American Motors AMX

America loves an underdog. This country revels in those who succeed even though they lack the resources,  raw ability,  or advantages that others have. And that is why for many years, America loved American Motors. In the 1950s, this company,  forged from Nash and Hudson, was undoubtedly an underdog compared to the Big Three. Yet somehow through sheer spunk,  it managed to thrive and  stay afloat  for more than 3 decades. Even at the end, right before it was acquired by Chrysler Corporation, its Jeep division was among the most sought-after brands in the world, yet another acknowledgment to its intrepid pursuit of the near-impossible.

American Motors was popular for doing a lot with a little, and that philosophy was definitely true with development of the American Motors  AMX. For American Motors to even consider competing in the sports car market was a big stretch of the imagination to begin with. After all, this was a company whose bread-and-butter were ordinary compact grocery-getters like the American Motors Rambler. But this was also a company that survived on filling small holes in the market. Of course, sometimes it thought there were holes in the market that weren’t really there–an example was in 1965 when the company introduced the fastback Marlin on the heels of the Ford Mustang sporty car craze. For American Motors, unfortunately,  instead of basing the fastback Marlin on the compact Rambler chassis, it was instead built on the bigger 112-in wheelbase of the Classic line. The result was  amazing in an oddball way, but a full-size six-passenger sporty car definitely wasn’t what the market was looking for.

Continuous auto tinkering

Though, in the never-say-die spirit of American Motors, chief designer Richard A. Teague kept his staff tinkering, and soon after the Marlin debacle, AMC’s advanced design head Chuck Mashigan and his staff  finished a two-seater on the American chassis that Teague called the AMX for American Motors Experimental. The wildest characteristic of the design was the so-called “Ramble seat,” a bench that folded out of the rear deck shielded by a flip-up backlight (rear window.) The design had a very long hood in comparison to its truncated overall length, broad “sail” panels and relatively tiny  side glass over substantial amounts of under-beltline sheetmetal.

The AMX hit the car show circuit where it won a great deal of  famous support. (Generally, the public loves to rave about two-seaters; it just won’t purchase  them.)  In the mean time, back in Detroit, the AMX also found a supporter in Robert Evans, a financier who had taken a flier on a bunch of American Motors stock and found himself named chairman of the company. By this time,  the more conservative elements within American Motors, led by Roy Abernethy, had already readied the Javelin, a ponycar in the Mustang tradition, for introduction in 1968, and the Javelin had borrowed heavily from the AMX in styling. But Evans thought it might be a better idea to build the 2-seat AMX as well.

all this, of course, was a big undertaking for the relatively small car company. AMC certainly didn’t have much of a performance status, and now it offered to enter the market with not one but two sporty cars. To most companies,  it would have put an impossible injury on resources. But, normally said, where there is a will (and a Dick Teague), there is a way. The plucky  engineer figured out a way to build the AMX by using a number of Javelin body stampings, thus saving untold amounts of money. Though it had a different hood, roof, and quarter panels, the production AMX was, in essence, a 12-inch shorter Javelin.

Debut of Javelin

The American Motors Javelin debuted as the 1968 model year started in September 1967, and the AMX  preceeded with a half-year launch in February 1968. Both got better-than-passing reviews from a wide variety of car writers, who praised AMC’s venture into the sports car realm, though none could bring himself to say the AMX was a “true sports car.”

What none of them could disagree with was the fact the AMX had only two seats and offered plenty of performance. Amazingly, the car was proposed with 3 engine choices: a 290 cubic inch V-8, a 343 cubic inch V-8 and an all-new 390 cubic inch V-8. The biggest engine was originally destined for the huge Ambassador sedan, but it proved remarkably famous with AMX buyers. When one peeks at the specs, it is easy to see why. The 390 offered 315 horsepower at 4,600 rpm and a whopping 425 pound-feet of torque at just 3,200 rpm, an acknowledgment to the old saw there’s no substitute for cubic inches.

As with today’s Dodge Viper, the combination of a big engine in a relatively light, small, and simple package made for high-spirited performance, at least in a straight line. When Road & Track magazine sampled a 390-equipped AMX, its drivers zoomed from 0-60 miles per hour in just 7.2 seconds, running through the quarter-mile in 15.2 seconds at 90 mph. But they also discovered the AMX a “short-legged” car. Maximum speed was just 104 miles per hour, thanks largely to the 3.54:1 rear end ratio.

Performance results match Corvette

These results stacked up decently well against the freshly revised 1968 Chevrolet Corvette. A 327 cubic inch small block Vette was almost spot-on the AMX’s 0-60 and quarter-mile times, while a 427 cubic inch big block would out-run the AMX 0-60 and in the quarter mile by about a second. But when it came to superiority, there was no comparison. The ’68 Vette  highlighted all-independent suspension, while the AMX had a modified sedan layout. The front suspension was independent, but the rear was a live axle arrangement with semi-elliptic leaf springs and  torque links.

The AMX was equally conservative in all other mechanical areas as well. The transmission of choice was the tried-and-true Borg-Warner T-10 4-speed manual. Steering was by a power-assisted recirculating ball method. Fitted up front were big 11.1-inch disc brakes, but the rear brakes were 10-inch drums.

Despite its ho-hum underpinnings, the AMX enjoyed decent sales victory. Some 6,700 were traded in the 1968 model year and another 8,293 in 1969. But the car was doomed almost before its launch. New management led by Roy Chapin Jr. took over AMC in 1967, and the new braintrust decided that the AMX was a frivolous and silly expense. So when a crippling company strike limited AMX sales to only 4,116 units in 1970, American Motors management shed no tears. By 1971, the once-proud AMX name was simply a trim package on the second-generation Javelin, and AMC’s sortie into the sports car world was closed for good.

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