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Photography by Josh Clason for Petrolicious
Everyone knows the usual suspects: the Ford Mustang, the Chevy Corvette and Camaro. They went through many iterations varying from sporty through what Mr. Smokey Yunick called the worst handling car ever. But there were quite a few other American cars that were quite sporty and engaging that didn’t receive the following that the aforementioned cars did, simply because they didn’t have ‘enough’ power, handling and braking be damned.
My personal favorite is the Ford Maverick. It’s basically a cheaper, less powerful Ford Mustang (although you could have it with a 4.9L V8, the vaunted 302). But it also weighed less. I also have a personal attachment to the Maverick, of course, as it was the first car my folks ever bought. Eventually the floor-boards rusted through and it sat, undriven, in the driveway for a couple of years before it was donated. But damn, I want one now and it doesn’t have the Mustang’s price tag either.
So what do you think is America’s greatest unsung automotive hero?
Image Source: Flickr
How about the Bricklin? For all you AMC fans, I’m pretty sure it was introduced at first with AMC as the engine supplier. Conceptually interesting: a safe and economical sportscar. And design-wise, it was pretty cutting edge in the US. It had an 80’s look in the 70’s with gull wing doors.
Ugly? In hindsight yes. But pretty unsung.
I’d like to mention the predecessor to the Mustang — the Falcon. Great car, ran forever, very economical. I had a ’63 for 11 years, and put almost 100,000 miles on it. Wonderful car.
I’d also put a plug in for any model by Studebaker — they just seemed so ahead of their time, and those Raymond Loewy designs just added to their allure. They had an abundance of ‘firsts’: Hill-holder in 1936, variable ratio steering gear in 1937, first mechanical power steering in 1952, first padded dash as standard equipment in 1961, and the list goes on.
My personal fave is the GT Hawk, followed by the Avanti.
Being the huge AMC nut that I am anything by that company could be considered a unsung hero. Take the 1968-1970 AMX for example a car that was a sort of hybrid of muscle car and sports car. On the drag strip those AMXs were nearly unbeatable. Not to mention the AMX could give America’s only sport car i.e Corvettes a run for their money on road racing courses. A runner up for the unsung hero award would have to be for the AMC Gremlin YES i said Gremlin. It was a lowly hatchback most people couldn;t care less about but with a little motivation those Gremlins could be awesome. The Gremlin was a cheap car that you could modify with ease and many people dropped bigger AMC engines with no problem and could smoke some serious cars on the drag strip. Amos Johnson and Team Highball raced Gremlins around road courses causing fits for BMWs and Mazda. America greatest unsung hero..the entire AMC company.