Imagine strolling down the rows of vehicles at Cars and Coffee, overlooking all the samey, chromey, tacky ’60s and ’70s muscle cars, only to do a double-take when you spot something unusual among their numbers. That AMC—it’s on BMW wheels? Amble closer for a peek and you notice that inside, there are no bench seats but ’90s buckets, a bright, two-tone dashboard and a steering wheel with a BMW badge. It may sound one of those sleazy, status-seeking up-badge jobs done by your local slumlord, but it’s not. It’s a clever and well-crafted resto-mod, and one of the most unusual The Drive has ever seen.
Hailing from the precipice of the Malaise era, this 1975 AMC Hornet might have left the factory in a spec of austerity unimaginable to modern car buyers. Its most powerful engine option was a 360 cubic-inch (5.9-liter) V8 choked to just 175 horsepower, many of which would have disappeared on their way through primitive three-speed transmissions, or optionally, a four-speed manual. Standard brakes on these Hornets consisted of four-wheel manual drums and in 1975, AMC didn’t even offer air conditioning as a factory option—it left its dealers to sort that out until 1977. Rounding up all the best (but still largely mediocre) factory parts to build the ultimate AMC Hornet is almost more trouble than it’s worth, which is probably why the creator of this car simply swapped its body over to a BMW Z3 M roadster.