Today’s Matador CC just begs the question: which was AMC’s Deadliest Sin, that most led to its demise as an independent automaker? Note: I didn’t say “Most Fascinating Sin” (I’m looking at the Matador coupe). To narrow it down we’re talking pre-Renault takeover, but not earlier than say 1965, so the Alliance gets a pass. And maybe you don’t agree with my nominations; so bring on your own.
Why do you consider the Javelin to be an AMC deadly sin, and why would you nominate it above the 1968-70 AMX? Certainly the Javelin would have had a larger audience than the 2-seater AMX.
On that note, I would like to nominate AMC’s “other” AMX, the mid-engine sports car project. After millions of dollars spent and a handful of prototypes built, the last six of them fully functional and driveable, the program was cancelled. Maybe not their deadliest sin, but a poor return on investment nonetheless.
I’m strictly talking about the Javelin’s horrible 1971 re-skin, not the original ’68 version. I think it totally ruined the Javelin’s clean lines.
I don’t think it was horrible at all. To my eyes it improved the car greatly. The first-gen version was a utilitarian blunderbuss, the second generation had oodles of character. I’d still be thrilled to have a first-generation Javelin, but Given the choice I’d take the later ones, especially with the quad taillights that seemed to fit better than the full light bar.
The deadliest sin AMC ever committed was the Matador coupe, by far the most hideous car ever built, far more so than e Pontiac Aztek. It had no redeeming values whatsoever. It is perhaps the only car AMC built from 1970 on that I would not buy. The rest were quirky, cute, or bland, but the Matador coupe is simply loathsome, and in fact it represents the final nail in AMC’s coffin. Everything that came after it had the scent of desperation on it.
I am a big AMC fan. When I was a kid they had the most unusual cars on the road, unmistakable for anything else. Like any other kid I found that to be irresistible, and now as an adult I still do. Anybody could drive a malaisemobile, but AMC had that certain uniqueness that the Big Three could (or would) never have. Give me a Gremlin, Ambassador, Pacer, Hornet, or even Spirit any day. Just spare me the Matador coupe.
Just spare me any of them. I rented a 1973 Javalin in Milwaukee. The rental agent looked at me as though a had an incurable disease. She had offered me Camaros, Mustangs, and just about anything else. But I chose the Javalin. I quickly learned why. A totally unmitigated piece of dung.
“The deadliest sin AMC ever committed was the Matador coupe, by far the most hideous car ever built, far more so than e Pontiac Aztek. It had no redeeming values whatsoever. ”
Nodding my head vertically signalling agreement with your statement.
Specifically, I recall the pure unadulterated ugliness of the 1974 matador.
The Marlin was also rather strange in appearance but it did not send paroxysms of revulsion through my inner essence.
So there you are! I was wondering what had happened to you. I don’t see you on TTAC anymore.
Welcome back!
Completely agree, Paul. I never drove a Javelin but I thought the first one was a looker. When I saw the second one I couldn’t believe it was the same car.
My cousin bought a new 68 Javelin with the 289 & auto, red, black vinyl top, black vinyl buckets/console/floor shift to replace a 67 Mustang totaled by her brother. IMO the Javelin was among the best looking of all of the pony cars and her car was very well put together (much better than the Mustang) and lasted for years and years. The second generation Javelin was hideous – I’d vote for it as a DS for being such an unworthy successor to the first generation.
I’m seeing all the 65 Ambassador hate below – same cousin’s Dad bought a new 66 Ambassador based on the family’s great experiences with a 64 American (and with the Javelin, they were all AMC for a while). I thought it was a pretty decent looking car (midnight blue four door, with what I recall was a rather posh brocade interior) and he got six years of great service out of it before trading for a new 72 LTD that turned out to be one of the great lemons of all time. AMC may have been wrong to try to compete in that market niche but the mid-60’s Ambassador was a very decent automobile.
I agree with the post below that Teague’s styling department turned out some great looking cars (64 American, 68 Javelin, et al) and some big losers (as the pics above show).
I’ll vote for the Pacer as the single biggest disappointment. The AWD Eagle was a creative dive in the parts bin that appeared a decade too soon. The Marlin and AMX were missed opportunities and the rest were attempts to develop on a shoestring.
On the flip side, the XJ Cherokee was definitely AMC’s final flash of brilliance, creating the soccer mom SUV.
The XJ was designed with lots of Renault input, engineering and otherwise. They had the European market in mind with it as well.
Shame on the Marlin; AMC got it right by ’67 with it’s longer, Ambassador wheelbase. A very handsome car that should’ve been on the Ambassador wheelbase in the beginning. On the other hand, that car should’ve been the American based Tarpon to begin with. A car that was a hit at all the shows and had potential to compete against the upcoming Mustang. All hindsight, of course.
For the amount of money AMC lost, I’d have to say the Pacer wins as the ‘deadliest’. Just a huge risk to take at such a perilous time. I’m not saying I don’t like the Pacer, in fact I think it is the most interesting car AMC ever built. The problem is, they had a good car that they should have kept building upon (Hornet) instead of hurling millions of dollars at adventurous things they could ill afford.
Wow. Where to begin. I am a product of 1970s Kenosha, Wis. AMC was THE industry in that town from the early fifties through “Chryslerzilla” swallowing up our hopes like a bad sixties horror movie. Locals used to refer to AMC products as “Kenosha Cadillacs”. A lot of businesses and families were built courtesy of those cars.
I’ll never forget the storage lot outside the plant. Seeing the new cars every year, knowing they were the new year styles by the exteriors. Twice touring the plant (now vacant) on 52nd street. My mother buying a new 1974 Hornet Sportabout then, two years later a 1976 Pacer (don’t ask-the next year, 1977, turned the Pacer into a Buick Electra sedan-new job/raise).
Sorry, but it’s difficult for me to look at these cars as “sins” (lol) as they will forever be a part of my childhood.
My true, real affinity for all things automotive began with the 1974 AMC brochure acquired when we were at the dealership, and has not dissipated.
AMC’s problem was they could count on buyers in Kenosha County, but out in the real world, they needed to compete. Not expect ‘sympathy buyers’.
This is something I completely forgot about. For years the only place you would regularly see AMC products was the Kenosha area. It seems funny, but it’s true.
I also remembered my first real “car crush”:
The 1974 AMC Ambassador Brougham sedan
It’s easy to forget that sometimes. Kenosha was AMC for a long time. I am very interested in the history of the city and of AMC and I find it kind of sad that people put AMC down without realizing they (and their forebears) began the major infrastructure of a whole community. It must have been very hard on people in your city when AMC finally closed.
Thanks Doug.
