1973 AMC Javelin: The SST Name Retires, and the 360 Gets Two Different Numbers

AMC dropped the SST badge for 1973, but not the equipment it had described; the single remaining Javelin trim (body 7379-7) simply carried the same SST-level content under the plain Javelin name. The enthusiast production tally counts 25,195 of them, 15,219 with the 304 V8 alone, and adding the AMX's separately recorded 5,707 cars gives a combined line total of 30,902, a figure Wikipedia's routing entry attributes to a published source (Mitchell, p. 56).^1,2,3

The year's commemorative option looked backward rather than forward. The Trans Am Victory package marked AMC's 1971 and 1972 SCCA Trans-Am manufacturers' championships with a fender decal, 14-inch slot wheels, E70x14 raised-white-letter tires and a space-saver spare, a modest visual tribute to a racing program that by 1973 had already moved past its peak. Planet Houston AMX states plainly that no production count for the package is known, and that nothing in the VIN or door tag identifies a car equipped with it, so any Trans Am Victory Javelin's authenticity rests on documentation alone rather than anything a title search or a build sheet could independently confirm.^1,2

Engine popularity followed the same pattern the badge-simplified 1972 lineup had set: the 232 six found only 1,174 buyers and the 258 just 1,065, while the 304 alone outsold every other engine combined at 15,219 cars, more than the two sixes and the 360 put together. The 360 took 7,351 cars and the 401, the biggest engine on the sheet, only 386, meaning fewer than one Javelin in sixty-five left the factory with the largest available V8. A big-block 1973 Javelin was already a genuine rarity within a 25,195-car production run in which the two smallest engines, the 232 and 258 sixes, together still outsold the 401 more than five times over.¹

The 360 four-barrel's own rating is where this record's sources stop agreeing. Wikipedia's routing entry, drawing on AMC's broader 1972-74 net-rating figures, gives the 360 four-barrel 195 net horsepower, matching the single-exhaust tune AMC had listed the year before. But the 1973 full-line catalog actually consulted for this record prints only one 360 four-barrel row, at 220 horsepower and 315 lb-ft, the dual-exhaust figure from 1972 with no single-exhaust alternative shown at all. Whether every US-market 1973 360 four-barrel Javelin actually made 220 horsepower, or whether a lower-output single-exhaust version remained available without appearing in this particular catalog printing, is not settled here, and no source gathered for this record resolves the question either way.³

Factory pricing opened at $2,983 for a V8 Javelin and $2,889 for the six-cylinder, both effective from the September 1972 introduction. The Go Package carried forward its 1971 structure unchanged in price, $410 with the 360 or $499 with the 401, the same figures the option had carried in 1972.^1,4

Pierre Cardin's designer interior returned for a second year, now available with fabric trim across the seats, door panels and headliner plus front fender emblems marking the option, but restricted to just five specific exterior colors: Snow White, Diamond Blue Metallic, Pewter Silver Metallic, Trans-Am Red and Fresh Plum Metallic. AMC's own 1973 color chart spells out that restriction directly rather than leaving it implied, noting each Cardin-eligible color by its own paint code alongside a footnote making the pairing explicit, so a Javelin ordered in any of the other eleven 1973 exterior colors could not have left the factory with the Cardin interior regardless of what a later repaint or reupholstery might suggest.¹

Beyond the five Cardin-eligible colors, 1973's exterior palette ran to sixteen choices in total, from Snow White and the two Cardin blues through Olympic Blue, Maxi Blue, three distinct greens (Grasshopper, Fairway and Tallyho), Fawn Beige, Copper Tan, Cordoba Brown, Daisy Yellow, Vineyard Burgundy and an extra-cost Classic Black, with several colors restricted to specific model combinations rather than offered across AMC's whole line; Maxi Blue and Fresh Plum, for example, were limited to Gremlin, Hornet and Javelin, while Cordoba Brown, Daisy Yellow and Vineyard Burgundy were shared only with the Matador and Ambassador. A Spanish-grain vinyl roof was a separate option in five colors of its own: black, white, blue, green or cinnamon.

A 1973 Javelin is identified by a diamond-mesh grille with rectangular parking lamps set into it, twin taillights JavelinAMX.com describes as looking like 'TV-screens' with their own inner reverse-lamp elements, and a large plastic target emblem mounted in the rear panel. The same source cautions that the 1973 and 1974 bodies are nearly identical to each other, close enough that a positive model-year identification may require decoding the VIN rather than relying on styling alone.²

Dimensionally the 1973 Javelin rode a 110-inch wheelbase, stretched to 192.31 inches overall, 75.2 inches wide, and carried a 16-US-gallon fuel tank, all figures AMC's own full-line catalog lists under a single specifications table shared with the AMX. Shipping weight ran from 2,868 pounds for a six-cylinder car to 3,104 for a V8, a gap of 236 pounds, a difference this record attributes entirely to the engine and driveline rather than to any body change, since the wheelbase, length and width figures apply equally to six-cylinder and V8 cars alike in AMC's own shared specifications table.¹

For buyers who skipped the Cardin option, ordinary interior choices ran to five colors, black, blue, green, tan or white, trimmed in Uganda vinyl as standard or, on four of the five color codes, a Domino-branded fabric alternative. Between the retired SST name, the commemorative Trans Am Victory package nobody can verify from a VIN, and a 360 rating that reads differently depending on which catalog page is consulted, 1973 is a Javelin model year whose documentation is, in places, plainer to describe than it is to pin down exactly. None of those open questions changes the basic shape of the year: a single, simplified trim, a production run well down from the two-trim years earlier in the decade, and a big-block 401 engine ordered rarely enough, at just 386 cars out of 25,195, that the paperwork gaps around it may never fully close.¹