Yahoo Autos Junkyard Gem: 1977 AMC Hornet Sportabout
My research has determined that 1977 (or maybe 1964) was "Peak Wagon" in the United States, the year in which the largest number of distinct models of new station wagons were available for sale here. Why, Datsun alone sold three different wagon models here in 1977, while Dodge had four, and even Fiat offered a couple. The American Motors Corporation was a strong player in the wagon game that year with longroof versions of the Pacer, Matador and Hornet. The Hornet wagon was by far the best-selling wagon AMC sold for '77, but that turned out to be the Hornet's last hurrah. Here's one of those final-year Hornet wagons, found in a San Francisco Bay Area car graveyard recently.
When AMC first began selling four-door Hornet wagons for the 1971 model year, they were given the Sportabout name. That's what everyone still calls these cars today, though it appears that the final model year for official use of the Sportabout name was 1976. AMC's 1977 brochures and my extensive library of period-issue buyer's guides make no mention of the Sportabout name for 1977.
That said, I'm still going to use the Sportabout name for this car, because traditions are traditions.
The base engine in the 1977 Hornet was AMC's 232-cubic-inch (3.8-liter) straight-six, but this car has the optional 258-cubic-inch (4.2-liter) version, which cost just 79 extra bucks (408 bucks after inflation). A 304-cubic-inch (5.0-liter) AMC V8 engine was available as well for $164 ($846 in today's money). This extremely successful engine family stayed in production all the way through 2006, when Chrysler bolted the final 4.0s into Wranglers.
This car was built for sale in California, and its final parking space is located just about a mile from the middle school I was attending when this Sportabout rolled off the line in Kenosha. Perhaps its original owners lived in my neighborhood (or maybe they lived in Bard, Calif., which is as far from the San Francisco Bay as Chattanooga is from Chicago).
