Week 73: AMC Javelin

(A behind the scenes look at the blogging process.)

This week's tiny car and subsequent clever tie in to family life is an AMC Javelin, the car James Bond drives in the famous barrel roll stunt in Live and Let Die. Perfect. I might not yet know have a topic on which to write as I have procrastinated and also have been exceptionally ill, but no matter. I've been thinking there must be some potential tie-in with this Bond car for almost a month, something somehow contrasting how cool it was in the 1970s versus how many folks now think of AMC (the leaky Pacer, the Gremlin.)

There is something there, right? Don't you think? Maybe? Image thing?

Well, let's just get started and go dig up a few interesting bits of trivia from the web and ...

What?? Is this right? The car in that spectacular stunt was actually a modified AMC Hornet hatchback? And it wasn't in Live and Let Die, but The Man With the Golden Gun? Okay, it did look like a Javelin, didn't it?  You don't remember the Javelin? So what, I don't remember the movie. Come on, I'm not a James Bond scholar.

No worries. It will all fall together, because I am sure my fever will actually boost the creative process, add some spice. Any second now. Just around the corner. Because all I'm actually feeling is tired. And stupid.

Okay, no, tired and stupid is good. That's a tie-in to which any parent can relate. Let's run with it. Tired. And Stupid. Good. And Javelin. Keep going. Golden Gun. Diamonds are Forever.  Wait, that isn't even related. Goldfinger. Butterfinger. Nobody better lay a finger on my Goldfinger. Oh god I need sleep. Odd Job. *snicker* Snicker? Snickers? And Butterfingers? Kids love candy. I know mine do. My five-year-old is always mooching Life Savers from me, the ones I received for Christmas in that little Live Savers book.

Wait, did I just dose off?

So there you have it. Tired and Stupid. Parent. Sick. The end.

I don't think it would really be so bad if I just catch a few zzz's here at the writing desk.



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Sidenote: I did find out in my research that the amazing Astro Spiral stunt, as it was called, was performed by  stuntman "Bumps" Willert BUT that stuntman Jimmy Canton did perform the stunt in an AMC Javelin in the 1972 Thrill Show that debuted in the Houston Astrodome on Jan. 15, 1972, so HAH! I also found out that the stunt was one of the first car stunts to use computer modeling in its planning, which was done at Cornell University.

Photo of AMC Javelin courtesy of Phil Pekarcik.