Car Club Newsletter AM Spirit

Northern Ramblers Car Club of Canada Newsletter

Winner of the Golden Quill Award Eleven Years Running!Winner of the Golden Quill Award Eleven Years Running!Winner of the Golden Quill Award Eleven Years Running!

Keep the AMC Spirit Alive

Canada’s National AMC Enthusiast Group

A legendary AMC “Rally Car”

comes back to life– Page 5

A very unusual, and cool, Gremlin goes up for bids on eBay™- Page 18

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The Restoration of an AMC Rally Car Legend

Part 1- Seann Burgess

Ok, so if some of you don’t remember, after getting their feet wet in 1967, Ernie got serious about doing the Shell 4000 Rally in ’68. The factory prepared three white Americans, all with 290 V8’s, T10 four speeds, Twin Grip limited slip rear ends, big brakes, close ratio steering boxes, heavy duty everythings…the list goes on and on. The story of these three cars and their records (2nd, 3rd, & 5th OVERALL in the Cal-gary to Halifax event) is a great tribute to AMC, the team, Ernie, and above all the car that this article is about. One of the reasons these cars enjoyed such great success was because of the prototype/test car, Old Blue. Ernie knew if they were going to really give it a go in ’68, they were going to have to do their homework. He poured over result sheets and driver histories and selected a team who along with the enthusiastic AMC plant employees, would give a real fighting chance in the “personnel department”, then he built this car. As you know, 1968 was the year for the introduction of the AMX (American Motors Experi-mental). This blue car went down the assembly line at the same time as the latest offering to the muscle car market and received quite a list of factory parts that your dad’s American never got! I’ll get into more detail in Part 2, but let’s just say, this car was built to go, stop, fly, land and everything in between. As Ernie said, many “test sessions” were undertaken,

“Hi Editor Steve, As you know, back in ’67 & ’68, we got into the Shell 4000 Rally at American Motors. For the second

year, I prepared a “mule”/test car which became affectionately known as “Old Blue”. The drivers tested and borrowed it and many a tale of fun and mayhem still is told for the first time. The car was sold and whereabouts unknown for a long time. Seann Burgess is now the owner. He has an excel-lent car build/restoration shop and has undertaken the job of restoring Old Blue. It generates many side issues, technical and historical, and we think it would make interesting reading for your publica-

tion. He keeps a log with pictures and has agreed to record it all for the Northern Ramblers. Regards, Ernie Regehr”

legal or not (come on this was the ‘60’s), and over a relatively short period of time, the basis was estab-lished for building the three white race cars. The contribution to the overall success provided by this blue car (including team and manufacturer awards) cannot be understated. The team did a superb job coming up with a platform that proved to be rugged and reliable, in fact, Old Blue was dispatched as a chase/parts car, following the rally course across the country to “donate” any required parts to the partici-pating team cars. They never took a part off it. All four cars made the journey with incredible reliability. At the conclusion of the rally, the four cars were taken back to the factory and subsequently “sold off”. The white cars went on to some very interesting far away places/competitions, while the blue car was sold to an enthusiast right here in Ontario, Sid Crump. Sid Crump and partner Dave Mackenzie, both BARC (British Automobile Racing Club) mem-bers purchased the car from Ernie with the intention of having something interesting to compete in some Ontario winter rallies. Many fellow BARC members and friends remember the car well since the guys were very active in the club and its many social and competition events. The car has quite a competition history (still being compiled) having been entered in rallies, at least one road race at Mosport, and the Knox Mountain Hill Climb in Kelowna, B.C.

The following story is about one of those cars that comes out of “hiding” every once in a while, and reminds us of what a terrific hobby this is. It’s another lost or forgotten treasure to give the feeling that you should never stop looking. In this particular case, I didn’t have to “look”…this one came to

me. To introduce the story, I’m inserting the e-mail sent to the editor of this fine publication from the man who was in charge of things back at the Brampton AMC plant in the late ‘60’s…Ernie Regehr, who was the quality control manager for the plant and the man who took on the pro rally project to

campaign a team in the Shell 4000 Cross Canada Rally. Ernie wrote:

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To date, the only period photo I have of the car is in the line up with the Camaros, Mustangs, Darts and Porsches, waiting to come back down the hill for an-other run at Knox Mountain in ’69. The car was also equipped with a trailer hitch to tow Dave Mackenzie’s Lotus 7 club racer to CASC events as far away as Gimli, Manitoba in the west and Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia in the east! By the time the mid ‘70’s rolled around, the car was getting a little tired (no kidding!), and the car was abandoned on the family farm near Petrolia, Ontario. Let’s fast forward about 20 some years to how this car was “found”. At this point, I have to introduce a very good friend of mine, Darcy Gitt, who we will re-fer to as the “saviour”. Darc and I go way back, to high school days when we rode our first motorcycles together, in Etobicoke. His dad happened to have a pretty new car in the driveway at the time, you guessed it, a Blazer Metallic Blue Rambler American 4 door. The saviour was reading the local rag from his area down past London (mid-late ‘90’s) and he spotted an ad for a “1968 Rally/Race Rambler, Shell 4000, Knox Mountain etc., MUST BE SOLD TO AN AMC ENTHUSIAST” Darc has had an American for just about forever and knew exactly what the ad was describing and called the seller and made the deal pronto like.

I went down to see the car and I guess it started sort of “talking” to me right from the start…sort of like a beer calling your name from inside the fridge on a hot day. It turns out I had more than likely met this car before. Long before I had been driving my own blue Rambler American in around grade 13, (remember Darcy’s dad’s car? Darc brought it from him and I bought it from Darc). In the mid/late ‘60’s, my older brother, Brian was just getting heavily involved in the club racing scene in Ontario (Harewood, Mosport) with a Sunbeam Tiger he had driven on the street before race prepping it. I was in late grade school at the time and helped out by painting in the lettering on the Firestone race tires and some other critical jobs. Anyway, my brother kept the car at Bob Atrell’s

garage (another BARC member) , down in Toronto. I spent a bit of time there learning how flames shoot out of a carb, how to tractionize tires for ice racing and how to “bench race” by some real pros. When Bob’s shop wasn’t too busy, he let one fellow club enthusiast in to do some work on his car be-tween events. You guessed it. Sid Crump and his 1968 Shell 4000 prototype Blazer Metallic Blue Ram-bler American!! I probably LEANED on this car when I was in grade 7!! Man, I wish I had a photograph of the inside of that shop with that car in there when we were hanging around. Anyway, a few years ago Darc and his family picked up stakes and having a bunch of vehicles to deal with, I suggested we bring the Rambler to my place for “safe keeping”. We could decide later what he, we or I would “do” with it. All the while I never stopped researching, phoning, tracking people and information down. Since then, Darc and I made a deal for me to own the car. I spent until last October getting comfortable with the amount of information I had collected, then took the car apart. Here’s what I started with.

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I took detailed photographs of every inch of the tear-down. Let me tell you, sitting outside for 30 years doesn’t do cars or the people who work on them any favours! I’ve worked on a lot of cars, bikes and things in my day, and I’ve never run into a project that required more hand cleaner than this thing. I have to thank another very good friend of mine, “Dr. Bike” Steve Turnbull, who has taken a real keen in-terest in the project from the day I first introduced him to the story. In addition to bringing Old Blue to my place, he helped out on the messiest of days…yanking the dirty old drive train & suspension. He’ll be “gettin” one of the first drives!

Since last fall, I have done a complete tear down (bumper to bumper)….everything was taken apart. Because this is a very unique car, (that being, a fac-tory built competition car), every piece that could be saved, was saved, no matter how much effort it took to restore it. There are many “before and after” pic-tures at this point that I can hardly believe myself. Remember, the car was basically un-restorable. It was just too far gone after sitting outside for so long. But, where there’s a will, there’s a way, right? I’ll ex-plain what I did in Part 2.

P.S. Although I’m flattered that Ernie referred to my place as “an excellent car/build restoration shop”, the suggestion is a little misleading. I have a nice build-ing I put up myself (1500 sq. ft.) where I do my daily sign/decal work. Cars do, however, fill approximately 75% of the space! One of the racecars, I did actually build from scratch. I work primarily with simple hand tools, nothing fancy. What I will admit to having is, an honest passion for cool (and rare) gas powered things, and a lot of patience. Nothing quite like taking on something that everyone has left for junk, and turning it into a respectable driver! If any of our readers have additional information, or anec-dotes, on the 3 white rally cars please supply it to Editor Steve. Thanks.

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Transmission hump