Yes, I remember when Chrysler bought AMC in 1987. Everyone thought it was going to revive the town. Well it did, for awhile. The lakefront plant, which made Fifth Avenue bodies for a couple of years, was torn down in 89/90. The mid-town plant (bordered by 52nd and 60th streets) was used to make engines after the M-Body (?) Fifth Avenue changed styles. Today the plant sits completely unused and as of June ’12 the city still doesn’t know what to do with it. I haven’t lived there since ’89, but we still have relatives/friends in the town.
There are two great books, although both are out of print, regarding AMC.
1. The American Motors Family Album. Published in 1976, paperback. It covers everything from the Nash/Kelvinator merger (1955?) through the 1977 model cars.
2. American Motors: The Last Independent. Published in 1993. A complete history of the whole deal from Nash (whenever they started) through the merger with Kelvinator/Renault purchase (’83)/Chrysler purchase (’87)/the end.
Yes, I have both of them. No, you cannot have them!!!! (lol)
There’s another one. AMC Cars: 1954-1987: An Illustrated History. It’s available on Amazon for about $30.
Roy Abernethy killed American Motors. Deadly Sin #1: ’65 Ambassador.
Wikipedia’s Ambassador article says it better than I can:
“1965: No matter how much success the new Ramblers achieved in the marketplace, Roy Abernethy was not completely satisfied…. Abernethy closely looked at the direction that American Motors’ competition was going and decided that the company would be much more successful if its products competed more directly with the Big Three. He would achieve this by pushing all AMC vehicles further upmarket among the various market segments, shaking off the company’s economy car image, and offering vehicles once again in all three major American car size classes: compact, intermediate, and full-size. The 1965 Ambassador represented a fundamental shift in corporate ideology, a shift away from primarily fuel-efficient vehicles, to bigger, faster, and potentially more profitable cars.”
What made him think they could keep up with the likes of GM? Once the fuel economy, emissions and safety regs hit the bar went way up. If AMC had stuck to its smaller car niche, and focused on one or at most two platforms and engines, they’d have done great in the ’70s gas crunches and would have at least had a chance to remain independent.
Come on; AMC had been doing that since the fifties; extending the front end of the Classic to make the first non-Nash Ambassador. Here’s just one example from 1961; just as bad as the ’65.
George Romney looked at that Ambassador’s meager sales and put the ’62 Ambassador on the Classic’s 108″ wheelbase. Sales actually went up. Then he left and went into politics.
Roy Abernethy’s 118″ Ambassador in 1965 was good for sales in the short term, but cost precious capital. AMC made $34M in 1963, but lost $75M in 1967.
Worse, the full-line strategy turned AMC’s image from a strong economy alternative into a blurry also-ran. AMC was underfunded and desperate ever since.
I’d agree, but AMC was in kind of a tight place to go around 1965. GM, Ford and by happenstance, Chrysler had moved into their market and rebranded it as “Intermediate.” Where were they to go?
Maybe if they stuck with ever refining “right sized” cars instead of trying to be an independent equivalent of Ford (broughamification came on just as strong at AMC as it did everywhere else) there’d be fewer deadly sins, but the 1965 Ambassador, though nice to look at, was a pointless exercise in being neither fish nor fowl. It’s like AMC decided to build a nicely styled 1962 Plymouth in 1965, which worked for that record year in sales, but further down the line….
All right, I’ll concede, somewhat, kinda, sorta. I bet that ’65 Amby didn’t cost much, to stretch the front end a bit, again. Which is why it was done in the first place. AMC’s losses in ’67 were more than just that problem. The ’67s looked pretty good too; maybe the loss was in the high capital investment to retool for them. That and the fact that they were slipping generally in a market that was going in other directions.
Yes, it wasn’t any particular car, it was long-term damage. The Deadly Sin was dropping Rambler’s winning strategy. Plus Geeber’s point of not following Mason’s upscale compact formula in the sixties. The ’65 Ambassador just represents the Sin when it emerged.
20/20 hindsight of course.
Has somebody ever super-restored a sixties Rambler Classic V8, with disc brakes, leather seats, sunroof, premium paint, Blaupunkt stereo? In other words, what Kenosha could have built.
Otherwise, what AMC could have picked up ideas from Studebakers “innovative desperation” like sunroofs, disc brakes and all of those features. If Only. I always thought The Classic from 1963-66 was a pretty dashing car.
I’d say that the Ambassador’s sales increase for 1962 had more to do with a recovering market and elimination of the controversial 1961 “nose” than the decision to put the car on the Classic’s wheelbase.
All the work George Romney did in the mid-fifties quickly unravelled with Roy Abernathy in the mid-sixties.
For the 8th deadly sin, I nominate Dick Teague’s maddeningly uneven styling department that would careen between brilliance and awfulness. The 1967 Ambassador and Rebel, the 1970 Hornet, the original AMX – beautiful cars. Even the 74 Matador Coupe, the Pacer, and the 71 Javelin – you may not like them, but they are certainly designs with a coherant theme.
Then we have the Marlin, the Matador sedan, the 74 Matador front end, just truly awful designs, each and every one, and not by just a little bit.
Say what you will about AMC, but my brother, my mother, and my father all still think our 1974 Matador Oleg Cassini coupe was the best car we ever owned. We still miss it, 35 years later.
Pacer. Hands-down. Such high hopes never realized due to technological setbacks with the Wankel, which would have been a real winner, in my opinion.
Another thing was the lack of substance, quality-wise as to strength in such things as hinges and other necessary hardware. What worked on Gremlins didn’t work on a more advanced car and AMC didn’t have adequate resources to improve.
FWIW, I think the Matador coupe was the last American sedan to have roll-down back windows, too…
You just mentioned, IMHO, the weak point of the Matador coupe styling: those gawd-awful quarter windows. By the time AMC got the shape right, it was too late to save the sinking ship. Minus the “cheap add-on” look of the 5-mph bumpers, the design was something like a Monte Carlo sized “personal luxury” car, but with Camaro-esque hood and fenders. Had the car been offered in a V8 only, and marketed with upscale interior–instead of being offered with the six and a three-on-the-tree and a bargain-basement interior as standard equipment–the Matador coupe might’ve attracted more buyers from folks considering Big-3 products. And DEFINITELY with the later quarter window “inserts.”
One other thing: NO VINYL TOPS, except on the Matador and Ambassador Broughams of the ’70’s. On everything else, they looked ridiculous.
I still think that the Matador coupe just had a shape that was 180 degrees out of step with styles of the time. Personal luxury coupes were huge then. Monte Carlo, Cutlass Supreme, Cordoba, and even the Ford Elite. All were marked with a neo-classic shape and made use of opera windows, vinyl roofs and all of the other things that were hot at the time. It was one thing for Chrysler’s 74 Charger where it was a holdover from an earlier design, but something else entirely to pick this shape for a brand new car in 1974. I can see where AMC took the gamble and tried a big coupe that went where nobody else did. The problem was that there were no buyers there. I also agree that offering the car as a strippo was a bad idea. They could also have called the car an Ambassador, which would have given it a little more luxury crediblity.
