AMC beat everyone or almost everyone to the punch in coming out with a small station wagon. This 1971 AMC Hornet Sportabout is a little jewel box and it can be found posted here on craigslist in Denver, Colorado. The seller is asking a steal of a price for it: $4,900. Thanks to Gunter K. for sending in this tip! This one won’t last long, so here’s a copy of the listing.
I should say, the Hornet Sportabout beat other small, American-made four-door wagons to the punch as Dodge had their Colt wagon but it was a rebadged Mitsubishi and there was the British-based Plymouth Cricket. The Hornet debuted for the 1970 model year and the Sportabout for 1971. According to AMC scholar, Pat Foster in his fantastic book, “AMC Cars 1954-1987 Illustrated History“, nobody else offered a compact American-made four-door station wagon. Can you think of an earlier one? A Rambler American maybe? If buyers were looking for a sporty wagon, there certainly wasn’t anything like the Sportabout at the time.
This car looks almost as if it’s been restored and I can’t quite tell if it’s been repainted or not. The seller says that it was parked for 33 years and recently revived, but it still needs work in order to be a daily driver. Yes, those are old bias-ply tires so they should be changed which is a shame with that cool two-stripe whitewall look, at least on the two back tires. There’s a black wall and whitewall tire on the front so yeah, just get four new ones.
This car looks basically brand new inside. The seats are perfect both in the front and in the back. Sadly, we don’t see the rear cargo area or any underside photos but given what everything else looks like, I’d have to assume that this is one solid car. The transmission is a Borg-Warner three-speed manual with a column shifter.
The dusty engine compartment holds an AMC 232 cubic-inch inline-six which would have had 135 horsepower and this one runs great. Although, the seller says that due to this car sitting for over three decades, they’ve been running it on a little gas can rather than the gas tank which should be cleaned. Otherwise, everything else works and this looks like a steal in 2022 dollars for a five-decade-old vehicle in this condition. Any thoughts on this Sportabout?
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