(originally published 3/6/2011) No, I haven’t found the time to start playing with Photoshop. This is the VAM Lerma, quite literally a Mexican cross of the AMC Concord and Spirit hatchback. VAM (Vehiculos Automotores Mexicanos) was an AMC licensee, and decided to get creative. One assumes the Concord Hatchback wasn’t being produced south of the border, because why go to the trouble? Here’s one good reason:
A five door hatch, looking very Citation-ish. VAM proposed the Lerma to AMC as a new variant they might be interested in, but AMC demurred.
Not very good pictures, but you get the idea.
How truly bizarre it looks, like it was from a parallell universe. I’m a gearhead since I was one and a half years old, and there are few cars I have never ever seen or heard about, but I can truly say I have never heard anything about this car. It’s really weird. The lines are not that unlike those from the Rover 3500 (SD1):
http://www.vintagemodelairplane.com/images/PM/XJT107.jpg
The difference being that the SD1 was designed that way from the beginning, and was one of the better looking 5-door sedans ever made. Pity about the build quality.
It does look like a Rover SD1 3500. I like it.
The VAM Lerma was made by butt-welding sections of the Concord and the Spirit to create a new model, albeit one with a weak chassis and high manufacturing costs. VAM was Mexico’s state-owned auto manufacturer; they began their association with AMC in manufacturing Kaiser Jeeps under license in the 1950s.
When AMC took over Jeep, they apparently liked the idea; and made their full run of models available. I don’t know how much was manufactured locally, but much of it was. It was not a CKD assembly plant.
VAM vehicles of that era tended to have minor differences with their AMC cousins, such as grafting a later Gremlin grille and fenders to a Concord. Or, the Lerma. The most original step they took in those years, was to take a new XJ Cherokee, and shoehorn a 258 six in as an experiment.
The new engine made the Cherokee infinitely more useful in a third-world environment, over the asthmatic GM V6…made it better in ANY market. The original designer of the XJ engine bay was adamant that it be made cramped enough that the Rambler six could NEVER be considered as an option. For some reason, that person hated that six.
Ah, but he messed up his holy mission. The six went in, with Mexican street ingenuity; it went in with few modifications and fewer compromises. And it made the prototype modern SUV by the little company that could, into a legend.
As for the Lerma: AMC considered it and discarded the idea. The Lerma was dropped after a few years, IIRC, for the high costs and crude manufacture.
VAM, always on a shoestring and not profitable, was at the mercy of AMC. When Renault took AMC out of the passenger-car business, they were left without product. Again, if I recall, there was discussion of Renaults-under-license; Renault bought a share of VAM about that time…and after Chrysler purchased AMC, Renault closed the Mexican operation.
Thanks for the extra detail. Regarding the Cherokee engine bay: the XJ was designed with a number of Renault engineers involved, because Renault wanted to also possibly sell it in Europe, or at least be possible to. That explains why the XJ is so light. It was designed during the worst of the second energy crisis, and everyone was designing vehicles to get away from the big sixes and V8s. They just couldn’t imagine that oil would drop again so quickly.
I didn’t know about VAM’s engine swap with the six; thanks for enlightening me on that.
VAM also pioneered the 4.6l (282) based on the AMC 6, that lots of people put together themselves. It used the large bore of the 4.0 combined with the crank and rods from the long stroke 4.2 (258). They also used the Motorcraft 2100 series carb which is another popular swap north of the border but they did it with their own intake rather than adapters.
The AMC Lerma´s was the luxury line of VAM in Mexico, and was exported to to Central America. Here in Mexico this model was similar in level to Chrysler Lebaron´s, and a step down of Ford LTD and Caprice Chevrolet´s; they were the highest luxury cars in this closed market to global economies.
Velour´s clothes, good woods grains in decks, and medium confort, and probated fortress for daily work, was the highs of this line.
Medium quality, economical crisis, and low power, and fashion of RABITS (Caribe in Mexico) VW was the death of AMC/VAM.
In Mexico in 80´s total cars sales annuals, were around 300,000 – 400,000 units.
I don’t remember seeing this post back in the day…
I remember seeing pix of these cars back then and thinking to myself what a blatant copy of the Citation. OTOH, I really do like hatchbacks, and this would have been but probably fairly reliable and durable competition for the Citation. It’s not like there weren’t issues with AMC’s, but nowhere on the level of the original X-cars. I could see these selling well with a certain segment of the population that prizes established technology (myself, even). An added bonus for AMC would have been if they would have been willing to import these back from Mexico, as the costs would have been less than in the US. But whatever they do, don’t use that name! Lerma sounds like the mating dance for slugs…
Ah well, all water under the bridge.
Now, to get one of these up here in the States and apply the SBC remedy…
“The name for the cars was taken from Lerma, a city in the state of Mexico, where VAM engines were manufactured.” (Wikipedia, with a cite). “Lerma” sounds better in Spanish.
I guess I should have Googled “Lerma”. It’s a odd sounding name to me and I was trying to be a smart@ss making fun of the name.
Ah well…
I mentally rhymed Lerma with Burma and thought it sounded funny too. I’d like to hear Ricardo Montalban or Javier Bardem say “Lerma”.
