollars well that was not that was not inexpensive no not in 1970 69 had inexpensive cards the three thousand dollar scramblers and the cto judge and the roadrunner by 70 if you wanted muscle you paid for muscle right because people always think over ambler was cheaper but it wasn't it was no they were incomparable they were a strong competitor by this time and what was the problem why did they go under was it just they couldn't get the steel or what well that's all the way into 1988 when chrysler bought them right right uh they were smart they bought a jeep in 1970 right and that carried them a long time uh they tried small cars like the pacer right yeah right with a six-cylinder of course originally a wankel design was the idea right uh they did extremely well with the pacer for three years but then didn't refresh it and it died out after 1978. and the gremlin sold uh a million over the period yeah gremlin people look at it with a smirk now but at the time my roommate had one he loved it and you could get it with the big v8 and speed yeah yeah so it was it was a fast car i didn't care for the logo the little looked like some lucky charms character well it was the cartoon period of the time road runner gremlin demon yeah but you've always been an american motors guy right yes in high school i started with a little rambler american i shared with two brothers and my second car was a 70 mark donahue javelin okay i actually restored it in high school in 75. so why this allegiance to american motors was because it was your first one is that what it was um well you either fall in love in your first car or with your first car no i see yeah and so i the memories of driving windows down beach boys playing right that every time i'm driving this car i'm 17 again but you have a pontiac shirt which is well i i have an all brand shirt there is there is a javelin there probably an all brand breakfast too okay oh there there's a jab like you have an amx yeah a cougar a coupe yeah all sorts of oh i see yeah yes i just thought you had to go away yeah i saw the pontiac there no well with with our book that we just came out with yeah we covered all the muscle cars of 16. it's a very good book tell the name of the book thank you the name of the book is maximum muscle i wrote it with a good friend of mine richard truesdale right he's a fantastic photographer so all the pictures are 95 or his but it covers 69 and a half muscle cars when they were just going crazy introducing the trans am the gto judge the rambler scrambler the six packs and 70 was really the last year of unfettered that's it after that insurance boom right you know dad came in shut everything down your kids go home insurance in california killed the car yeah you know that yeah right so emissions and this is a an actual ram air hood yes which you know i give them credit because so many people even corvette in the early it was not functional right but they they made it a functional hood they did they were serious they used the ford part to do it oh is that right i laugh but it has a vacuum component there so when you it closes it unless you step on it and loses vacuum and then it opens it up and it's similar to what the mustang was using on their shaker hood and so uh that happens to be one of the few parts that has a forward part oh very good very good and it's funny to think of it but this is truly an all-american-made automobile oh yes absolutely made in wisconsin made in wisconsin they're uh designed in detroit where they had all their corporate offices but uh they built them right in wisconsin did their engine assembly they were a little different than gm that had fisher building bodies right they had bud a company called buds oh champagne i know but the panels the doors and the fenders but they did all of their own assembly i know it is funny because even when you buy quote an american-made car now it still has a lot of japanese chinese or whatever it might be it's really a world car whereas this really was you go to kenosha and everybody worked at the factory i mean it was just how long did they run from when from 1910 the proximity they started as jeffries that's right yeah jeffrey's rambler right and then in 1954 they became american motors hudson nash rambler all combining and then of course it continued american motors with jeep coming in in 1970 and chrysler bought them and 87 88 was the last year of purdue production um but when chrysler came in they wanted jeep right so all of the amc stuff was literally thrown in the dumpsters and they stopped production and then they had the alliance with the renault back in the early that was not a successful car yeah it's too bad too because it you just like that stuff from like farmers you know you like that heartland sort of building idea and you know it's still a great looking car i bet when you show up at a car show it's the only one isn't it uh that's true if they've got an amc group yeah i know everybody that comes in but but otherwise instead of four camaros and three chevys and five mustangs right this is a unique car right but because it's an unrestored car this is not a trophy queen right it's got just enough of the nicks and blemishes that it gets overlooked unless there's a survivor class but that's that's fine with me i'm not collecting trophies i'm attracting smiles and how many miles you got on this 47 000. oh that's it and i'm the second owner yes wow wow all right let's open the trunk and see what you got in there to do that i'll grab the key okay and it came out of nebraska daring nebraska scott's bluff gearing right so this and he got these ridiculous super saver spare tire that isn't worth the weight it takes and space it takes a slate-able thing yeah this is why aaa exists right exactly nicely done right it's very pretty it's very pretty and what discs in the front drums in the back yeah they they have bendix four piston disc on the front very similar to what mustang was using at the time and again everybody in 1970 was nobody had four wheel discs so no corvette no so it really is not other than styling and perhaps not as many outlets as ford and chevy in terms of you know dealerships that's correct there's really