Ever heard of AMC? They disappeared after being absorbed into Chrysler in 1987 and even before then it was easy to forget they existed. But for 43 years, as America’s last independent automaker, the company survived on reliable, efficient small cars. Here’s the chronology.
I’ve already discussed AMC’s origin story and it is necessary to repeat it. AMC was formed out of the merger between Hudson and Nash in 1954. The company seemed like it was headed for the ashbin of history until company President George Romney (Mitt’s father) came up with a brilliant strategy. The Big 3 only offered one size of car: large. There was a big unmet market for something smaller and more fuel efficient. The result was the Rambler American, unveiled for 1958. It was powered by a 3.2 liter 6 cylinder engine and weighed just 2500 pounds. It had very restrained styling with minimal amounts of chrome. It was also the cheapest American car at the time. The company’s advertising coined a lot of terms such as referring to giant American cars as “Gas Guzzling Dinosaurs”. Buoyed by that year’s Eisenhower recession, the Rambler successfully capitalized on the demand for something cheap. By 1960, Rambler was the 3rd largest marque in America, behind only Ford and Chevrolet.
For 1961, the American got a redesign. And the result was… not good. The proportions were all off. The American was 3 inches narrower and 5 inches shorter than before, but retained the same wheelbase and powertrain. A convertible and a 4 door station wagon were added to the lineup. By this point, Rambler had lost its monopoly on the small car market, as the Big 3 introduced their own compacts. But the company managed to retain a respectable 5% market share.
For 1964, the Rambler got bigger and offered newer and crisper styling designed by Richard Teague. In 1965, the 3.2 liter flathead 6 was joined by a 3.8 liter overhead valve 6. This was the last time ever that a domestic car offered a flathead engine. In 1966, it was replaced by a 3.3 liter overhead valve 6. And joining that was a 4.8 liter V8. 1967 was the last year for convertible models.
George Romney had left at the beginning of 1962 to wage a successful campaign for Governor of Michigan and was replaced by Roy Abernathy. Abernathy wanted to try competing with the Big 3 and worked to ditch the company’s frugal reputation. Their market share plunged to just 2.5% in 1966 and would never recover. In 1969, the Rambler American became the AMC Rambler to limit name confusion. It was also the last year for the humble compact.
1970 marked the beginning of a new era for AMC. The Rambler was replaced by the Hornet. Everything was new on the Hornet, sharing nothing with its predecessor. To save money, suspension components were shared with the bigger AMCs. The engines were a 3.3 liter 6, a 3.8 liter 6, and a 5 liter V8. Sales were around 100,000 in its first year.
AMC opted to go the cheap route to getting its own subcompact. They lobbed 18 inches off the Hornet, including the trunk, and created the infamous Gremlin.
In 1971, the 2 and 4 door Hornet was joined by a station wagon model called the Sportabout. It was the only domestic compact station wagon and became, by far, the best seller of the lineup.
That year, the SC360 was also added. It was a pseudo-muscle car with a 5.9 liter V8 that allowed 0-60 in a blistering 6.7 seconds. It was dropped in 1972 thanks to insurance costs.
For 1973, the Hornet got refreshed. The biggest change was the new 5 mph bumpers. There was also a new hatchback version. This made the Hornet the first American made compact hatchback. There was also the famous Levi’s edition. This came with denim seat covers.
1974 brought a bit of high profile product placement for the Hornet. In The Man With The Golden Gun, Bond steals one from an AMC dealer in Banghok, with his old pal Sheriff JW Pepper sitting in the passenger seat. He uses it to chase down bad guy Scaramanga, who just so happens to be driving an AMC Matador Coupe. Most famously, Bond does a barrel roll in it, after asking his unwilling passenger if he’s ever heard of Evel Knievel. This was appropriated from stunt shows sponsored by AMC where the cars would barrel roll. The Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory did all the calculations. Composer John Barry added the slide whistle. The result was the only AMC product placement car chase probably in movie history, even including AMC Matador police cars used by the Banghok police. Now there were a few problems, there were no AMC dealers outside of North America, and why on earth would Sheriff Pepper be buying a new car while on vacation? On the whole though, the chase was the high point of an otherwise awful movie. And 1974 as a whole was a good year for the Hornet, sales hit 180,000, buoyed by the energy crisis.
But AMC would completely implode in the second half of the decade. Market share fell from 3% in 1975 to 1.2% in 1977. 1977 was the last year for the Hornet, selling just 77,000 models. The Big 3 had all introduced redesigned compacts in 1975 and 1976, and AMC’s offerings seemed long in the tooth.
In 1978, AMC slapped a new grille on the Hornet and created a new luxury car called the Concord. And unlike the supersonic airliner, this Concord was very successful, profiting off of America’s love for vinyl roofs and opera windows. The rapid downsizing of American cars meant that the Concord went from being a compact in 1978 to being a quite-large intermediate by 1983. It was discontinued that year.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. AMC realized that it owned Jeep. And therefore, it could offer all wheel drive on passenger cars. So, they took the Concord, jacked it up by 3 inches, and created the all-wheel drive Eagle. This made the company an innovator in providing all-wheel drive on family cars. After 1983, the Eagle became the only car wearing the AMC nameplate, as the company had been reduced to being the US distribution network for Renault. The company that introduced America to compact cars was not selling any by the 80s. By 1987, the Eagle was woefully outdated. The 4.2 liter straight six was still fueled by carburetors and power went through a 3 speed automatic transmission. This, combined with the weight of the all-wheel drive system, and the brick-like aerodynamics of a body that was introduced during Richard Nixon’s presidency, meant the Eagle was slow and thirsty. In March of that year, AMC was bought by Chrysler, as company president Lee Iacocca craved the lucrative Jeep division.
AMC introduced America to the compact car. But quickly, the Big 3, with far greater resources, managed to eclipse it. And eventually, the company was unable to offer any of its own compacts, reduced to just a heavy 4 wheel drive midsized car.