Thanks to the ’74 Cassini Matador COAL we featured yesterday, I have Matadors on the brain. Earlier today I discovered this ’70s-tastic commercial for the Barcelona II on YouTube…or is it from a dealer training film? Despite the announcer’s confidence in the Barcelona II vs. the GM Colonnade coupes, I don’t think the General was too worried. Indeed, only 6,825 Matador coupes came off the line in 1977.
As polarizing as the 1974-78 Matador coupe was, I think we all can agree it looked better in a sporty configuration like this orange ’76 model. Broughaming out a curvy fastback like the Matador coupe yielded questionable results, but what else could AMC do? It’s not like they had a spare $20 million to give it a formal roof. I think the II included absolutely every possible Brougham cue: Two-tone paint, whitewalls, landau top, pinstriping, opera windows, frilly, cursive badging, a stand-up hood ornament…oh wait, no opera lamps. Well, it’s still a worthy example of the Great Brougham Epoch!
Still missing the Rollsy grill tho!
Solved that!
That actually sorta works!
Here it looks like a blown out Mustang !!.
Looks like Black Dynamite’s car. 😉
I thought the padded landau top was ridiculous when it came out, but it’s grown on me.
Actually I kind of like them too. They’re so over-the-top!
To be fair, the Colonnade coupes weren’t the worlds best looking cars either, but the AMCs were just strange looking cars, kind of hard to explain the rationale behind it. In a time where styling still sold cars, it was another missed opportunity for the Kenosha team.
Back when CAFE standards were being debated in Congress, AMC was pointed to as one of its biggest prospective victims by spittle-encrusted American auto industry lobbyists. If the onerous standards were approved AMC would have to depart the mid-sized field! Civilization would collapse because AMC’s sales hinged on the continued success of the Matador coupe and its sister sedan and wagon.
Of course, Congress didn’t listen and CAFE standards were introduced in 1978. The Matador was quietly phased out at the end of that model year . . . because it was so unpopular. Production barely topped 10,000 units.
Funny how the final Matadors represented the antithesis of George Romney’s Rambler — bloated, overwrought and lacking any practical advantages over its competition (okay, aside from the Buyer Protection Plan). Kind of like a 1957 Nash Ambassador or Hudson Hornet. Roy D. Chapin didn’t learn from history because, at heart, he was a big car guy who was determined to run as far away from the Rambler’s legacy as he could.
CAFE did help kill the Scout and the local Congressman, a then nobody by the name of Al Gore, laughed at IH and told them, here look at this oil pan you can shave 20lbs off of it no problem. Well the problem was that the oil pan only weighed 8lbs to start with. So they got zero support from their hometown representative. IH’s argument was that there should be some exemption for a HD vehicle that was only available as a 4wd so they had nothing to average like everyone else.
Wikipedia says that from 1960 to 1980 Scouts were manufactured in Fort Wayne, Indiana; then-Congressman Al Gore represented Tennessee.
IH’s troubles began well before CAFE. In 1975 IH discontinued its line of full-sized light trucks and Travelalls because of weak sales. The Scout II was continued, but it also wasn’t very competitive because of an increasingly obsolete design and IH’s agriculture-oriented dealer network.
The recession of the late-70s and early-80s brought with it sky-high interest rates that torpedoed consumer demand and made affordable dealer financing hard to obtain.
On top of all that, IH was hit with a lengthy strike that led to the company’s dismemberment. CAFE may not have been helpful, but there were a lot of other factors involved in the Scout’s death.
I do know that Scouts came from Fort Wayne, a plant that went back to 1929 and which also made heavy trucks. I do not know if there was a second plant. I also know that the Fort Wayne plant closed in (I believe) 1980. There was a plant in Springfield (Ohio?) that stayed open at that time. I lost track of what happened after that. Once the pickups, T-Alls and Scouts and then the Fort Wayne plant went away (where I knew several people who worked there), I sort of lost interest in IH.
Hindsight says that with the boom in vehicle sales of 1976-78, IH may have been too hasty closing the pickup and Travelall lines in 1975. However, the result would surely have been the same by 1979-81, when we nearly lost Chrysler and Ford as well.
Most the Scouts were heavy enough that CAFE did apply to them. They were trucks anyway, which didn’t have very high mileage rules. I believe International deliberately made them heavier for that reason. I don’t think they were obsolete, I have a Scout and I actually believe it was a bit more advanced than anything it competed with. I don’t think anyone really made something more modern until the downsized Cherokee in 84.
Every time I see a Matador coupe, I can only think of a three quarters scaled down version as the new Javelin. In that iteration, I think it would have been a great sales success, but by the late 70’s the formal look had become the rage and the Matador simply looked out of place.