Mike- you’re so right about the ’65 Amby/Classic. The ’63/4 were absolutely beautifully proportioned cars and just the right size for most families. In ’65, Rambler started tacking bits on the front and the back and kept doing so until by the Matador’s era they looked like an elephant on a unicycle. The pursuit of size and length by adding useless extensions is one of the flaws that AMC was guilty of but not alone in. Had they the courage to keep to the ’63 size and actually add quality, they could have had a decent luxury car. Its no surprise that the late 60s Merc S class was about the same size- and shape- as a ’63 Rambler.
The matador was just a sad meh. The ambassador, double meh.
The Pacer was briefly fashionable- like a Chrysler PT cruiser, and aged quickly as a result.
The Gremlin wasn’t a bad car for what it was- and could be alot of fun.
The Javelin was really cool in my eyes, and I personally love those front wheelarch humps.
The Hornet was perfect.
I have no beef with the Spirit/Concord. These were true ‘wartime austerity’ specials- like when Scarlet O’hara pulled down the curtains to make a dress out of them. (I wonder if that’s where they got the interiors from?) They did the best with what they had, and were far more reliable than their competition-
Spirit vs Pinto, Monza et al, Horizon, mk1 Escort
Concord vs X body, Granada, Volare
What’s more, both gave birth to the Eagle, which finally gave the good people of Colorado and Vermont a decent family car that they could use all year.
And while we’re talking deadly sins, the number 2 (in every way) must be… the AMC Medallion. Take a mediocre car from France. Add a bunch of emissions crap. Use the least reliable automatic transmission known to mankind. Invent a particularly brittle plastic for the electrical connectors. Sell it through a dealer network without metric wrenches- what could go wrong? I could also say the Alliance/Encore, but people actually bought these. Nobody bought a Medallion. Or a Premier with the 2.5 jeep engine for that matter. At least the Premier looked good and had one of the nicest interiors of the ’80s.
As for the nominated 7 deadly sins themselves, I do not count either the Gremlin or the Spirit as deadly sins. They sold a lot of Gremlins, and the Spirit was a credible refresh of an aging car when AMC was about out of money.
The Marlin was the first of these, blowing AMC’s first crack at the sporty car market. The Matador sedan was certainly another, for all of the reasons I went into earlier today.
The Pacer and Matador coupe were deadly sins. Interesting ideas, but deadly sins nonetheless. Surely, the stylists at AMC could see where the trends were going. Chrysler made the Cordoba and sold a bazillion of them. The Matador Coupe was so far removed from popular trends that it was sure to be a flop, and it was. The trend for large coupes had been set with the Continental Mark III, and if AMC was going to get into this market, why not get in with something that would be in style? The Pacer is a little more forgiveable, in that it was a new niche that AMC thought was worth trying.
The 71 Javelin is the only one of these I have some fondness for. In 1972, my friend Tim’s family finally ditched the rusty white 1960 Lark VIII and replaced it with a red 72 Javelin AMX. Red and black interior, buckets, console and the 360. It was one of the coolest cars I had ever seen, and it is the only AMC car I ever really spent any time in. It did use a lot of cheap plastics inside, but everything else was going that way too. I consider this one a worthy effort.
I think one reason that AMC didn’t copy the Big Three’s coupes with the 1974 Matador was that this route didn’t necessarily guarantee success, either.
The 1967 Rebel and Ambassador were handsome, clean designs, but thoroughly conventional. They would not have looked out of place in a Ford or a Dodge showroom. But they didn’t sell all that well – their failure is a big reason that the company almost ran out of cash in early 1967.
AMC’s mistake was in treating the coupe as a separate vehicle, and giving it too much tooling that was not shared with any other AMC car. The coupe never sold in high enough numbers to recoup those tooling costs.
The Matador really needed a program similar to that of the Hornet. AMC was able to successfully apply the Hornet’s styling to a wide variety of body styles – two- and four-door sedans, a wagon and a hatchback. It also used much of the same tooling to create another car that the public accepted as an entirely distinct model – the Gremlin. Imagine if AMC had been able to do something similar with the Matador and Ambassador lines in 1974-75.
I would say the Pacer, because of the anticipation of using GM’s Wankel engine, they staked so much on GM coming through (in the ’70’s no less) with a totally new engine design.
Since the GM rotary was supposed to be a Vega option, AMC should have looked at how well the existing Vega piston engine turned out and thought “hmm, maybe we shouldn’t bet the farm on these guys”. I think that would make it Paul’s favorite too, a GM deadly sin tie-in to an AMC deadly sin.
Just deadly all around…
Oh and the ‘Rebel’ name. Also known as how to alienate your customer base in one step.
AMC was a car company whose market was squares. Not just any squares, but squares from north of the Mason Dixon line. They had their picture on the back page of rambler ads in national geographic looking constipated while talking about how their Rambler drove 200,000 miles across the parish. Think Lutheran minister and his wife. Not your most adventurous clientele. So Rebel? You can hear Mrs Enid Gustalfson saying “Rebels are those dirty hippie-freak dodgers?” Or “Aren’t rebels the confederates? those unpleasant southerners in sheets who killed the nice northern kids who helped get the negros the vote dontcha know. Why would I want to drive one of those? I don’t have anything against the blacks.” (except she wouldn’t say that because it would be improper to even mention social conflict, as that would be bad manners).
Hey, I resemble that remark!
Totally agree with Mike about the 65 Ambassador and Classic, awkward and uninspired. Trying to compete across the board with Big Three was delusional. Of course, Chevrolet’s introduction of the 1964 Chevelle marked the beginning of the death spiral for American Motors. However, I have always been a little puzzled by the marketplace’s complete rejection of the 1967 Rebel/Ambassador. They weren’t that bad. I loved the catalog shot of the red 67 Ambassador convertible.
The Alliance and Encore should be on there an honorable mention, just because of the “high hopes” and initial “Can of the Year” buzz that surrounded them, true they are not an AMC design, I mean there was no way AMC was going to design a new FWD small car on their budget, all they could afford was a new turn signal, they are more Renault than AMC sincethey are result of FrancoAmerican Motors, but the dashed hopes of the Alliance/Encore are classic deadly sin.
I don’t consider the Gremlin, Spirit or Matador coupe deadly sins; the Gremlin was certainly unique in a weird way-sort of like a French Bulldog-so ugly it’s cute. The Spirit was an attractive restyle of the Gremlin and the Matador coupe I always found very attractive. Then there was the Matador sedan-I was always amazed Dick Teague could do such a good job on the coupe and such a terrible job on the sedan-it was almost as if it was aimed at the Lawrence Welk set-very conservative and totally square.
I always liked the 68-70 Javelins, but the ’71 restyle with its arched fenders appeared to be looking to George Barris and his custom cars for inspiration. The Pacer was an answer to a question no one asked.
