James B. Moran Page

These fragments I have shored against my ruins...

Some seek a homepage, others have one thrust upon them.

Click here if you're my mother.
I am an Internet Consultant at Merit Network in Ann Arbor, MI. I live in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan. My homepage was thrust upon me by Joe Oravec, systems administrator at Wayne State University's College of Science. Thanks.

I have a wonderful family, large cats, first class colleagues, good neighbors, and a 1983 AMC Eagle that has 150,000 miles on it but won't die.

The 4-wheel-drive Eagle, introduced in 1980, was the last true AMC car; its production run ended on December 15, 1987. Based on the Concord platform, the Eagle featured the first full-time 4WD system ever offered on a passenger car in the U.S. (the Subaru wagon had a part-time system). The transfer case was a British design built for AMC by Chrysler. The car rides high off the ground to accommodate the revised drivetrain layout. Instead of creating new sheet metal stampings, AMC used plastic filler panels to mask the gap between the tires and wheelwells. Shorter, Spirit-based Eagles were produced in 1981-83.

The Car I Do Have.... Most Eagles were 4-door wagons, like my Olympic White on Copper Brown '83. I bought mine at the Roseville Police Auction in 1996 for $200. It leaked oil and made some tapping sounds, but I drove it everywhere until the trans finally broke. Then, after two years in the garage, I got it back together and working. It was our family's second car, and my wife loved it, affectionately terming it "The Beast," but the 5-speed trans was so oddly positioned that she had trouble driving it, so we got her a new Saturn. The Eagle then became my (struggling but enormously -talented musician) brother's main transport. The trans was better suited to him, but then the hydraulic clutch went out (for the umpteenth time), so he drives it without the benefit of a clutch. You'll have to imagine how that works until I get him to write a description. Anyway, the thing is tough as nails otherwise and draws stares and questions almost everywhere. I'd like to get another one, but this time with an auto trans.

 

The Car I Want.... AMC proposed a ponycar in 1964 called the Tarpon. It was based on the Rambler American. Only a few prototypes were built, but then AMC decided to execute the concept on the larger Rambler Classic; they called the final product the Marlin.

The Search for Parts and the story of Harold, the post-Industrial Urban Phoenix.

Visit the AMX Files, the best AMC Page.

James B. Moran / jimmoran@merit.edu