Pat Potter
Well I think it’s high time that I send in an article about my AMC. A little history, some of the restoration over the years and car life here, on Vancouver Island.
First, my AMC history. I grew up in an AMC family. In the late sixties and early seventies, my father and uncle owned and operated an AMC dealership in Jasper, Alberta. The Shell gas station on Connaught, to be exact. Having 4 kids, my parents always had station wagons; a ’64, ’68 and ’71 Ambassadors. My first nice AMC was a ’68 Rebel 2 door hard top that my grandparents bought brand new. I rolled it in ’78 when I was a dumb 19 year old kid. Javelins were the order of the day after that. I have owned at least 10 Javelins over the years since then, each better than the last. At one point when we lived in Canmore, Alberta, I had 4 Javelins on the driveway. Linda, my fiancé at the time, now wife of 34 years this coming February, said if you only keep one, make sure it’s the blue one. She was right again or still.
Turns out the “blue one” was and is a bona fide Mark Donohue Javelin 390 4 speed car to boot. Over the years I have met many of the people involved in its history starting with the original owner, Brian Kokoski. Brian bought it right off the showroom floor at Devonian Motors in Edmonton, Alberta. It was one of three sold there, the only dealership to sell them in Alberta. They had to be pre-ordered for Canada. Don Jackson was the salesman. An AMCA club member’s brother was also a salesman there and remembers the car well from it being in their showroom.
Restoration of “my Mark” has been a long journey that started the day I bought it and brought it home to Canmore on October 31, 1987. We bought our first home in 1990 and moved back to Calgary. Work would continue there for the next 21 years in our double garage. The first engine rebuild was completed in 1996. Restoring the Ventilair blue interior took quite a few years as it had been replaced with “disco diamond velour” by a previous owner. All the door and ¼ skins had to be replaced. Legendary Interiors was sourced for the bucket seats, centre console and rear seats. ACC provided the new carpets. Restoring the headliner was completed in Calgary as well. “Minting” out the rest of the interior didn’t happen until we moved to Vancouver Island, i.e., new dashpad and re-chroming of the plastic instrument bezels.
Acquiring 4 machine wheels turned into a 2 year quest in Calgary. One of my best friends, Rich Stillinger, started me on that quest when he lent me 4 with “wingfoot” tires on them to see if I would like the look. Well, I did and the search was on for 4 of my own. Evans Lonnenburg, another long-time AMC friend, actually had two wheels that he gave me. I purchased the other two. Two centre caps needed re-chroming and all four needed cleaning and repainting. Overall, I am happy with the way they turned out.
Early in 2021 came the next major project with the breaking of #5 piston of my 1996 engine rebuild, 25 years for a .060 cast piston engine isn’t bad. I was lucky to purchase an uncut 70 390 short block from Rich Stillinger before having moved from Calgary to the Island. What happened next was to be the best built 70 390 I could do with the resources I had available. Forged .030 Wiseco pistons, full machining of the block and heads, balancing, blueprinting of the oiling system. I ported and polished the 291C heads I had as spares and used a Comp Cams 280 with roller tip rockers to complete the build. This new engine runs very strong and I should be good for another 25 years or more.
There are not a lot of car shows here on the Island but there are some high quality ones. The nice thing here is that you can drive your car year round. Clean, dry roads are just less abundant in the winter season.
My car has won 6 awards in the 11 years we’ve spent on the Island. This summer was especially rewarding as I won two awards - “favourite 70” at Blast from the Past show in Coombs and “Best 1970 Stock” at the Van Isle Show at the Parksville where over 350 cars were in attendance. My 2 favourite awards came from 2 separate road trips when we still lived in Calgary. The first is a Junior Bronze award at the 2002 Kenosha, Wisconsin show which commemorated 100 years of Rambler. The second is a Junior Silver at the 2007 AMO meet in Denver, Colorado. We drove from Calgary to both of these destinations, turning the trip into vacations and the Donohue performed flawlessly on both trips.