no reason that this isn't in that same class and it did win trans am racist oh it did yes yeah yeah yeah uh well of course with mark donahue uh and penske behind it and what kind of horsepower were they getting out of this motor well when racing for for trans am there was a detuned 304 they had to be under 305 cubic inches right so and and horsepower ratings estimates back there are really tough but it would be easy to expect 400 horse for that period of time yeah which was saying something and of course the bf goodrich american tires no michelins ah no no that's funny it originally had the old bias plies that decide uh to lead you where it wants to go now this has uh roll-up windows but you get electric right uh this body no only in the ambassador and the rebel the the full-size car did they offer electric windows but you could get the eight-track oh yes yeah yeah now and this car came with its original am radio right and i was lucky enough to find an original eight track and some original speakers and they sound original yeah they aren't very good and wiring and so i've i've upgraded to that who do you have there on i think that's peter paul and mary today yeah normally it's the beach boys or the carpenters right right pretty mellow to me that's the funny thing is when i go to car shows and the beach boys are playing and anybody under 40 just runs away to them it's just noise they just you know it just makes me look like my father when they did when the beach wasn't played the first time you know but it's the period of time that we experience the beach boys more than the quality of the music and they're kind of the beach men at this yeah we saw them out in palm springs a few years back yeah yeah or one of them anyway well it's really great it's thank you and that's the original shift here it is i'm so glad it doesn't have you know the the the her shifter like everybody put in that is a hurst oh that it came from her oh it came with the fact that you're 69. they switched to her shifters over the um whichever the corporate one was right right and uh so this one is nice tight and feels well and what is this here the button yeah what it is is these cars like a lot of them in the 70s have a pinch horn what they call the rimblow wheel right right well those go bad right so the original owner up in gearing scottsbluff nebraska took it to his mechanic when the dealer had closed down right and said can you fix my horn oh sure oh that's that's for those yeah when he comes to pick it up the guys drilled holes in the perfect wheel and put this tractor horn button in there oh part of the i i have everything to fix this original yeah but it's part of the heritage of this oh i agree i think plus it's a great story yeah yeah yeah and this is this is probably one of the last cars when liam neeson is running from the police he can get in pull the two wires touch it and see oh yeah yeah that's the funniest thing when i watch movies now you'll see like a brand new audi you know all the high-tech and the guy gets in and there's a red one and a blue yeah and they do this and it starts with the guy i mean the audience what they're doing what's happening they must just go crazy it's hilarious well can we take it for a ride uh if you'll drive yeah i'd love to let's give it a shot cool cool is that thinking oh we should do like to do with the dealership oh yeah there you go yeah that has a dealer's name right on the outside oh the dealer's name right on here from wisconsin i believe yeah even even the floor mats are the ones that came with the car brand new wow stops right up of course it did the uh friend of mine's father had a jag in the 50s and every time he pressed the brake the brake would go right to the floor and press it again and it would stop yeah that's all my sunbeam tiger was yeah and he brought it to the dealer yeah and when he went to pick it up there's a red light there and he pressed the break it went to the floor on the red light and we're gonna make the other side when the red light comes out just hits a break again i mean that is hilarious yeah i like that so now reverse is way over and and uh oh yeah going forward there you go yeah so i've been driving a lot lately so have you driven many amc's not recently okay well it's as powerful as the mustang around the world anything with this amount of cubic energy yeah you know we're not talking hemi power right right but we're definitely talking that balance between performance back in the late 60s and 70s and drivability every day yeah so you could buy a car have fun with it have a family in it maybe a small family and uh and enjoy it every day and that's what the original owner did they kept it all those years it's probably as fast as the z28 isn't it uh yeah i've driven the 69 z yeah and that little 302 kicks in at about 2200 rpm right yeah and it's it's there i don't know if this has this has the same feel but this has more torque on the bottom end much more torquey than the 390 ford would have been it did well remember they made the ss amx too right right they did the crane heads on those 52 of those cars now yeah this is what the ss ssk sst and just the ss right the ss was for super stock right yeah that hurst was involved in making those 52 right right so they actually took a run of 52 production line cars and then uh hurst pulled them apart cut the rear wheel wells open and did a whole bunch of things to make them do very well and you were talking earlier about amc changing their their uh image from being the family image to the racing image in 1969 they were involved in seven different racing programs yeah and they did that to get it in front of the drag racing and the trans am and and the uh rebel grant rebel funny car and all of all of the different racing events they did in order to get more of an image of being a competitor to the chevy forward right right yeah so and amc was always a few hundred dollars less than an equal car right with the other manufacturers still yeah you talked about the rambler scrambler some of the dealers couldn't sell that because their clientele in small farm towns right wouldn't accept a red white and blue painted car why is that patriotic