Rare 1971 AMC Sunoco Race Car And Muscle Car Spotted In Pennsylvania

Some classic cars are so underrated and underappreciated that people in the modern era has already forgotten them. Upon closer look, these cars actually have the specs and elements to compete against more popular models.

In the end, though, nobody bought enough AMXs to merit a long-lived existence. Such is the case of the AMC AMX high-performance model. The AMX failed to live long, thus its production numbers weren’t massive.

This makes them rather rare today, especially when it involves the 1971 AMX Sunoco models. YouTube channel Junkyards and Barn Finds with Sean spotted one of them at a recent car meet.

A Classic 1970 AMC Javelin Vintage Racer Found

Sean Dever started his YouTube video with a short tour at the Classic Auto Mall at Morgantown, Pennsylvania. The location is home to a 1970 AMC Javelin with a 355-ci V8 engine and a four-speed manual transmission.

This Javelin is a purpose-built vintage racer that someone fabricated in 1999 for Dick Cants. Wrapped in red, white and blue racing livery, this 1970 Javelin race car had competed in the GT1 and Group 6 classes.

Interestingly, this purpose-built Javelin copies the race-built AMC AMX that Mark Donahue drove to domination at the SCCA Trans-Am competition in 1971. Upon closer inspection, Sean witnesses the interior of the Javelin as devoid of creature comforts. This is understandable, since this Javelin is a race car that had most of its interior elements removed for the sake of increasing performance on the track.

1-Of-18 AMC AMX Sunoco Race Cars

Sean also travelled a few dozen miles to the west to Doylestown, Pennsylvania, to visit the Doylestown at Dusk Car Show. Here, he spotted a blue 1971 AMC AMX.

The AMX evolved into a special high-performance edition of the Javelin in 1971. Nevertheless, the 1971 AMX that Sean spotted in Doylestown was super rare and more special.

After all, the blue-finished classic car is one of the 1971 AMC AMX that Sunoco used for their Diamond program. Sunoco had around 18 examples of the AMX taking part in the summer beautification program, in which the company would check and rate corporate-owned stations for their cleanliness.

As the story goes, Sunoco tapped daughters of its executives for the program, giving each of them a blue AMX to drive around. Apparently, a Sunoco executive purchased one of those 18 cars and kept it for 40 years.