What It Was Like Attending The World’s Biggest AMC Car Show After The Launch Of My AMC Documentary

My co-producers and I spent the first half of 2025 desperately trying to wrap up post production of our 3-hour documentary on American Motors Corporation, The Last Independent Automaker. Despite our frantic pace, we were blowing through deadlines like a semi through those orange traffic barrels, leaving me to beg Maryland Public Television for more time to deliver our six episode series before they could submit it for national distribution.

For almost five months, I was a hermit who did nothing but edit video 14 hours a day, 6 days a week. I abandoned friends, family, social gatherings, doctor’s appointments, home maintenance, and my general health, making my life an endless slog of work, divided primarily by eating and sleeping.

Besides my faith and my long-suffering wife, one of the few other things that sustained me during this winter of discontent was the thought of taking several much-needed vacations when it was over. That included a week at the beach, followed by the 2025 Kenosha Homecoming Car Show. Held once every three years, the Homecoming Show is the world’s largest gathering of AMC vehicles, and for the first time in my life, I was going to drive my AMC there.

With just days to spare, my co-producers Jimm Needle and Patrick Foster and I successfully delivered the final episode of The Last Independent Automaker in late April. Since then, hundreds of public television stations have broadcast the series, and all six episodes are now available on YouTube. [Ed Note: I’m in this one! -David Tracy]

Following our program’s debut, The Autopian has been gracious enough to publish this behind-the-scenes series on how we produced the documentary. For our sixth and final installment, let’s go to Kenosha!

A Century of Cars

As our series explains, Kenosha, Wisconsin was home to AMC’s two largest factories, which built millions of cars over the decades. The “Kenosha Main” plant had parts dating back to the 1800s and first started building automobiles under the Thomas B. Jeffery Company in 1902. Charlie Nash bought the company in 1916, renaming it after himself. Nash Motors then merged with Hudson in 1954 to create American Motors Corporation, which was bought out by Chrysler in 1987. The “Kenosha Lakefront Plant” began as a Simmons mattress factory, before AMC took it over in the early 1960s.

Sadly none of the factories are left today, as just two years after Chrysler bought AMC it closed and demolished everything except for the engine manufacturing line. The engine plant remained open until Chrysler’s bankruptcy in 2010, when it too was closed and demolished.

Run by the Kenosha History Center, the Homecoming Show is a celebration of the city’s century-long automotive legacy and welcomes any vehicle with a Kenosha connection. This obviously includes AMCs and their Rambler, Nash, Hudson, Ajax, and Jeffery ancestors, but also extends to Pirsch fire engines, some obscure brass-era makes, Kenosha-built Renaults and Chryslers, AMC-era Jeeps, and AMC-powered vehicles from other companies like International Harvester and Bricklin.

After my wife and I returned from our much-needed beach trip, planning for Kenosha immediately commenced. While not officially a vacation, I was adamant that this would not be a work trip. I was there to have fun, and the only “work” I would do was hand out flyers promoting our documentary.

Our chariot to Kenosha would be my 1972 AMC Ambassador Brougham sedan, powered by a 360 cubic inch (5.9 liter) V8 running through a 3 speed Chrysler torqueflite automatic Roomy, comfortable, and containing a truly gargantuan trunk, it was the perfect vehicle for the job. Plus, what car could be more appropriate for promoting AMC history than an AMC Ambassador?

Knowing my mechanical limits, I asked my friend Josh Greenplate to be co-pilot. Featured throughout our documentary, Josh is an AMC genius. If anything broke down, I knew he could probably fix it. Knowing her personal limits against riding 11 hours in a 50 year old car, my wife opted to fly to Chicago with Josh’s wife and have us pick them up.

During my eight years of ownership, the only major repairs the Ambassador has needed were a transmission rebuild, a new vinyl top, and new points, plugs, and wires. Aside from the transmission, it’s generally been a reliable car. Unfortunately, the air conditioning has never worked, but this upcoming trip was the perfect excuse to get it fixed. As I’ll detail in a future story, this unraveled into a “If you Give a Mouse a Cookie” catastrophe that almost ruined our plans, but much like the documentary, we managed to finish it just in time and have cold air for the trip.

Go West, Young Man

I wish I could tell you that our drive out was filled with zany adventures and roadside wrenching, but unlike the typical Autopian road trip, it was remarkably smooth. Joined by our friend Alec in his 1977 AMC Hornet AMX, we took a leisurely cruise across Pennsylvania before spending the first night at my parents’ farm.

