This Midwestern Muscle Car Turns Heads in Hollywood

Jeff Castelaz, 49, of Los Angeles, founder and CEO of Cast Management, a manager of music acts, on his 1970 AMC AMX, as told to A.J. Baime.

Growing up in Milwaukee, I had a bunch of older kids on my block who were always together working on their cars. They were really into American Motors [or AMC as it was called, short for American Motors Corp.]. We took a lot of pride in these cars because American Motors had factories in Milwaukee and Kenosha, Wis. When I was growing up, American Motors was a big auto maker. They were known for the Pacer, the Gremlin, and the AMX and Javelin muscle cars, and AMC also owned the Jeep brand back then. But to us, it was a local company.

These guys on my block taught me how to work on cars, starting when I was 10. They’d give me little jobs and let me ask questions, and I fell in love with it. I loved the smell of the motor oil. I loved problem-solving. And, I loved listening to music while we worked, because listening to music and working on cars goes hand-in-hand.

As soon as I had some money, when I was in my 20s, I bought a 1970 AMC AMX. At that time, the internet was fueling a surge in vintage muscle car enthusiasm. The most famous muscle cars—Mustangs, Camaros, Challengers, Chargers, GTOs—saw prices go sometimes into the hundreds of thousands. Smaller production cars like the AMC AMX also saw their prices rise accordingly. I bought my AMX for $2,500, and later sold it for $30,000.

Right before the pandemic, I bought my second AMC AMX from a vintage dealer in Sioux City, Iowa. I bought it for $40,000, and have probably put that much into it. At the beginning of the pandemic, I started rebuilding this car. We are living through a time of such tremendous uncertainty, and finding time to focus on the car has been a blessing.