Wow, there’s an online audio pronunciation here: hearnames.com. Cool.
Hey here’s a TV commercial! You can hear their fully flavored pronunciation.
http://tu.tv/videos/1982-vam-lerma-commercial
Definitely marketed as a luxury car. Nice.
The maroon four door hatch is surprisingly attractive. But then, I always though that the Citation was a decent looking car, especially the four door. I just could not warm up to the Citation’s hard plastic interior. Probably why I was a dedicated Oldsmobile man in that era.
With the advent of the X and A cars at GM, and the K’s at Chrysler, the days of the rear drive compact were numbered. But still, you have to wonder if AMC had been able to develop a decently efficient drive train in the mid / late ’70s, and plopped it into these cars in the U.S., this might have been much better for them than what they attempted to do with the Matador coupe and the Pacer.
Looks good to me. The extensive Wikipedia article (link here) says it was the best-selling car in Mexico in the 1981-1983 years it was in production.
The three-door looks dorky but with some refinements the five-door could have been a nice updating of the basic Hornet/Concord sedan. It would have also been dirt cheap to do.
Perhaps AMC thought a five-door hatch would cannibalize sales of the “wagon,” which had an equally high liftover and almost as sharply raked C-pillar. Perhaps they thought the sedan’s brougham look worked better in the U.S. than a hatch. Or perhaps they blew the last of their development dollars on evolutionary wrong turns such as the Pacer wagon and four-cylinder Gremlin.
Owned a 78 concord and prefer the looks of the five door here. I had a 258 and it was adequate but big sixes just sing as far as I am concerned. I think a 282 in line six would sound like Caruso. Still driving stuff with 4.3 engines and they are far stronger than the old sixes I used to have. Considered buying an injected4.0 but didn’t.
I think a five door with that 4.6 would do everything I can conceive of doing. I may be living in the wrong decade.
I’m not convinced 5 door hatchbacks will sell better in North America than comparable sedans. I think that if Chevrolet and Pontiac offered nicely styled notchback sedan versions of the Phoenix and Citation, they would have sold better than the hatchbacks. I find sedans look generally more expensive, luxurious and elegant. While hatchbacks look more utilitarian. I think it’s a reason Chrysler made the mid 80s Lancer/LeBaron and Shadow/Sundance hatchbacks, that appeared to be sedans. The best of both in some ways. I believe the 4 door Concord sedan, would have remained significantly more popular than this 5 door hatchback. A fold down rear seat in the sedan, would be a significant factor as well of course.
Americans were looking for something different in 1979, and the 1980 Citation came along and sold over 800,000 copies, the vast majority of which were 5 door hatches. I’d wager that the Citation 5 door hatch singlehandedly outsold several entire brand line ups for 1980. Yes, they cheated a bit with a long model year, but most 1980 car models saw sales tank with Energy Crisis II. The 5 door Citation ate most other line’s lunch that year.
Agreed that hatches have usually struggled in the U.S., but the Citation may have helped stink up the style with its disappointing ownership experience.
While sedans remained important in the ’80s, Americans eventually gravitated to cars with a full on wagon body instead of a hatch. Today’s average crossover isn’t conceptually much different than the Citation.
Olds and Buick offered sedan versions of the Citation 5 door, and they did not outsell the ’80 Citation.
I totally appreciate what you are saying and I largely agree.
I think because the Citations were so heavily promoted and promoted as advanced space saving designs, they were going to sell well, whether hatchbacks or sedans. Plus 1980 was a long model year starting in April 1979, greatly boosting that 800,000 total. I think if Chevrolet and Pontiac offered well designed, and well styled four sedans with the hatchbacks… the sedans would have done as well or better. The Olds and Buick sedans would have started out more expensive besides. The 5 door hatchback may have *seemed* like the way of the future in a size larger than subcompact.
If 5 door hatchbacks were determined to be the wave of the future, you would have seen hatchback versions of the Celebrity, Taurus, Lumina, K-Cars, J-Cars, Tempo, etc. But 5 door hatchbacks never caught on in North America in sizes larger than subcompact. The 5 door Escort and OmniHorzon hatchbacks being the notable subcompacts. But there was no first generation Escort sedan offered besides.
Other than in the subcompact class, 5 door hatchbacks just never caught on compared to the popularity of sedans at the time the Lerma was produced.
Thanks to IMCDB, we saw more VAM Lerma pictures 😉 http://www.imcdb.org/vehicles.php?make=VAM&model=Lerma&page=1&l=fr
I usually don’t like hatchback cars but when I do, I like this one, the 5 door one explicitly.
It would’ve been neat if AMC made a Concord a hatchback sedan. I also like the grille used on 1981 and later Spirits.
I want to take the 4×4 drivetrain from an Eagle Kammback and swap it into a Gremlin, then stuff in a 401 V8.
It would all be a bolt in operation due to the way the front suspension crossmember was mounted on the Concord/Gremlin/Eagle/Spirit platform.
why everybody thinks thats made in mexico its made like shit ? have you ever been there ? have you ever own a car or two made there ? did you guys ride in vam
cars for years ? or renaults ? everything its relative the lerma in mexico wasnt made of pieces of others cars but others cars use lerma parts in other places .
About simply this : a ’74 hornet