It's 1975 and the living is easy. I was getting into the car buying experience with some regularity and decided that the new American Motors Matador 2-door fastback was the ticket. This was a swoopy coupe with large tunneled headlights. Mine was in a merlot exterior color with a vinyl cream interior.
Richard Teague designed the Matador to capture some of the market that the Oldsmobile Cutlass, Chevy Monte Carlo and Ford Torino, all top sellers, were getting. I suppose in my own odd way, I didn't want to drive what everyone else did. Thus the Matador graced my driveway.
It came with a 232 cid six under what appeared to be the longest hood in history. The country had been through two recent gasoline shortages so the 6 cylinder seemed prudent at the time. The crisis got so bad that in February they moved daylight savings time up two months in an effort to save energy. Construction of the Alaska pipeline started a month later.
Things sure were different back then. I had a small apartment on Little Creek Road. If you can imagine, it wasn't even air-conditioned (the Matador thankfully was)! Downtown Norfolk remained a dump in spite of the construction of a "pedestrian-friendly" mall that forbid car travel. I was an account rep for the Virginian-Pilot and handled some used automobile dealerships.
I kept the Matador for 2 years and sold it to buy a 1976 Plymouth Arrow (more about that disaster in another column). I miss that Matador and wish I still had it.
AMC today is laughed at, but my father loved his Eagle (one of the last AMC models) and to this day he comments that it was one of his favorite cars. Not very roomy... but he loved the reliability.
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