I always felt the Marlin was a frumpy looking vehicle, I always felt AMC should have produced the Tarpon-which was based on the Rambler American and a much nicer looking car. The only positive review of the Marlin I ever read was I believe in the ’65 July or August issue of Hot Rod. Go figure. You should have included the Renault Appliance which was the final nail in AMC’s coffin.
I’d say that the original Deadliest Sin happened before 1965. The other Deadly Sins were in reaction to it.
It was when George Romney abandoned the original Rambler’s role as a well-equipped car that happened to be small, and could be parked next to a Cadillac as a second car. That was George Mason’s original intent with the first Rambler. Mason realized that selling on low price alone was a money-losing proposition – there isn’t that much difference between the cost of designing, engineering and building a large car versus a small one. The price therefore can’t be cut sufficiently to attract customers on that basis.
Romney allowed the Rambler to be recast as a stripped penalty box for tightwads. He also wasn’t aggressive enough in replacing outdated components (flathead six, outmoded front and rear suspension designs, vacuum windshield wipers).
That worked during the 1958-61 recession. It helped that the size of the “low-price three” ballooned in the late 1950s, and the build quality of many Big Three cars at that time was terrible. But then Ford came out with the intermediate Fairlane for 1962, which was the first Big Three offering to compete directly with the “standard” Ramblers.
The real blow came in 1964, when the debut of the GM A-bodies pretty much sealed AMC’s fate. How could a Rambler Classic, with its dull engines, outmoded chassis and standard vacuum wipers, compete with a Cutlass, LeMans or Skylark?
Meanwhile, Chrysler stole the no-nonsense buyers with the better-engineered, more modern Valiant and Dart after 1962.
The brutal truth is that AMC was already on the downward slide before 1965. The market began recovering in 1962, but, despite a sales increase over 1961, AMC dropped in the production standings. And this was while the company was benefitting from Chrysler’s implosion in 1962.
For 1963, AMC had all-new, very nicely styled Classics and Ambassadors, and set a sales record, but it dropped again in the production standings. Even more ominously, sales themselves starting dropping for 1964, despite a handsome, all-new Rambler American and Classics and Ambassadors that were only one-year-old. For the rest of the industry, 1964 was a boom year.
Abernethy made a lot of bad moves during his tenure, but the bottom line is that he had inherited a rapidly deteriorating situation.
What if AMC had continued to promote the Rambler as a well-equipped car that happened to be small – 20 years before Honda did the same thing with the first Accord?
What if Romney had worked to ensure that AMC cars were as up-to-date in features and engineering as their Big Three counterparts when AMC was flush with cash?
What if Romney had continued to offer a vehicle on the order of the 1957 Rebel – a smaller car with a potent V-8 for people who appreciated some dash with tidier overall dimensions?
Perhaps AMC wouldn’t have found itself cast as the maker of nerdy, outmoded cars for tightwads and oddballs by 1965.
You raise some great points. I have always thought that the one way that the Ambassador could have been successful was to have sold a car sized like a Cutlass but trimmed out like a Cadillac. The Rambler/Hornet should have been trimmed out the same way, with plenty of power and very well equipped as standard. Nobody was selling anything like that in those years.
Agreed. The seeds were sown before Roy showed up. Mason had the right vision.
Hindsight! What-if is such fun.
But the only reason AMC was still alive in ’65 was because it was cast as “the maker of nerdy, outmoded cars for tightwads and oddballs.”
Once the Big Three, GM in particular, made a concerted effort to invade AMC’s intermediate car turf, they were finished. Had they not blown all their development money on boondoggles like the Marlin, and spent it instead on four cylinders and front drive in the ’70s, they might have lasted a little longer. Maybe.
I’m not sure that would have worked for them either. Today, four cylinders and front drive seems so obvious because it’s so commonplace in the market. In the ’70s it wasn’t. AMC was almost completely dependent on the U.S. market. Back then, a small, specific demographic was buying those cars. Honda, Toyota, and Nissan/Datsun could sell to that group in the U.S. while still making plenty of profit back home in Japan (and in other places) where small cars were the norm. AMC would have been going up against Cutlasses and other larger offerings in the ’70s with smaller cars that would be perceived as lesser at the time, but would have had to have been priced similarly to recoup the investment. Without an international presence where such cars were more the norm, I don’t see how AMC would have found a large enough market back then to remain viable. Had they pulled it off and somehow stayed afloat until the mid to late ’80s when four cylinder, FWD Accords and Camrys became the #1 cars in the country, heck, they could be today’s Camry.
I have to agree with you. AMC and its largely Nash-derived DNA was among the least innovative carmakers ever. Nash’s only two claims to fame were its fresh air heating system and the unit body. Otherwise, it was a series of thoroughly conventional cars that were very average from a mechanical point of view.
Compare them to Studebaker. In the early 50s, Studebaker was among the first with an ohv V8 engine, had a proprietary automatic transmission (built by B-W), and experimented with a mechanical power steering system. Later, they used superchargers, offered disc brakes and tried a whole host of new, interesting ideas from sliding roof wagons to a fiberglass body luxury sport coupe.
I doubt that AMC would have had a chance going to FWD. Jeez – even GM botched that changeover. Chrysler only managed based on years of hard work from its Simca subsidiary. However, a 4 cylinder engine for the Gremlin would have been a good idea. Surely there was some expertise in 4s that came over from Kaiser Jeep.
Few Studes rolled out of SB with superchargers and disc brakes. And the old straight 6 was still the engine of choice for many buyers. Stude didn’t even have unit body.
Stude largely occupied the same brandspace as Rambler, but with an inferior product, though I’ll grant you that you could get the parts you mentioned, whereas you could not get them on your AMC.
One of my brothers had a Lark and we’d compare it with my Rambler. The unit body made for a good ride while the Stude rode like a lumber wagon. Not so bad for the era, because most people at that time had never driven anything but BOF cars. All these decades later the difference is startling.
I’m not sure a proprietary slush box was that smart a move. Most small manufacturers bought transmissions from the big 3, chiefly GM. AMC, to my knowledge used Ford transmissions, then switched to Chrysler.
The sliding roof wagons, while clever, leaked. Good idea, poor execution. The Avanti was a total waste of precious development $ – just what a struggling independent needed, a competitor to the Corvette.
But this is about AMCs deadly sins, not Studes.
I think you’re right that they should have been able to work one of their 4cyl engines into a small car platform. Maybe even launch a smaller car off a jeep platform ?
I didn’t think the Studebaker automatic was terribly different than the Borg-Warner DG or the (Borg-Warner co-developed) Ford-O-Matic — perhaps not quite the same, but very similar. Of course, I admittedly haven’t studied the shop manuals for them.
