It’s Concord week here on Barn Finds and here’s a 1978 AMC Concord D/L Sedan. This one is wearing the latest in 1978 fashions, a landau vinyl roof. Walk the runway for us would you, Concord? Turn, please, and again. Nice. If only I would have been as fashionable in 1978, or now. This fashionable four-door is listed on eBay with no reserve and a current bid price of $1,225 and there are two days left on the auction!
This color is what I would call “Pabst Blue”, but I think it’s officially “Brilliant Blue”. In either case, it could use a good clay-bar-treatment and buffing, as could every other square inch of the exterior. Even that won’t help some spots. There’s a scrape on the RR passenger door that’ll need more than buffing. And, is that bumper hanging down a bit on the right side (our left)? This car sat outside for a few years, according to the seller who bought it from someone who bought it from the estate of the original owner. That explains the dull paint in spots. But, parts of it look like new so maybe it can be brought back.
I absolutely love that landau vinyl top treatment. If you’re going to drive an AMC why not just go for it; you obviously like to have things a little different from what everyone else has. 1978 is the first year for the Concord, being gussied up from the previous year’s AMC Hornet. The D/L was the top of the line Concord above the Base and Sport models. You can see that this car has snow tires on the rear. For how fantastic the underside looks and it being a Pennsylvania car, I can’t believe that it was driven too often in the winter.
These “velveteen” seats look a bit faded but they appear to be in great condition. No rodents got into this car when it was parked, or at least it doesn’t look like they did. This Concord only has 43,777 miles on it and according to the seller the underside looks “GREAT”, and it does!
This is the top six-cylinder engine for this year, a 258 cubic-inch inline-six with 120 hp if it has a two-barrel carb; 100 hp if not. A 304 V8 was available in the D/L and that would cause the bids to jump up a bit, there’s no question about that. This car has AC, as you can tell, but it doesn’t work. Other than missing paint on some of the engine bits, it looks clean under that hood, no? It should clean up nicely. The air breather hose looks almost new. I hope that this isn’t Concord overload, but this really seems like a good car and with two days left on the auction and a fairly low current bid price it shouldn’t be a budget-buster. Let us know what you think about this one!
Rust through on the top of the fenders. Everything the tires flung upward directly impacted the bottom side of the fender. There were no real inner fenders on these or the Hornets and Gremlins before them. I bought a ’76 Hornet X in ’80, nice car, black with red stripes, 258 with a manual transmission. I replaced a ’70 Chevelle SS with this as I got a real job and 7MPG and revving over 3500 rpm on the highway just didn’t work. A few months later the tops of the fenders were cracking and the tissue paper filler some body work genius did was sticking out. I went to a local yard to get fenders and the guy was selling aftermarket new fenders for these cars as they were all rotting. I layered in spray on undercoat on the new fenders before installing them. That was a good car. With the standard and the 258 it sounded like the Jeeps on MASH.
Unless it has been removed over the years, there is no exterior badging on the car. I wonder if AMC was purposely trying to be stealth on their branding so as not to draw much attention from potential buyers?
Lol what a turd…my mother had a 76 Hornet in sea green (which essentially this is with new skin) and with the same super lame 258..What a POS – slow, niggling minor repairs due to poor build quality dominated it’s life in the carport.
Um….ok…….well, it’s a survivor.
It would be the only one on your block
Makes me think of a Pete Townshend lyric: “The brilliant blues have faded into sadness and pain, and now is the time to say: it’s time.”
Strangely attractive car, color and car design. Waves of Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue”. Nice find.
Lovely looking car. I’ve never seen a 78 Concord before. Any rust, I would hope, would be surface rust, that can be cleaned out and painted again.
A friend’s mother had one that they drove for years. Good car for them. Ran it till the paint fell off or rusted through. I like the all the blues on this one.
nother great bullet proof low rev/hi tq motor (4.1L?).
Produced for 40 yrs?
Those were the front seats that were in my ’64 Dart. Ha!
Sold for $2025. Not a bad deal for someone.
Lovely looking Concord. I’ve always found the 1978 model year to be the best year in terms of front-end appearance. I hope this one went to a good owner.
I had the exact same car many years ago what a tank a car rear-ended me and it was written off but they fixed mine