Brand New AMC sheetmetal body panels

Earlier this year I started making new body panels for Rebels, Matadors and Ambassadors. So far I've made one piece rear quarters, floor pans and door skins. Rear valences and radiator supports will be following soon, then inner, outer and middle rocker panels all made correctly and with the mounting flanges on each end. The middle section with the round holes in it is where the structural support comes from.

All of my products are hand made, not stamped. They are hammer formed and made one at a time. They are made to original specs. 

I wasn't going to make any parts for Javelins or AMXs until people who saw what I did for the Rebels told me that the panels that are out there now are not a good fit whereas mine are perfect. They were quite adamant about it so I agreed. I don't want to start a price war or create animosity in a limited field of suppliers but they were pretty convincing.

I still haven't made any yet because I don't have a car or any panels to use yet for templates. Once I have them production will start.

One of the first parts I'll make will be the 71-74 Javelin rear quarters. 

In some cases I'll be doing fender troughs and frame rails too, front and back.

I do have a 68 Javelin to use as a template and I'll start those parts as soon as I get orders. So that means I can do 69 and 70 Javelins as well and some parts for AMXs of those years. 

There have been Javelin rear quarters made here in Canada in the past by a company called Globe. Their products were sold via another Canadian Company called Cross Country Auto Body Parts. These Javelin rear quarters are fairly well known by people in the hobby as being such as poor fit they are practically worthless. That is entirely true and the fact they're a poor fit is noted in Cross Country's in-house source catalogue.

My rear quarters are not to be confused with those. 

Other AMC cars have not had replacement panels available to them since NOS stock ran out. The odd one is still squirrelled away by various people as a sort of golden retirement egg. But when you want one they can be difficult to find and very expensive. 

I have not made any of these parts yet but I do know where to get the panels needed from wrecking yards to make the templates from. But I'm not doing that until I get the orders to pay for the effort. 

How I do business is the same way I've been doing business for 20 years selling the stripe kits for Rebel Machines: cash up front. It's worked well. Only three people have stiffed me so far and all three of them were desperate, needed a favour, promised the money and then never paid. So my financial benevolence ended there. 

If you want to see shots of the sheetmetal go to my website: www.rebelmachinestripekit.com

I've been experimenting with payment methods. Here in Canada we can do E-Transfers. The customer can e-mail payments from their account directly to my account. It takes less than a minute and  there is no fee charged. 

US customers have other options. One is PayPal which I rarely used except under duress. Another is the way I've been doing business with US customers for the last 20 years and that is by US Postal Money Order. That takes about three weeks and they are about $4 each I believe. I don't take cheques at all because those take from a month to six months to clear in Canada. 

The last option is a wire transfer that takes a few hours. So far I haven't had any transactions using this method but it will likely be the way of the future. If so PayPal is toast. Most likely they will go down kicking and screaming doing all they can to keep American Banking in the Dark Ages to protect their interests. 

When the Javelin rear quarters are ready, I'll be selling them in the US through Nick Alfano because he is prepared to buy in bulk which will keep the shipping and other expenses to a minimum. For the other cars, there isn't enough demand to do that based on the responses I've had so far. It's too bad it took 20 years too long to make this happen but for those who are still in the game, better late than never. Plus those late comers will get better parts than anyone but the factory could produce.