Both Nash and Hudson initially used Hydra-Matic, purchased from GM. A few big Nashes in ’55-’56 used Packard engines and Twin Ultramatic, but I don’t think it was very common. After GM switched to the dual-coupling Hydra-Matic, I believe AMC used that very briefly and then switched to Borg-Warner, probably for cost reasons. (The controlled coupling H-M was very expensive.) AMC stuck with the Borg-Warner units until 1972, when they switched to TorqueFlite.
I don’t know that I think the supercharger was much of an achievement for Studebaker. First, the supercharger was not a Studebaker development, nor was it proprietary: it was a Paxton (McCulloch) unit, similar to the one previously used on 1954-55 Kaisers and I believe the same unit used on F-code Ford Y-block engines in ’57. For Studebaker, as with Kaiser, it was a sort of desperation ploy, to make up for the fact that after the demise of the Packard engine, they didn’t have a big V8. (The Studebaker engine’s limit was 304.5 cid.) Moreover, the early units were not very reliable. Andy Granatelli and his brothers said there were some major quality control issues with the manufacture that McCulloch had not figured out, and warranty costs were very high. (The Granatellis convinced McCulloch to unload the Paxton division for cheap, rectified the manufacturing issues, and then later sold Paxton to Studebaker-Packard.)
It was my understanding that the DG was a joint development by Studebaker and B-W, and was used exclusively by Studebaker from maybe 1950 through the 1955 models. At one point, Ford approached Studebaker for a license so that the DG or a variation on it could be used in Fords. Studebaker turned Ford down, and Ford had BW develop a different unit, the 3 speed Ford O Matic. In a twist of fate, by 1955, the DG was being built in such low volumes that Studebaker could no longer afford it, and started using the B-W Flight O Matic, which was essentially the same unit as the Ford O Matic. Studebaker people consider the DG to be much superior to the later unit.
Some Hudsons used the DG after their supply of Hydra Matics was interrupted by a factory fire, and Hudson fans have little good to say about the DG in those cars, However, the transmission was developed for cars of substantially less power and torque than the big Hudson Hornet 6.
My earlier point was that Studebaker seemed to be a more adventurous company than was Nash/AMC. My example of the superchargers was that Studebaker was trying for the performance market, though in the only way open to a company with a size-limited engine. AMC had many more resources available to it, including some pretty big V8 engines, but never made a play for the performance market. However, Studebaker’s periodic desire to swing for the fences resulted in some big and costly mistakes, which the more conservative Nash/AMC avoided.
The only sin I could apply to the 71 Javelin was that the AMX became just a trim package on it. Otherwise I find the styling very attractive amongst the pony cars of the same period and probably the most original.
I would nominate every Hornet based AMX that followed though.
I’ve told this before, but my parents had a 1960 Rambler 6 4 door and then a ’64 Classic wagon. By 1969, we had a new Plymouth Fury wagon, [along with used ’65 Stang I6 for 2nd car]. Folks said they were “sick of Ramblers”.
They just did not keep up with competition and customer tastes. Tried to just stretch the bodies on old hardware for 1965-67 and lost customers and cash. Essentially, like my folks, owners were “sick of them” and wanted more style, performance, and roadworhtiness. Our Plymouth wagon was like a luxury car compared to the 64 Rambler.
The Hornet and Gremlin got back small car buyers in 70’s, but nothing to sway Cutlass, Torino, or Cordoba intenders.
For me, toss up between the bloated Pacer (a novelty in ’75 and sold like hotcakes, but the inefficent bulbous car soon lost favor and sales) – or – the ’74-’78 Matador sedan.
What was AMC thinking? Shortened front fenders and the longer Ambassador hood to squeeze onto the shorter front clip of the Matador? A real el-cheapo way to lower costs of sheet metal resulted in a positively hideous looking machine. Dick Teague must’ve had stomach cramps being forced to tailor a tuxedo for a dwarf. Hindsight says AMC should’ve just re-badged the Ambassador a Matador for beyond 1974.
I lean toward the Pacer and Concord as the deadliest, but there were so many…AMC toward the end was like something the Onion (also originally from Wisconsin) would have put together as a spoof car company if it didn’t already exist. That said, I like weird cars, and AMC did give us some of the weirdest…Marlin, Javelin, Matador coupe–but you can’t make a profit trying to sell weird (not very often anyway).
As the owner of two Ramblers I cannot resist commenting. IMO, the Pacer is the only genuine deadly sin. Most AMC cars are just a desperate attempt to stay in the market with little cash to support development. No sin in that, as far as I can see. (I do agree with geeber that management sort of lost the plot)
The Gremlin is almost a deadly sin – surely the butt of many jokes. But it allowed AMC to compete with Pinto/Vega when they simply could not have come up with a smaller car. (Oh, the irony, AMC unable to compete because it had no platform small enough) One of my cousins had a Gremlin and I have to say it was a better can than the Pinto or Vega. The 4 cyl. cars were not really offering significant MPG gains compared to the Gremlins’ 6. I’d say the Gremlin was a clever way to compete – just do an assendectomy on the Hornet.
I don’t see much reason for coming out with the Pacer. It looked funny and didn’t fill any void that couldn’t have been filled by the Gremlin. Not that everything was bad about the Pacer -it had good visibility, and the styling was at least a fresh approach, if a little too unconventional. I never really understood why there needed to be both a Gremlin and a Pacer. Development cost could have gone to something else.
AMC’s deadly sins aren’t so much it’s individual models as the inability to stick to a tightly defined market niche. In fairness, it would have been very difficult for any CEO in the ’60s not to think AMC needed cars in various segments. And we are really only assuming that sticking with Ramblers trimmed like Caddys would have saved AMC. It might have gone under even quicker. AMC did manage to stagger along for 3 decades which is a lot better than the Stude/Packard merger did.
What’s the opposite of a deadly sin? A saving grace? AMC’s saving grace was buying Willys.
“In fairness, it would have been very difficult for any CEO in the ’60s not to think AMC needed cars in various segments.” True enough. It’s hard to imagine or believe the optimism (or arrogance) of mainstream America in the sixties.
I miss that level of confidence, though I admit it crossed over into arrogance at times. We could really use some of that forward looking confidence right now. We’ve become such a timid fearful nation (though plenty of bluster to hide our fear) that I hardly recognize the country any more.
It says something for the lousy attitude we’ve got today that the term ‘arrogance’ is said in the same breath as the term ‘confidence’. American in the 60’s (first two-thirds, at least) was an incredible place. A country that could land on the moon less than ten years after deciding to go there. And nobody considered us arrogant for doing it.
No, if there’s a problem, is the pathetic, complaining, inward-looking society we’ve turned into fifty years later. Go to the moon again? Don’t make me laugh. We aren’t capable of such bravado anymore.
Don’t be so sure.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/planetary-resources-asteroid-mining/
I’m not sure AMC really had a specific Deadly Sin. Unlike the other domestic automakers, the phrase, “I’ll never buy another AMC product because the (insert bad car name here) I had was such a steaming pile of crap” cannot be clearly defined.