The second day we sailed through Ohio and Indiana untroubled, except for Josh claiming he saw the Ambassador making a few plumes of blue-gray exhaust at high speed. The biggest “event” was the Ambassador’s odometer rolling over from 99,999 miles back to 0, but to my everlasting shame, Josh and I were deep into a conversation about Jeep Quadra-Trac and we missed it! Guess I’ll have to drive another hundred thousand miles and catch it next time.

The only problem we noticed was that, despite the roomy interior, the Ambassador wasn’t the most ergonomic car for long trips. The soft, saggy seats and low sitting position didn’t promote very good posture, leaving us sore and stiff at each rest stop. It really proved how we take modern automotive ergonomics for granted.

We arrived in South Bend, Indiana just in time to tour the lovely Studebaker National Museum before it closed for the day. Although they never merged, Studebaker and AMC had plenty of shared history. AMC bought V8 engines and Ultramatic transmissions from Studebaker-Packard for its 1955 Nash and Hudson models, and AMC’s famous VP of Styling, Richard Teague, once worked as a Packard designer. I was thrilled to see Teague’s 1956 Packard Predictor concept car on display at the museum, which, true to its name, predicted many upcoming styling trends from the late 50s and early 60s.

In the 1960s, Kaiser Jeep acquired Studebaker’s defense contracts and began building government vehicles in South Bend, which would later become the AM General division of American Motors after AMC acquired Jeep. AMC would later sell AM General, which still exists in South Bend today. Along with several AM General vehicles, the museum also included a small display for Wheel Horse lawn mowers that were built in South Bend, which, coincidentally, was also owned by AMC for a period of time.

[Ed Note: That’s a Postal Jeep on the right! -DT]

That night, Josh’s parents surprised us by arriving in South Bend after deciding to drive their luxurious new Jeep Grand Cherokee to Kenosha. The next morning Josh hitched a ride with them so that he could use their hotel for an unexpected work video call, leaving me to do the airport run solo. Alec wisely chose not to follow, and pointed his Hornet AMX toward Indiana Dunes National Park.

Many had warned that getting to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport was no picnic, and they were right. Driving a 50 year old car with sloppy steering, four wheel drum brakes, and no passenger side mirror takes concentration even on lazy back roads, let alone on crowded 4-lane with seemingly endless construction. Perhaps I’m just a country boy that’s been spoiled by friendly Pennsylvania drivers, but Chicago traffic felt merciless, and the confusing signage around O’Hare didn’t help.

Thankfully I managed to pick up the girls and get out of the city in one piece. As easterners venturing west, my wife insisted we stop at a Culver’s for our first meal, and I was more than happy to indulge in a butterburger after that drive. With just minutes to our AirBnB, I was feeling relieved until I stomped the gas for a quick merge and saw the oil pressure light flicker on. I swerved into the first auto parts story we found, and sure enough, my oil was low. Which made sense after 700 miles. So I grabbed a jug, filled the engine up with a little extra to spare, and headed to our AirBnB.

The (American) Motors City

People may scoff at the idea of Kenosha as a tourist destination, but I think it’s lovely. The area has handled de-industrialisation better than many Rust Belt cities, and I’ve always found it to be clean, friendly, and active. For non-car people, there is a surprising number of shops, restaurants, and museums, including a Civil War museum and even a Dinosaur Museum. They also have an entire castle devoted to cheese.

Our AirBnB was situated right next to Lake Michigan, just steps from the beach and the large city park where the car show would be held. It had a beautiful view of the lake, and better yet, an enclosed garage. Although fitting the Ambassador inside was a tight squeeze.

Josh has been visiting Kenosha since the first Homecoming Show back in the early 2000s, at which point he said there were still dozens of old AMC Concords and Eagles trundling around town. Sadly, most of those daily drivers are gone, but soon the roads were filling up with AMCs again. From our big picture window, we watched Javelins, Gremlins, AMXs, Pacers, Eagles, and Ramblers cruise back and forth through the park.

I’ve already commended the Kenosha History Center for letting us use their incredible archives in our documentary, but man, do they know how to put on a good car show. The week-long event included multiple cruise-ins, a parade, a block party, a two-day swap meet, and a giant Saturday show. The festivities attracted an estimated 20,000-30,000 people, although it’s not clear how many of those were locals vs tourists. It’s also difficult to measure exactly how many cars showed up, as not all of them registered for the show, but it’s estimated around 1,000 vehicles were there.

It was a fun gathering, as AMC enthusiasts are all united by an underdog spirit, as if it’s our personal responsibility to preserve the history of this brand. While some AMC cars will always be worth more than others, many of these folks were just as excited to see a really mint Pacer or Matador as they were to see a Javelin or AMX.

The Kenosha Homecoming Show wisely does not have any judging, meaning it’s all just for fun. The competition isn’t between ourselves; it’s between AMC fans and the rest of the automotive world. To a lot of people, AMC is still fighting the good fight against the Big Three.

