CALIFORNIA 500 AMX Contributed by Robert Hollingsworth ------------------------------------------------------------------ Concerning the California 500 AMX . . . I have found 2 articles. The first is from an AMO publication on special big bad cars. The other article is from a publication called AMX-tra! produced by The Classic AMX Club International in 1981. The latter publication has a picture of the AMX 500 along with a close up of the special plaque placed on the hood blister. The plaque is made from cast metal and is about 4 inches long by an inch high. It has crossed racing flags to the left and "500 Special" cast into it to the right. It is filled in with black paint to set off the lettering and flags. The story goes like this . . . The Southern California Dealer Assn got the AMX declared a pace car for the Riverside 500. As some of you may remember, this Association also sponsored Shirley Shahan's drag race AMX and was into racing AMC products in 1969. It is thought that approximately 50 of these special cars were produced for promotion. Between 35 to 40 of these cars were actually ordered for the promotion, and these all had tan leather interior. The remaining 10 to 15 were taken from dealer lots and the plaques were added to make them "special". Therefore, some small number of these cars had charcoal leather or charcoal and tan vinyl interiors. All of these cars were Big Bad Green with black stripes, 390 engines, and rally wheels. Some of these cars had all options that include automatic and air conditioning among others. Group 19 parts were installed on some by the dealers. The authors of the AMX-tra! publication gave their view of how it was supposed to work. "We believe the object was to have one car lead the race and then each dealer in the Assn got a replica to sell back at the showroom." I hope this info is of some interest to the members of this list. The AMX 500 sure would make an interesting showing at any car show! I sure wish I had one; maybe I will have one in the near future . . .