Rare Rides: This AMC From 1981 is Pure Brougham and Very Targa
Today’s Rare Ride is fairly old compared to the rest of the cars in this series, and it’s the first look at quirky and long-expired manufacturer American Motors Corporation (AMC).
A few years before being swallowed up by Chrysler in its desire to own Jeep, AMC produced this very unique PLC-TC, or Personal Luxury Coupe Targa Convertible.
Come and have a look.
For the 1981 and 1982 model years, you could buy two different convertibles from AMC. The Eagle Sundancer had four-wheel drive, like the other Eagle models. The other option was the Concord Sundancer we have here today. The standard Concord and Eagle were sent to Griffith for this factory-authorized conversion.
This particular brown beast is a well-equipped and brougham Limited trim, which makes it all the more special. According to Wikipedia, AMC ordered less than 200 total Eagle and Concord Sundancers. The ad for today’s ride says fewer than 100 of them were Concords.
This example has done 110,000 miles, which any owner of a Malaise-era mobile will tell you is quite a few. And it shows.
But the matching brown on brown color scheme still shines through in the finest of brougham traditions. The ultra-realistic plood will still greet you every time you fire up that old 4.2-liter inline-six engine.
You’ll spend roughly 10 minutes removing the roof panel, peeling away the rear tarp, and stowing the pieces. But behold, an open air PLC! Not even Porsche could replicate something this cool unusual and interesting.
And there’s space for four full-figured Americans in here, relaxing in ruched comfort.
The Sundancer is listed out of Ballwin, Missouri, and the seller is asking just $2,358. Pair it with the value-priced Daihatsu Charade from our last Rare Rides, and you’re ready for any economical or luxurious outing you may desire.
[Photos via seller]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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Ah, looking back on the twilight of AMC seems sad. Practically all of their cars were some weird looking body style or other with a 258 straight six, driving some or all of the wheels through a torqueflite (which wasn't a bad thing), and drinking a lot of gas while for not much forward progress. In a sense, their styling is timeless. The cartoonish wheels and excessive ground clearance look just as odd today as they did almost forty years ago.
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