Looking more than a little rough around the edges, this first-year 1979 AMC Concord D/L Wagon would still be worthy of a restoration, in my opinion. Or, at least, worth fixing as much as possible while driving it and blowing people’s collective minds every time you stop for gas or groceries. The seller has it posted here on craigslist in Delta, British Columbia, Canada, and they’re asking $2,500. Here is the original listing, and thanks to Curvette for the tip!
Coming in hot after the AMC Hornet, the Concord looked the same, other than a few details and a bit more soundproofing and niceties like that. This one needs white wall tires, stat, and a lot of elbow grease, but I bet it could look fairly nice again with some cosmetic work. They were made from 1977 for the 1978 model year until the end of 1983, so it was a short run. The Eagle 4×4 came after this in basically the same body shell, but with a 4WD drivetrain. This one has rear-wheel drive. I wonder what a 2-door wagon may have looked like?
The seller says this Concord is rust-free and the paint is original. They mention that it should buff up nicely, and it would be fun to try to make it look a bit nicer. I believe this color is called “Khaki”, according to this 1978 AMC color chart. Not seeing a rear wiper is something we don’t see too much anymore, and there’s really only one big area of concern on the body that I can see, the dent on the left front fender.
The “Soft-Feel Vinyl” seats look great, other than some settling on the driver’s side seat bottom. The carpets appear pretty faded and stained. Hopefully those aren’t rust stains under the driver’s side floor mat, since they say this car is rust-free. I’d strip this interior out asap, add some sound deadener material, new padding and carpet, detail the heck out of the seats, maybe redo the driver’s seat padding, and it would be looking nice inside. Well, there’s the matter of a missing passenger door armrest, too. Oops, and I forgot about $1,000 for a new headliner. It’s adding up.
Here’s the engine, looking all soft-vinyl’y… Sadly, even though they’ve uploaded 17 photos (most of them from the same angles), they didn’t bother to pop the hood to show the “4.01 inline 6”, which is, I’m assuming, really a 258-cu.in. OHV inline-six. It would have had 120 horsepower and just over 200 lb-ft of torque, backed by a Chrysler-sourced TorqueFlite automatic. They say it runs good, but the driver’s door handle is broken, and then there’s the dent, the headliner, the passenger armrest, and all of these things add up to a lot of work and a fair amount of money. Maybe this Concord isn’t worth “restoring”, as in making it look like new again. Maybe this is a buy-for-the-shock-value car, and you drive it while keeping it maintained and pick away at the problems as you can? What would you do?
That dent is a shame, as nobody wants to fix that, the car isn’t “worth it” to most. I’d put some tires on it, new headliner and just drive it. No A/C and the classic AM radio with one crackly speaker makes it a limited draw. Hopefully someone can preserve this, they’re harder to find everyday.
Looks like a ’79 to me.
Gaaaa! You’re absolutely right, CCFisher, good eye, sir. My apologies for not noticing that. Thanks very much for the correction, and for being polite in pointing it out!
My aunt and uncles last car. Won’t get into the details of the wreck. There’s was the dark green with tan interior. Tilt column and power lockss. Pretty pplush for an economy car. I believe the 258 six is a 4.2 litre. Scotty’s two door rendering looks proper and has the more generous door opening a big person can appreciate.
Olds Cutlass hubcaps?
Good eye, GC19 and hairyolds68!
That has to be the ugliest “Woody” job ever stuck on a car.
It looks like it was in the sun too long, melted and slid down!
Looks like granny nailed the garage, coming home from that after dinner bingo game.
best part of this car are the culass hubcaps