well it was loud oh yeah so you asked uh why i'm involved in amc's my dad liked damn seas and we took a ride in a 69 rambler scrambler when it was brand new yeah dad was driving mom in the passenger seat three boys in the back seat and uh me in the middle and we thought this is cool dad's gonna buy a rambler scrambler we're gonna have a cool car on the block all right we get back to the dealer and bump since it's too loud so first and second are pretty close on this car yeah i mean it's got all kinds of power yeah but yeah we sit at a stoplight we're not overpowered by the car or the loudness of it so yeah so let me ask you a few questions amen you've got 200 cars in your collection roughly right right and if you only could keep one well unfortunately this is not communist russia so we don't have i know not to keep just once okay but you know people say if you're going to drive one car the rest of your life right well when you go down to home depot the f1 is not going to be any help that's right you're not going to be able to carry 2x4 i know it you know so it'd probably have to be something reasonably practical okay but luckily we don't have to be pregnant i like your answer yeah i'll have to tell my wife that answer so if you're driving up the coast which one is your choice maserati 3500 gti is very nice that's when i put the tremec and that's pretty good that's that's a wonderful one you want something comfortable yeah some blah blah you are these still reasonably priced in comparison to camaros and most yes yeah the you can get a really nice mark donahue special for the price of an average 69 camaro right not an ssrs or z28 right right so these these generally run in the 30 to 50 000 for a nice one yeah i've got this one insured i think around 45 47. and but i'd have a hard time replacing it oh yeah we tease being part of an amc community we tease that you can restore a mustang or a camaro without having any other car friends right you can sit at home and order anything you want right and go to the body shop and have it done right well with amc if you don't know all the other amc people right in your community right you are going to find the rare parts and the pieces or know the process yeah on how to repair things so uh so it's a nice community that way it's uh you get the same thing in the antique car community if you find a part that you don't need somebody else needs it it ends up on their car right right [Music] yeah it's got plenty of torque it pulls nicely that's second gear nice and solid we drove it to burbank and back last weekend from where from lake elsinore yeah about 90 miles yeah i'll each wait yeah and i check the oil when i get home and other than that she's good to go so i think it drips more than burns right but it's never been apart the motor's all original i mean i've got a 6.3 mercedes there with 326 000. right and that thing is yeah but it's been well taken care of yeah similar to this the previous owner whatever it needed he took care of it right right so when i got it i went through the headliner was hanging down because he had stored it for a while yeah is that new headliner yeah i use the gm style everything else it's been i added the eight track i fixed the cooling system did a little bit in the rear suspension to they tend to tail drag like a mustang [Music] well the ss amx is like the hemi dart right because most got beat up and raced right at 52. now wasn't there an amx that was uh really different the first the well the prototype amx a friend of mine knows okay so it was dick teague's car right and there's a few prototypes but it was a production 68 amx that every time he wanted more money for the next year's design he would put on fiberglass and plastic parts and change it right right and so the car is owned by a friend back in wisconsin and it has 7172 front end on it right which is all custom made that's pretty neat but the most collectible of the javelins would probably be the 70 trans am javelin so prior to signing mark donahue they made a hundred red white and blue javelins oh i remember them painted this way that's right side strip right and they were the same engine and transmission but instead of a three five four rear gear they ran a three or nine one right which wasn't any good on the highway but it was really a lot of performance and then uh and so those are pretty rare they they only made a hundred uh there's probably 40 of them known with incoming collectors and uh but it drives just like this car other than a black interior color choice so but like i said this the reason for this car is this is the car that when i get into it and drive it i'm back 17 18 years old without payments and mortgage and having to worry about stuff right right and that's what a car should be right it should take us back and help us enjoy you know times of our youth now what's interesting is compared to today's muscle this is pedestrian right you can get a rental car v6 mustang that'll beat the pants off of this car in autocross and drag race and just everything yeah but that's not the point we did that on this show we yeah we took up the 67 gto tri-power oh yeah beautiful car and we raced it against the four-door v6 ultima you know like filled with groceries and blew the doors off was that with tim allen yeah yeah that's so yeah so yeah but it tracks nicely you know you're really looking down a long hood it seems like it's a it seems longer than it gives you that 71 to 73 mustang boss 350 field yeah so but i love the bulge on the hood yeah it really is you know it's a lot like a gto only only bigger yeah remember the gto scoop four five six and seven and uh and i've had a lot of muscle cars over the years i've had a 66 gto lots of mustangs and hypos and shelby dodge dart swinger what's your second make of choice at the american motor good question i really like the simplicity simplicity of the early mustang for the hypo 289 and that motor with the mechanical lifter sound when you're driving it uh and again not a not a powerhouse by any means but it can it continues to rev and i really enjoy that and uh if you throw a paxton supercharger on it like they did a lot of them and that was unbeatable at the