Take away the two-tone paint and the side profile of the car looks a bit like a ’76 Dodge Aspen SE.
Thing is, it comes off like an overdecorated birthday cake. I still remember the tan “Nap Knit” Santa Fe style upholstery and how it already looked faded right off the assembly line.
http://www.bestautophoto.com/images/amc-matador-barcelona-ii-04.jpg
It’s really too bad AMC ran out of money to complete some of what they envisioned. The video below shows their mini-van concept which would have been something to see on the road (minus the Pinto Vanwagon side treatment).
http://youtu.be/R48zlQW0Jnk
You cant mention the Barcelona without a shot of the interior, which was a combination of Indian Blanket / Han-Solo’s Opium den rolled into one.
Sooo funny that today Catalonia (from which Barcelona is the capital) is the only place in Spain (besides the Canary Islands) where bullfighting has been prohibited! So no matadores in Barcelona now 🙂
Anyway… matador literally means “killer”. Sample a great song with that word: http://youtu.be/pjPA7CXutDw
Wow. Anyone have some crackers to go with that cheese?
I prefer my Matadors with wings, the Scaramanga edition, apparently only available at Bangkok AMC dealers.
Only if I can get the spiral jump Hornet with Cragar Super Sports. Will that Matador come with the option Knick Knack and Miss Goodnight package?
That Hornet would be the JW Pepper edition! Oh definitely, no Scaramanga edition Matador would be complete without Britt Ekland in the trunk. Knick Knack editions are also available on Volare Station Wagons at an Island somewhere between Thailand and the West Coast of the United States.
The announcer for the Barcelona training film was in many 70’s commercials. But acts as if an AMC employee, “Our Barcelona will give Cutlass a run…” LOL
The Matador coupe was locked in place in 71-72, when speculation that the GM Colonnades would be swoopier, and that mid size fastbacks would continue to be popular. Also to compete with 72-74 Gran Torino fastback and Charger.
CAFE for 1978 was 18 mpg, so AMC could still sell some V8 cars, as long as more 4 cyl Gremlins. It didn’t go to 27 right away as some are assuming.
I sketched recently in an hurry, a quick idea about the Madator then I posted on Deviantart.
http://fav.me/d5h44we based on an idea from Keith Kaucher.
I was hoping the video clip would have been the old, “So THAT’S a Matador!” commercials.
Although not as aggressively bizarre as the Gremlin or the Mirthmobile, the Matador Coupe was still not what anyone would call a shapely, well-proportioned automobile. Something about it just seemed “off.” Or maybe several things. Even in the ’70s, and that was a pretty “off” decade.
But as our mothers all taught us, “If you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all” — so I’ll say just this:
Nice door handles.
Ah, the door handles. First put on AMC models in 1967; it was their second foray into alternate-egress tools. The late-1950s/early 1960s Ramblers had an awkward, curious outside handle that had to be squeezed with an upward motion; and latched-tension on the door latch made it harder.
It failed; it should have.
The 1967 design was heralded; at the time AMC was desperately trying to cultivate their image as “a different kind of car company.” And they were, but it wasn’t the door latches that did it. It was the tight development budget that was nine-tenths WASTED on goofball products like the Marlin, the new Matador, the Pacer. The Gremlin wasn’t a waste, but it should have been a stopgap – and there should have been a crash program to get a four-cylinder engine out there.
By the time the new, drug-enhanced Matador made it to market, the company had the stench of death over it. Jeep buyers didn’t care; Jeep, in all its parmutations, ALWAYS had one foot in Bankruptcy Court. But Grandad, looking for a replacement for his Classic Club Coupe…would look at this; blanch, think of what he’d read about AMC’s future, lament that there weren’t GOOD cars to buy anymore. Like Studebakers.
And then…he’d buy a Nova.
Oh…yeah. The door handles…the door handles were THE longest-lived signature part of AMC’s grand empire…they of course were used on AMC Eagles and Eagle Eagles up until the 1988 end; and in 1973 were modded into a tailgate latch on J-series pickups.
In black powder-coat, they became half-door latches and rear gate latches for the Jeep Wrangler, YJ and TJ. But, with the end of the TJ, the former Rambler Six and the AMC door handle…passed under the waves of history.
Ok, call me crazy, but does the roofline of the current Honda Accord 2-door not faithfully mimic that of the non-Barcelona Matador Coupe?
I always thought so, as well!
Yes, there one similitude with the non-Barcelona Matador coupe.
Anyone who could photoshop this pic to give that Accord the Barcelona look? 😉