The engineering, although nothing innovative or top-tier, neither was it ever particularly bad. And if AMC products didn’t have their own special, unique styling (even if it was somewhat awkward), would it have made any difference? Why buy an AMC product if it looked just like someone else’s car? You’d just go out and buy one of the other products, instead.
Essentially, consumers just stopped buying their cars. As to why, unlike other car companies where the reasons for their ultimate decline (including today’s GM and Chrysler) can usually be pinpointed with some degree of accuracy, AMC remains something of a mystery as to what, exactly, brought them down.
Maybe AMC’s Deadly Sin was something as simple as the success of the Jeep Division. For, without the solid profits that AMC could always count on from Jeep to keep them going, they would have folded a whole lot sooner, rather than lingering until the eventual sale to Chrysler.
After thinking about this, one of AMC’s deadly sins – perhaps not the worst, but right up there was the flat, crudely extruded aluminum “bright” window door glass surrounds that wasn’t very “bright” and looked like you took your old storm door and recycled it! THATscreamed “cheap”. Couldn’t hang with the big boys with that.
It’s difficult to say the Matador was the ugliest thing out there. This blog has already touched on the 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88. Now, that was surely more of an ugly, miserable, moldy behemoth than the Matador. It looked like a Matador that had lost a bar fight – it’s nose was flattened and its bottom teeth were sticking through its top lip.
I was cross-shopping the entry-level market in 1971 for my sister. I had test driven a new Gremlin early in the day and wasn’t impressed by anything except its torque. Rubber floor mats. No radio. Food stamp-participant written all over it.
That evening, tired of testing Pintos (crappy), Vegas (excrementitious), and even a Renault R-10 (just let me kill myself), I stopped into a new dealer to see what they had. The salesman showed me a Toyota Corolla. It came with carpets, a radio, full wheel covers, whitewall tires (gag me), and beautiful underhood detailing. I took my sister down to the dealer the next day. She bought the car. She and her husband have not owned a domestic car since. That’s a deadly sin, producing a craptastic product.
A tie between literally everything they sold from 1971 onward, with the exception of the Hornet and Gremlin, which join the list with their first face-lifts.
1970? No problem:
I’ll cast my vote for the Pacer. It’s the only one of the cars pictured above that i would consider a deadly sin, but it was a VERY deadly one, designed around a wink and a promise of a wankel engine from GM. Dick Teague pulled many a rabbit out of a very small hat, but the Pacer wasn’t one of them…. it was more like a pig.
The Pacer was THE Deadly Sin; the misstep that eventually lost the corporation its independence. American Motors was at a crossroads; they’d done some things right (Hornet) and some not-so-well (Gremlin). They’d taken steps to expand and diversify with some wise purchases (Kaiser Jeep and Wheel-Horse) but the mid-1970s were tough years for everyone.
Into that climate, came the product planner with…THE PACER!
Revolutionary? In concept, yes. The Rabbit hadn’t demonstrated big-car interiors in little cars, yet…so a roomy small car sounded good. On paper.
But someone didn’t get the memo to Dick Teague. He created an otherworldly bubble as a package…an androgynous anti-car with awkward lines and differing side panels.
Short, but in order to give interior room without adopting new packaging ideas, VERY WIDE. That was supposed to be a selling point; but somehow nobody thought to test the aerodynamic drag on this wide package. Or even to WEIGH the whole package.
Oh, but the ENGINE! Eschewing the Kaiser V-6, which would have fit in well…they opted for GM’s newest vapor-ware, the ROTARY. They were designing a car for a competitor’s revolutionary new engine – without even assurance it would make it through testing.
And, as it turned out, it didn’t. Once again showing NIH revulsion, still ignoring the V-6 tooling in the Jeep plant…they modified their “small” car for the boat-anchor in-line six.
At that point, someone should have kissed the development money goodbye; but instead, they went through with this botched, patched, addled car without redeeming social value.
It hit the market like the Titanic hit the iceburg; and was gone almost as fast. Gone, too, was the last serious quantity of new-model money. From then on it was adaptations of the Hornet; Renaults under license, a new Jeep developed with Renault’s money….and finally, purchase by Chrysler.
The single misstep that determined their future. Had they used that money to make a genuine small car, along with a respectable engine for it (as they did a decade later with Renault’s cash)…or even a LICENSED model, done as an independent company instead of a subsidiary of Renault…it might have been they’d have survived a generation more.
Gremlin. Hands down. I means seriously, who thought “Gremlin” was a killer name? Plus, they were complete shit from stem to stern. I drove them only because they were the fleet car of choice for my employer in the late 70’s.
Gotta disagree. “Gremlin” was a creative variation from the blandmobile names of the time…”Galaxie” “Malibu” “Nova” “Fairlane.” It was AMC’s be-better-by-being-different strategy.
The car was a tad impractical…in ownership. In build, it was eminently practical and a way to have a presence in a market on a budget.
It would have been a good stopgap effort. Unfortunately, it lasted almost as long as the company itself.
In use: I found driving it bland; but it was refreshingly retro from the mid-1980s cars I’d gotten used to. From Escorts and Omnis and a VW Fox, that thing, with three-on-the-floor, a clutch with a PUSHROD LINKAGE, and manual recirculating-ball steering, was better – just for being different.
The tractorlike torque of the 232 six under there, just added to the thrill. From rowing five-speeds, to shifting first to high…listening to that six chug…that was real-honest-to-gawd FUN!
So, too, was servicing a car without all that damned, double-damned, G-damned SMOG JUNK. There were exactly TWO vacuum lines off the manifold. What a change from my Escort, with miles of rubber hoses…
I could actually ADJUST the carb!
Mine was a 1972; remarkably preserved in 1987 Ohio.
Gremlins were considered cute by the general populace.
The Gremlin had one other feature which preserved it from deadly sin status: you could get it with the 304 V8. I still recall one of the thrills of my teenage life when I got into a series of stoplight drags/grudge match with a guy in a 304 Gremlin. I had my 67 Galaxie convertible with the 2 barrel 390. For about 6 blocks, I dueled with that damned Gremlin. He couldn’t beat me but I couldn’t beat him. After realizing that he and I would never settle this, I backed off and let him go. To this day, I would own a Gremlin if it had the 304.
Talk about a giant killer: A 304 Gremlin in A-Sedan autocross. We had one in Erie that was virtually unbeatable.
Well, good point about the “Gremlin” name. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. I wonder why they gave it that name. Did it have Lucas electrics?
The Pacer was by far the deadliest sin for four reasons:
High cost: The Pacer cost more than any of the other deadly sins listed — roughly $66 million just for the new platform, which was not merely a reskinning like the Matador Coupe. That figure didn’t even include the costs for licensing the ill-fated Wankel or a new stamping factory in West Virginia (if I recall correctly).