One particularly meaningful event was a cruise-in at the former site of AMC’s Kenosha Main plant. After the engine plant’s demolition just ten years ago, the area is finally being redeveloped. Called the Kenosha Innovation Neighborhood, it’s mostly open space right now, but city planners hope to build various business, residential, and recreation spaces. I was grateful to see that Kenosha’s automotive history will also be preserved as part of the neighborhood, too.

Another fun event was a Gremlin-only cruise-in at Jeffery Elementary School. Named for Thomas B. Jeffery, the school’s official mascot is the Gremlin, making it the perfect place for such a gathering.

I always enjoy a good swap meet, but after years of collecting AMC memorabilia, I’m actually trying to unload some of mine. Josh and his family however, live for collecting, and during our stay they nabbed some cool artifacts, including some binders of AMC road test performance data and a 1960s record album of AMC promotional music, similar to the 1977 new product musical we featured in The Last Independent Automaker.

Having been blessed with great weather so far, our luck ran out on Saturday when dense fog rolled in and the forecast threatened rain all afternoon. A few owners were spooked and headed home with their AMCs, but most people braved the elements and were rewarded with a great show as the rain held off. It was so cool to stroll down the aisles and see the massive variety of cars. Sure, there were the typical Javelins, AMXs, and Gremlins, but there were also bizarre rarities, like an Ambassador convertible with a factory V8 and 4 speed stick. Or a row of Concord sedans, all lined up together. Or a Jeep J10 Honcho with a Levi’s Interior. Or an International Harvester Travelall with an AMC 401 V8. Or, one of my personal favorites, a really cool green and black Rebel Machine with super hardcore patina. It felt like the whole American Motors family was represented.

According to the Kenosha History Center, the final count was 818 vehicles. I was slightly disappointed that it didn’t break 1,000, but from the ground it still felt like a massive show.

Handouts and Handshakes

Throughout the week, my wife and I passed out hundreds of flyers, dropping them on driver’s seats, sticking them on dashboards, and handing them directly to people. The effort must have worked, as our daily YouTube views more than doubled during those 72 hours.

I’d say about a third of the people we met had never heard of the documentary, which I took as an opportunity to turn them into new viewers. As for the people who had seen it, I was touched by their enthusiastic praise of our work. Countless people told me how much they enjoyed watching, how much they learned, how much it meant to see their friends and family on screen, and how important it was that we captured this history for future generations.

Several people even approached me out of the blue, after recognizing my face (or my car) from online, and they personally thanked me for making The Last Independent Automaker. One woman claimed seeing our documentary on TV was the whole reason she came to the show. One man got so choked up shaking my hand that he was lost for words. Another was so excited that as he walked away I overheard his wife say, “See, aren’t you glad you got to meet him?”

After spending a decade of my life producing this documentary, these comments meant the world to me. To see that American Motors wasn’t just some niche footnote in automotive history, but that it was a company that meant a lot to a lot of people, made all our work–even those hellacious last 5 months–worth it.

As one woman says at the end of Episode 6, “It wasn’t just a car maker. It was a life-maker for so many of us.”

We had a great time meeting all these people, but I couldn’t help feeling just a little disappointed when several felt the need to preface their remarks with, “I don’t really like PBS, but I liked your documentary!”

With the government’s recent decision to end federal funding for public TV and radio in the news that week, they must’ve felt the need to chime in on the issue. I smiled and shook their hands, but I wish they’d understood; without public television, there would be no AMC documentary.

From the distribution, to the fundraising, to the inspiration, to the four-decade MotorWeek archive that we pulled footage from, this project was only possible because of the existing infrastructure from 55 years of public broadcasting in America. Even though our team raised our own funding and didn’t take a dollar of PBS money, we never would have gotten the sponsorship or grants necessary to finish The Last Independent Automaker without the reach or legitimacy that public broadcasting provided. And despite what people may have assumed, there was never any pressure for us to push a certain political “angle” or opinion; our three man team had full editorial control of the final cut.

That’s not to say that PBS and NPR are without criticism, but that’s a conversation for another time and another platform. Despite the awkward interaction, I was still pleased to hear that they enjoyed our program. Perhaps if PBS made more automotive documentaries like ours, he’d like it more!

All in all, both my wife and I were touched by all the wonderful people we met. Even Josh had a brief celebrity moment while driving my Ambassador in the AMC parade when a woman shouted, “Hey, we loved you in the documentary!”

