The AMC Eagle must have sold better in Colorado than in any other part of the world, because I see so many of the things in Denver junkyards that I don’t even bother photographing most of them. This ’80, however, is a hyper-Malaise two-door with vinyl top and purple-and-red tape stripes, and that makes it special. (Read More…)

When Chrysler took over the tattered remnants of AMC in 1987, they created the “Jeep-Eagle” division in order to sell Kenosha-ized Renaults such as the Medallion and the Premier. Chrysler back then wasn’t content unless Mitsubishi got involved, and so they slapped Eagle badges on a Mitsubishi Mirage built by DSM in Illinois. This was very similar to the Geo-ization GM applied to Toyota, Isuzu, Suzuki, and Daewoo products sold in North America. You don’t see many Summits these days (you also didn’t see many of them 20 years ago) so this find in a Denver junkyard was a rare event. (Read More…)

After honoring— if that’s the right word— the junkyard-ubiquitous Ford Tempo last weekend, it seems only right to give some space to the even-more-common-in-junkyards Chrysler LH. These days, walking through the Chrysler section of a big self-service wrecking yard is a matter of searching for unusual cars in a sea of Neons, Voyagers, and Intrepids (and their badge-engineered siblings). This is about the only place where you will have no problem finding Eagle-branded vehicles. Here’s a Vision I found in Denver last month. (Read More…)

While it’s cool and all to find genuine, everyone-agrees-it’s-a-classic cars in the junkyard, what I really like to find is the cars that serve as evolutionary dead-ends or corporate-merger footnotes. The Eagle Premier is a fine example of the latter type. (Read More…)

I find a lot of AMC Eagles in Denver, both in and out of the junkyards, but almost all of them are wagons. During a recent junkyard visit, I spotted the first Spirit-based Eagle I’ve seen in a long time. (Read More…)

Since I’ve only been wandering about in Denver junkyards for a year, I have no way of telling whether the current glut of junked AMC Eagles I’m encountering (e.g., this ’84, this ’84, and this ’82, plus a few more that I haven’t photographed yet) is a recent development or a trend that’s been going on for many years. Eagles are still plentiful in Denver, but a cheap used Subaru becomes more attractive once the youngest possible Eagle has turned 24 years old. (Read More…)

With the AMC Eagle being such a historically significant car, let’s hope at least a few of them survive the next decade. We saw this brown ’85 Eagle wagon last week, and this black ’84 wagon will join it in a Fujian steel plant soon enough. (Read More…)

How many Eagles did AMC sell? According to the Standard Catalog, 24,535 Eagles rolled out of AMC showrooms in 1984… and I betcha that 20,000 of them were sold in Colorado. You still see plenty of Eagles on the street here in Denver (I can think of a half-dozen within a few blocks of my house), but you also see plenty of AMC’s before-its-time all-wheel-driver in Denver junkyards. (Read More…)

Yes, there’s a place where you’ll see AMC Eagles on a regular basis; there are several parked on the street in my Denver neighborhood, and you see even more when you go into the mountains. Even the ahead-of-its-time Eagle can’t last forever, however, and this one has begun its journey back to the steel mill. (Read More…)

I moved to Denver over the summer and am now experiencing the joys of proper snow driving for the first time in the 29 years since the State of California saw fit to give me my first driver’s license. With just a ’92 Civic and a ’66 Dodge A100 in my personal motor pool, I figure it’s time for me to start shopping for something with four driven wheels. In fact, I need something that can do four-wheel burnouts on dry asphalt! (Read More…)