Last week, our youngest son Hendrik borrowed our 1971 Hornet SC 360 for a few days. He left his daily driver, a Suzuki Sidekick, here so Harm could get started on welding up the floors, etc. He took off with half a tank of gas and a "poop" eating grin on his face! Nothing quite like driving your parents' muscle car. Now, the car hadn't been out much since the beginning of spring so it was understandable that it took a bit to warm up. He drove it back to Wyevale and became concerned that it was going through too much fuel. He checked the fuel filter (that was okay), but the air filter was soaked with fuel! Car Quest in Midland to the rescue as they had the only filter around for miles. Given that it had sat for the winter, the carb was sticking open a little more than the 850 rpm it normally runs at. Not letting a little thing like that get in his way, he and the whole family hopped into the Hornet to go to the local burger joint for dinner. There were four sets of pearly whites bombing down the road while thumbs up were hoisted all around! The car had its last rebuild in the mid-1980s so it's by no means a show car, but it can still get the looks. They heard comments like, "My Dad had a Hornet but it didn't look like that", or "I've never seen one of those before - what is it?" Hendrik took the time to do a little AMC 101 for one of the other customers and a waitress.
That's really what it's all about - just getting out there. Even if you don't get out to the local cruise-in or one of the many events listed on our website, just driving it to your local restaurant or shopping mall increases the exposure of these cars! Perhaps sooner than we could imagine (or would like), we may be unable to drive these classic cars so we all need to get out there and enjoy them while we can. This applies to us too because, especially at this time of year, we're fixated on farming and good weather usually means either planting or haying. But you can be sure that the next time I need to head into Lindsay to pick up a few things, I'll take the Hornet! Happy motoring everyone!
Barb van der Veen, Website Editor/Social Convenor