Lack of flexibility: When AMC had spent that kind of money in the past on a new platform it was shared across a large enough range of models that the company could amortize its costs even if an individual body style didn’t sell well (e.g., the Marlin). Alas, the Pacer’s overly unique styling didn’t lend itself to, say, a six-passenger sedan. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where the Pacer broke even. That the body’s design was overly dependent upon an untested engine simply added the the recklessness of the endeavor.
Obesity: The extraordinarily heavy body was the single biggest reason why the Pacer couldn’t survive the downsizing spree of the late-70s. The Pacer ended up weighing more than a 1978 Malibu even though the latter was a six-passenger car! The Pacer’s weight problem was partly because it followed the trend of the mid-70s to offer a separate front subframe, but also important were an unusually large amount of glass and a weird mid-sized width.
Lack of practicality: The Pacer’s weight problem might have been more survivable if the car offered some unique advantage such as greater interior width than the likes of the Volare. However, the exaggerated tumblehouse precluded that. By the same token, there was really no practical reason for offering a beltline so low that the door glass didn’t roll all the way down and a windshield that intruded too far into engine compartment.
This car represents one of the single most reckless designs in the history of the US automobile industry. My understanding is that AMC exec Gerald Meyers was primarily responsible for the car. Why did he move up to CEO in 1978? He should have been fired along with Chapin for killing the company’s viability as an independent automaker.
He was fired.
It just took Renault ownership to make it happen.
I recall Meyers was the head of Engineering, kicked upstairs – beyond his level of competence, apparently. The bench at AMC, by that time, was getting mighty sparse. Who would have wanted a promotion to Officer status…on the Titanic, after it hit the iceberg?
EDIT: Just revisited Wikipedia. Seems Meyers was the one AMC officer who had the VISION (cue up sarcasm) to understand what a BAD MOVE purchasing Jeep would be, back in 1970.
Meyers was one of those guys who, while apparently competent, chooses wrong EVERY time. Maybe, AMC’s biggest deadly sin was HIRING him, in 1962, out of Chrysler!
In Gerald Meyers’ defense he was apparently the driver behind the Buyer Protection Plan, which was arguably one of AMC’s best moves of the 1970s. Alas, he waited too long to do it — such an effort would have been ideal in 1968-69 to help erase the dismal reputation of the 1967s.
George Romney’s focus on old-lady cars may not have been sustainable but he did understand one thing: AMC couldn’t compete primarily on styling and status. It had to offer a clear alternative to Detroit fare, e.g., better workmanship and practical features. Up through 1966 they more or less did that. But under Chapin AMC decontented, e.g., in 1970 bucket seats lost their ability to recline, which had long been a distinguishing feature of Ramblers. Dumb.
Today, Kenosha WI is doing well economically. Being close to Chicago and Milwaukee enabled it to attact businesses and industry. Also, many new homes were built for commuters to large employers in Lake County, IL. There is a train line that runs to downtown Chicago, too.
If Mopar hadn’t bought AMC, the plant there would have closed sooner. Was extremely dated and inferior.
If I recall correctly, the original plant was built in 1902, and seriously outmoded by the mid-1970s. Renault, after Alliance sales started to falter, wanted state government to help it pay for a brand-new plant. That was the only way the company could stay competitive. Chrysler really had no choice but to close it.
I call it the ‘loitering factor’. Old designs that never seemed to go away. By ’77, GM was rolling out mostly new stuff, Ford followed in ’78/’79. Chrysler had the Cordoba, but that’s about it. For AMC, it was old old old still milling around with nowhere to go. Everybody knew the Concord was a rehashed Hornet. The Gremlin may have been (slightly) updated, but people knew they were getting 60’s design & engineering in an AMC. Same goes for Matador sedan. Who wanted a 1967 car in 1977 sheet metal? The wilder styling jobs like the Matador coupe and the Pacer might have got a few folks to walk into the showroom, but once they saw dad’s same-‘ol straight six under the hood, or the little signs of cheapness like the same steering wheel or guage cluster they used 6 or 7 years prior, people were just simply turned off. And what’s worse, AMC saw the sales figures dropping year after year… and refused to act. The company self-imploded, thinking it could survive on poor Renault designs and Jeep sales. Shame really… all they needed were three new basic designs to compete not with US manufacturers, but the Japanese. They might have survived longer. I always wonder ‘what if’ – what if the ’88 Eagle Premier came out a few years earlier as the new Matador? It wasn’t a terrible effort, if a bit plain and boxy. But so was the Camry at that time. Sadly, AMC was a company that deserved to die. With a few exceptions, everything they did seemed like a disaster.
For the Gremlin and Hornet, if they had reskinned it a bit earlier instead of 1978 and 1979 morphing into Concord and Spirit or even asking the GM “Iron Duke” instead of the proposed and cancelled Wankel rotary from the beginning if things could had been different?
I spotted at http://www.matadorcoupe.com/history.htm a proposed draft of a Matador sedan and wagon with the coupe front end. The sedan would had been weird but the wagon would had been a cotender against the GM “Colonnade” intermediate wagons, and the further you look, it was inspired by the “Colonnade” wagons.
I used to think that the Matador Coupe was a bit ugly. That side shot, in Black, and no Vinyl top is pretty hot though.
Having owned a few Eagles I couldn’t give it a Deadly Sin, I can see why it gets one though. Who knew that you’d be able to buy what was basically a 71 Hornet Sportabout all the way to 1988!
i find the whole thing sad,another independant bit the dust and when there gone there gone,just like our car industry here[uk]yeah people can argue back and forth about amc cars were they good bad ect ect till the cows come home,but for me i just find it sad i thought amc cars were very cool and groovey as a child and yep i loved the gremlin ,javlin and pacer..i saw a couple of mounths ago a very mint gremlin ..jeans..parked up on the kings road london ..the young hip kids could not get enuff of that car they were takeing photos and going beserk for that car there for literaly dozens of is this car/do you want to sell this car notes under the windscreen..i think amc like studabaker were one of the most stylish and charasmatic american car companys ever.
I’d throw in a voted for the final ’56-’57 Hudsons. (Yes, they were AMCs by that point.) The facelifted ’55 Hudsons were quite hideous, but they were still Hudsons; the ’56-’57 were also eye-poppingly ugly, but they were just Nashes in drag. They were right up there with the ’57-’58 Packards as leading arguments for automotive euthanasia.
I suppose you could say they were not deadly sins at least insofar as those cars (obviously planned shortly after the AMC merger in ’54) were probably Exhibit A of Romney’s argument for abandoning both the Nash and Hudson brands in favor of Rambler. If I recall correctly, Romney finally convinced the board of that around the time the ’57s went on sale.
