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Showing posts from February 5, 2023

Random # 331: AMC Javelin

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This very, very sexy "pony car" is an  American Motors Corporation (AMC) Javelin, possibly a 1968 or '69 model.  For some reason, they were marketed as Rambler Javelins in Australia.  I've not seen it around Hobart before but, with a J -prefix rego, it's not super-new to the state.   It really did look the goods, with very nice duco in a striking shade of blue, straight, shiny chrome and tasty after-market  alloys.  The interior was in similarly great nick.    According to Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMC_Javelin ) , the Javelin came with anything from a 3.8 litre straight six (shared with the Rambler Hornet), through to a stonking 6.4 litre V8.  They weren't considered to be a "big" car, though, being towards the smaller end of the US market, competing with GM's Camaro   / Firebird   lineup rather than, say, Ford's Mustang, GM's GTO or Chrysler's Dodge Charger.   I'm a big fan of the Ramb...

Classics by the Beach: February, 2023

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Back in the early 1980s, vehicles like this HJ Sandman were commonplace in the car park that used to run the full length of Sandy Bay's Nutgrove Beach, creating a through-road where there's now a wide pedestrian promenade.  This caused considerable annoyance to gentlefolk of the area and was a constant PiTA for the police tasked with responding to never ending complaints of hooning, drinking, swearing and other behaviour not quite in keeping with the post code!   Forty years down the track, it's hard to fathom that a Sandman - or any classic Aussie car, for that matter - is pulling the same sort of money now as a house did then.  Not a house on the Sandy Bay waterfront, though; you could buy an entire 1980s Eastern Shore street for the price of a 2023 des res anywhere along the Long Beach / Nutgrove strip! All of this makes the location of Hobart's Classics by the Beach, held on the  first Sunday of every month   at the remaining souther...