Eastbound and Down

On Sunday morning we set out for O’Hare with Josh behind the wheel and our wives riding in the Ambassador’s luxurious back seat. Aside from consuming a little extra oil, the car was doing great, but as we sped onto the onramp, I noticed an alarming amount of blue-gray smoke coming from under my wife’s seat. Seeing smoke outside the car is one thing, but seeing it inside is another. We immediately pulled over and evacuated onto the berm. With the car still running, Josh and I got down on our hands and knees to investigate. To my horror, oil was steadily dripping down the transmission housing and onto the exhaust pipe, vaporizing into the air. Thankfully, nothing was actually on fire, and we soon deduced that the smoke had gotten inside the car from an open footwell vent on the driver’s side.

Satisfied that we wouldn’t need to use any of the three fire extinguishers I had packed (yet), we cautiously drove to the nearest auto parts store. Upon closer inspection, Josh determined that the rear main seal between the engine and the transmission had begun leaking–explaining the intermittent bursts of blue smoke he had seen on our drive out. While much of that leakage had been blown off at highway speeds, all the time parked in Kenosha after I had overfilled the oil had caused the slow leak to accumulate, and now the accumulated oil was dripping off all at once. So we bought a bottle of Lucas Engine Oil Stop Leak and a gallon of the heaviest oil we could find, dumped the Stop Leak in and threw the spare oil in the trunk, and hit the road again.

We made it to the airport without any fanfare, although my wife seemed to doubt my cheerful assertions that Josh and I would make it home safely. From there, we rendezvoused with Alec at yet another Culver’s before heading south to Route 30. Every hundred miles or so, we stopped to check the oil, and found that after it got below the “Full” line, the leaking slowed down considerably. The constant burning had left the car with that smoky oil smell and deposited a greasy layer of soot on the rear bumper, but otherwise we were great. To give Alec a break, I drove his Hornet for a while, then cycled back to relieve Josh. In the process, we snagged some great photos of each other’s cars on the road.

With a somewhat unreliable gas gauge, we stopped often for fuel. I first calculated that we were getting 18+ miles per gallon, which seemed incredible. But after comparing notes, Alec pointed out that my odometer was running about 1.25 times faster than his, meaning I was racking up more miles than I was actually driving. A recalculated figure showed I was getting closer to 15 mpg, which was disappointing but more believable.

Another problem cropped up during our trip home, as I realized that the Ambassador’s switch from “A/C” to “vent” to “heat” had quit working, leaving the air conditioner compressor stuck on regardless of the setting. Thankfully, this was better than it being stuck off, and the compressor could still be disengaged by turning off the blower fan, which had a redundant switch in it. Luckily, we won’t be needing the heat anytime soon.

After a quick night at an Ohio hotel, we crossed into PA the next morning. Tired and dreading going back to work, the ride back wasn’t nearly as fun as the ride out, but our two AMCs stayed loyal to the end and brought us safely home (to my wife’s immense relief).

Victory Lap

For the last eight or so years, every AMC show I’ve attended has felt like work. There were always interviews to shoot, cars to film, presentations to give, and donations to collect. But for the first time in eight years, I was able to just have fun.

And despite the oil leaks and jammed A/C switch and terrible road-trip ergonomics, I only fell more in love with my 1972 Ambassador as I watched those 1,400 miles of road disappear under its long gold hood. Few owners can ever say they’ve taken their car back to where it was built, and even fewer can say they drove it the whole way there. 53 years after it left Kenosha, I was finally able to take the Ambassador home.

The Last Independent Automaker isn’t eligible to win an Oscar, but if it were, I would never be able to give an acceptance speech, because there are too many people to thank. I owe so much to God, my co-producers Jimm and Pat, my wife, my family, my friends, MPT and MotorWeek, the Automotive Hall of Fame, the Kenosha History Center, The Autopian, our sponsors, and the hundreds of AMC enthusiasts who helped us along the way. Making this series has truly been a life-changing experience for me.

Before leaving, I had joked that this trip was a “victory lap” of sorts for completing the documentary. But in the end, that’s really what it felt like. I cannot think of a better community of car-lovers to celebrate with. I owe so much to this hobby and the people in it.

As AMC designer Vince Geraci says at the end of our series,

“American Motors was unique. Unique! Never to be replicated again. That’s a one-timer!”

The same could be said for the people, too.

The Last Independent Automaker is available to watch now on YouTube, the PBS app, and on Public Television stations around the country.

The series is distributed by American Public Television. Maryland Public Television is the presenting station. The Automotive Hall of Fame provided fiduciary assistance. The Last Independent Automaker is funded in part by Visit Detroit, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and MotorCities National Heritage Area. It is also funded by over 375 individuals and organizations who contributed through the project’s Crowdfunding campaign.

All images are from the author unless otherwise stated.