I agree completely with Dr. Lemming’s excellent take up above. Nothing hurt AMC as much as the resources wasted developing the Pacer. When that car was being developed, AMC still could have easily rebounded from their late 60’s missteps. The rest of Detroit left them a huge opening during the 1970’s – building horrible, enormous cars – and the compact segment was about to be wide open since the imports hadn’t made a massive dent yet and there was the impending Vega and Pinto doom brewing later on in the decade. Something… anything else, hell even NOTHING – would have been better for them than “the Mirth Mobile” !
Sure, it isn’t fair to lay all that blame on the Pacer itself. AMC had been heading towards the darkness seemingly since it’s inception… but the dawn of the Pacer was the last moment in time where AMC could have righted the ship and carried on (for how long? who knows). In the late 50’s/early 60’s, they survived not because they built a “better” product, but because they saw a unexploited market and capitalized on it. In the early 1970’s, they spent the GDP of a third-world country building a weird car that made no sense and was totally dependent on loads of bullshit from GM (that probably would have made the car even WORSE, had it gone into production!) With the huge amount of money Jeep was about to make them, I think AMC would have been quite alright, at least for awhile, had the Pacer time, money and talent been spent in any other way.
I’m glad to see at least a few other people are fans of the Matador coupe. The sedan is terrible, of course (no one likes that), but the I think the coupe is great.
I like it’s spiritual successor even more…
As I remember in Kenosha the hot rumors were that the pacer was to be front wheel driver with the GMRE, and that there were 4 door pacers running around someplace,Kenosha or Detroit. Think of it, 4 door Pacer wagon, front wheel drive, the first mini van?
Late to the party, but I have to say the Pacer (wtf?), the Matador coupe (fuglyX2), and the lack of devoting limited funds to developing a competent platform in the compact to midsize range.
In ’77 I bought a ’73 Hornet hatchback with maybe 20k on it. I had shopped Novas, Mavericks, and Darts as well. I loved that car – although it was nearly a stripper (AT, PS, PB only), it handled well, swallowed the world with the rear seat folded down, and rarely broke down (always kept a spare Chrysler voltage regulator, Sears part 1187, in the glovebox), and got decent gas mileage.
As George Harrison says, “All Things Must Pass”….I doubt in the long run AMC would have stayed viable; witness Chrysler struggling in recent years. I currently have a Saab and an Isuzu Trooper….something about me being a magnet for orphans….
AMC just didn’t design good looking cars. I apologize to their fans, but come on.
they may bot have been the best looking in todays standards but they were functional, reliable and a good value and will run forever if you take care of them. That is what i call a good car, being pretty is a second thought.
Stumbled onto this conversation while Googling method to cut Hornet front fender flare sections to graft into my ’70 Javelin’s front fenders for a look similar to the 1970 Trans Am cars. Not even sure how that happened. That being said, I own AMC’s (1970 Javelin project, 1972 Javelin SST, 1974 Javelin 401 & 1974 Wagoneer 401); therefore, am a fan of the underdog (we also have an ’85 Mustang GT with 250k miles on it, an ’01 Expedition with 176k miles, a knock around ’94 Dakota and just acquired ’09 Aspen Hemi, so not one brand ponies here). I read quite a bit of the conversation above, scanned the rest and didn’t see a couple of important factors in why AMC died. AMC was struggling ending the 1969 model year, was introducing new models for 1970 that they’d spent development money for and then unfortunately experienced (for a now very cash strapped AMC) the UAW strike in late 1969, which put a severe hurt on 1970 production right when AMC could afford this the least. Topping this was their acquisition of Jeep in 1970 (to the tune of $40 million I believe), which in actuality was a great investment, but monetarily timed poorly. For an independent, this all added up to a knock you to your knees blow financially, and I believe they were just never able to recover. The products they were launching in the Hornet and Gremlin directly addressed what people were wanting to buy (and to those who still diss the Gremlin, I still see them on the road, but I sure don’t see also ran Pintos, Vegas or Chevettes anymore, even Dart/Valiants are scarce). The Hornet platform (with its shared Gremlin/Spirit components) proved itself (and the Kenosha crowd that kept plugging away with it) to be adaptable time and again to stay relevant in the market. Anyone ever notice the strong resemblance of the Ford Tempo with the Concord? Someone seemed to be watching AMC. In terms of making bad decisions at the wrong time, yeah, AMC couldn’t catch a break. The Javelin would have required $12 million for 1975 bumper compliance alone, so it’s dropped. The Matador coupe was certainly no substitute style or otherwise for the Javelin. As for the Pacer, it was originally designed to use a GM supplied/developed Wankel rotary, that conveniently didn’t meet gas consumption standards and was dropped, costing AMC millions and having to scramble to try and rebound the platform with its own existing motors as quickly as possible. Thanks GM, nicely played, not that I’m a conspiracy theorist or anything. EPA recalls costing millions when AMC was down in the mid-70’s hurt as well. Jeep was selling though, keep that in mind (and note how many AMC powered Jeeps are still on the road, including the 4.0 post Chrysler buy-out models). U.S. banks forced AMC to turn to Renault for capital in the early 80’s to try to develop new products. Oddly, this proved very beneficial to Chrysler years later, as the LH platform came directly from AMC design work well into development and no one could argue the Jeep Cherokee isn’t an all time sales winner. And where would the world be without the Humvee (AM General developed) ; ) ? Too many details and facts and figures to list, it’s really a book of information that covers so much and should contain plenty of what if’s. The facts: AMC died for many reasons and causes (layers of them), but AMC took chances and dared to be different (I draw way more interest at cruise-in’s from younger folks who don’t know what a Javelin is, but do know what a Camaro or Mustang is, not to mention if a Gremlin shows up, look out). Its’ cars were different from the Big 3’s offerings and sometimes that’s just not comfortable for the buyer, to be different when everyone else is driving a Chevy or a Ford. I may have gone way off from the original intent of this conversation, but AMC did not die due to the Matador coupe or the Pacer. Certainly not from the Gremlin or Javelin for that matter. Economics and politics, both domestic and global, management, marketing, fads, fashions, on and on. Many, many factors played into it. We no longer have Pontiac. Did they quite building excitement? Personally, I would have kept them around and axed Buick. Oldsmobile, Saturn, Hummer, Plymouth, Mercury, etc. They’re all gone now too. Was it poorly styled cars that killed them? Well, the Aztek is pretty poorly styled, granted, but some folks love it because it is/was different. The plastered on restyle pieces of a Sunfire, yep, pretty bad. Hey, I worked at GM dealership for awhile back in the mid to late ’90’s. Those cars were junk, period, but they are still in business. I’d take a ’70’s AMC over a ’90’s GM anytime, but that’s me. Again, I’ve strayed from topic a bit, so I’ll end with this. Contemplate what has brought down many companies over the last few decades that had previously been successful. Many different stories, but many similarities too. So, next time you see an AMC out there, whether it be your favorite or your least favorite, take a moment to check it out and appreciate it from a different perspective. These cars aren’t/weren’t perfect, but you might just find a new found respect for them and the people that made them.