time but you don't feel like you're fighting a car and this this is a different feeling than the rambler scrambler yeah it's a kitty car and by that i mean it's manual steering you're sitting upright on a bench seat you've driven those cars you can use another gear yeah oh yeah no question but the three five four at rear end right now a lot of the amx's and javelins came with a three one five and that's perfect because three one five one five yeah and that that tends to be that gear that doesn't take a lot of power away but it allows you to through the lower rpm so at the freeway i'm doing about 30 200 rpm so and i've got some tricks because i don't like to change the car we're running 70 series instead of 60 series gaps and then that helps uh give you a little more well it's three and a half percent right but even a fourth gear pretty nicely yeah they max out about fifty two hundred fifty four hundred rpm on that uh for the revs though um but with a little head work people can can bring that up to sixty five so what's this car remind you of both you've driven a lot of cars i would probably say probably like a mercury uh cougar yeah probably similar yeah yeah very similar because it's got a little bit of luxury with the performance it does but the performance is very good yeah well they they ran a lot of races drag races at one and it's because the engine has the torque to start i mean i've got that uh 442 in there oh beautiful it feels the same as this yeah that's about the same performance-wise how's that a tri-power car and l says 69 huh is yeah yeah yeah that was the l69 all right correct oh i'm sorry yeah yeah beautiful car but again this is at the end of the muscle car era by 70 they wanted the price to be a little higher for every car manufacturer they wanted to make more profit on the cars knowing that the small cars were coming soon and so uh they built the luxury in in order to command a higher price well it tracks very nicely thank you yeah long trip we've driven up to santa maria and back yeah and it doesn't beat you up the rpms is the only thing you got to watch you aren't doing 80 with everybody else yeah keep it 65-70 somebody backing out the road yeah brakes are nice doesn't fall don't need to downshift but [Music] it might be time for a clutch on it so do you think so yeah yeah it's everything i haven't adjusted today it's the original clutch it could at 47 000 highly likely yeah yeah so i think about the only weakness that was handled under warranty the original owner had to have the lower arms ball joints replaced yeah within the first year so but other than that the quality that amc built was pretty good actually yeah there's they use nylon timing chains so as the car gets 70 80 000 miles they were quieter with nylon but they didn't jump a tube it's very forgiving no matter what gear you want to start no it is it could be of torque yep it's almost impossible to lug it oh it is yeah there's always a little bit to this particular engine as you let up on the throttle you get that pulsing you would think that having been around them my whole life i'd be a better driver i don't i do that all the time most people they even know what it is right well i wasn't that funny i was just thinking that we you typically get the uh because of the individual headlights some people are confusing with a 70 to 73 camaro so there was a lot of similar design back at the time the rear quarter panels look a lot like a nova if you the 68 to 72 novas so a lot of different design elements dictate was still the chief or the head of the designing aspect and he designed the amx and javelin together and uh this is the last of the three years of first generation well mark thank you for this bit of rambler uh history american motors history no it's fascinating because it's one of those brands i remember reading about the time just the mustang the camaro the barracudas the challenges their bucket budgets were much bigger and i think the advertising campaigns were were much better oh yeah only because they could afford it but they could this is certainly a car in that same league you know american motors did their advertising at the track right that's right they did their advertising at the track they invested heavily bringing the penske team a wave yeah camaro to american motors uh well roger penske is a smart guy he's a buddy of mine and i must say he knows his stuff so if he likes it it's good enough for me well his second in command walt zarnecki worked for first in american voters they were very well connected uh i hope you all appreciate this little tour of american motors and the javelin we learned about some of the other models as well that uh i think it's fair to say it was more as much as equal as any of the other cars in the period barracuda plymouth uh you know mercury mustang you know i'm bigger surprised how torquey this motor is how much pull it has uh you know it's smaller than the full full-size gto or a 442 or one of those yet it's bigger than a mustang like i guess mercury a mercury cougar was probably a good analogy one i think it's true yep so very cool well anyway mark thanks for keeping the flame alive and preserving this car and it's it's a real piece of history thanks for bringing it by thank you very much see you guys next week [Music] ah

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 720,479

Keywords: AMC, Mark Donohue, Autobooks, Trans Am racing, American Motors, 390, homologation, race cars, car nerd, car enthusiast, car guy, V8, American muscle, pony car, Javelin

Id: F3jRGSuFOy0

Length: 32min 57sec (1977 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Insert_a_User_here]

I'm biased because I own one but javelins are such underrated pony cars imo. AMC had a pretty questionable reputation back in the day but the javelin is a damn good car that offered some pretty compelling features compared to their competitors, and controversial but in my opinion beautiful styling

[u/Clareth_GIF]

I love how these old guys still remember what it was like to be young when they talk about the music and cars from their eras.

I don’t even like American cars but I just love all the anecdotes and history of the time.