A bit of recovery : 

============================================================================
Testsuite summary for GNU Automake 1.12.2
============================================================================
# TOTAL: 2730
# PASS:  2459
# SKIP:  217
# XFAIL: 50
# FAIL:  4
# XPASS: 0
# ERROR: 0
============================================================================
See ./test-suite.log
Please report to bug-automake@gnu.org
============================================================================
gmake[2]: *** [test-suite.log] Error 1
gmake[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/build/automake-1.12.2_sparcv9_002'
gmake[1]: *** [check-TESTS] Error 2
gmake[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/build/automake-1.12.2_sparcv9_002'
gmake: *** [check-am] Error 2

real  1:02:48.586
user  4:11:29.108
sys   2:56:30.837

At least I can get results in one hour now.  :-\