The Life and Death of American Motors Corporation: RCR Car Stories

in exploring the history of the american motors corporation i suppose we could get pretty granular if for no other reason than that i'm not sure how deep other people have gone in documenting it i mean what's the point in telling the story of amc a story others probably told better if you aren't going to get into the thick of things why the company succeeded in the way it did why it failed in as specific a away and why its legacy continues today even if only as a cult status icon the story of amc is one of those automotive tales which on the surface don't seem to be all that different from any of a number of failed automotive companies born of a merger whose assets were sold off to the highest bidder but amc was more than the sum of its parts so let's take a look at those parts and place the sum up to the light and see what we get out of it it's a tale rife with tragedy failure persistence success decline and the lionization of a brand that stands as a unique artifact in american automotive history hell in automotive world history this is about the american motors corporation the people who founded it and the cars that keep its name in the minds of automotive enthusiasts the world over this is rcr stories the life and death of american motors corporation it all starts with the hudson motor car company founded on february 20th 1909 and named after department store owner joseph l hudson who founded the company with seven other detroit businessmen at the turn of the century the demand for cars was steadily rising and within a generation automobiles would become so prevalent it'd be difficult to remember a time without them so hudson and his colleagues wanted to be on the ground floor when the boom happened hudson's partners in the venture included roy d chapin senior a former colleague of ransom eli olds the founder of oldsmobile roy d chapin was also the future secretary of commerce under herbert hoover but for now he was part of a consortium of guys getting into the automotive business the goal was to create a car that would sell to consumers for a max price of one thousand dollars which totals twenty eight thousand six hundred two dollars today now these guys pretty much hit the ground running as the first hudson car was ready by july third 1909 just seven short months after the company was formed maybe the speed is attributable to olds and cadillac developing the concept of standardized parts that were functionally interchangeable which pre-saged henry ford's mass production approach it wouldn't be the first time hudson would be nose to nose with ford as ford was poised to take the lead in the affordable car market with the model t released one year earlier and for 150 dollars cheaper than the proposed hudson alternative called the hudson 20. and yet while maybe not as recognizable to the average person as an early ford the hudson 20 was an important figure in the early history of affordably priced cars and it showed through production numbers after selling 4 000 models in year one 1910 saw the production of 4508 units marking the most successful first year production in american automotive history up to that point now nearly concurrent with the ascension of hudson was the rise of another automaker by the name of nash motors but we can't get to nash motors without first talking about the jeffery family which itself is the story of a father and son who loved the auto industry only for the son to learn that there are some things more important than business yet it was a lesson he would learn at great emotional cost it all started with the thomas b jeffrey company a successful bicycle manufacturer with a factory in kenosha wisconsin owned by a man named well thomas b jeffrey okay it's not a surprise over the years thomas b jeffrey got away from bicycles and into the automotive space creating a popular automotive product known simply as the rambler it was so successful that jeffrey sold the bicycle company to fund the purchase of the kenosha factory in order to begin mass producing this car which he did by 1900 making this only the second mass assembly in automotive history after oldsmobile narrowly beating ford to the punch by about a year the rambler was a car of modestly appealing style and intuitive steering owing to the fact that the rambler had an actual steering wheel instead of a tiller by 1902 jeffrey was selling 1 500 vehicles per year numbers which continued to rise past his death in 1910. the same year hudson motors opened a 223 500 square foot production facility in detroit's fairview area the extent to which the companies were in direct competition isn't immediately apparent due to the sheer volume of companies scrabbling for a foothold in the emergent automotive market in the early 20th century i don't have an exact number or anything but if i had a dollar for even half of the companies fighting for a space in the market at the time i could probably pay for a year of playstation plus for myself and my nephews however it seemed as though jeffrey had the momentum for a period as the company was now being run by thomas jeffrey's son charles and under his stewardship the company began building a powerful durable four-wheel drive truck in 1913 known as the jeffrey quad which would later become a vital military support vehicle in the first world war of course not to be outdone hudson would pursue innovation in their product lines into the 1920s with features like warning lights for the oil pressure and generator a balanced crankshaft dual brakes and a native hudson-built straight-six engine in a general sense competition is a good thing as charles jeffrey renamed the rambler in 1914 christening it the jeffrey in honor of his late father it was a successful year with sales topping 13 000 units for 1914 but this soft rivalry would take a turn only two years later when something inexplicable happened something that wouldn't make sense if it hadn't been compelled by something unimaginable charles jeffrey who had worked with his father since the conception of the rambler in 1897 and was truly dedicated to his father's business particularly after thomas b jeffrey's passing turned around and sold the company to former gm president charles w nash for 6 million dollars in 1916 leaving the auto business all together just two short years after renaming the rambler to honor his late father so what suddenly prompted charles jeffrey to sell to nash well for that we have to travel back to a fateful friday may 7 1915. the first world war brought its force to bear on civilians when a german submarine fired on an ocean liner 11 miles off the coast of county cook ireland this was the sinking of the lusitania the german attack in retaliation for the united kingdom's naval blockade of germany the torpedo fired from a german u-boat sank the ocean liner in less than 20 minutes the attack claimed approximately 1198 souls and was one of the motivating factors that prompted the united states to enter the first world war however of the roughly 2 000 passengers aboard the lusitania some 761 managed to survive and one of those survivors was charles jeffrey who had spent the trip acquainting himself with the other businessmen aboard the ocean liner during the journey jeffrey had become friends with a 26 year old cotton broker named thomas silva silva was headed to germany as part of his work for the cotton exchange in savannah georgia and he nearly missed his trip altogether due to an expired passport yet he had just enough time to travel from new york to washington dc to get the passport renewed in person before the lusitania set off on its voyage charles jeffrey was 38 years old at the time and you'd think retirement would be the last thing on his mind considering how much he'd invested in his father's legacy and how well the company was doing relative to whatever expectations his father might have had upon getting into the auto industry this trip was just part of the business of being a successful internationally known automaker jeffrey bonded with silva over talk of business and family as people do everything was going well that is until the afternoon of may 7th jeffrey and silva met in the smoking room to socialize only to notice the ship was making a sudden turn believing the captain must have noticed something in the water jeffrey and silva went out to the veranda to have a look satisfied that the captain had avoided whatever obstacle had been in the water the men headed for the dining area to grab a bite to eat but silva wasn't hungry so he stayed in the smoking room jeffrey later returned to find his friend enjoying a book the two continued their earlier conversation but about 10 minutes later a shock of motion the lusitania had been struck by a torpedo from the german u-20 imbued with the bravery of curiosity and concern jeffrey and silva ran towards the sound out on the veranda and came to the conclusion that a torpedo had made starboard contact in that moment a panic overcame the passengers who rushed the deck and separated the two friends in the chaos and commotion whether anyone realized it or not the lusitania had already begun sinking geoffrey would never see silva again jeffrey later surmised that silva had remained starboard and been taken when the ship turned to its side as it sank regardless charles jeffrey spent four hours drifting in the water before being saved by a fishing trawler he was reunited with other survivors at a hotel in the seaport town of cove then known as queenstown in county cork ireland in a grisly coincidence cove was also the final port of call for the titanic just a few years earlier jeffrey searched for his friend but was informed no other bodies had been found although a body some believe may have been silva's was later recovered but never identified despite only having known silva a short time jeffrey remained in contact with silva's family following the tragedy needless to say the experience left charles jeffrey so deeply disturbed it essentially spoiled any interest he had in business intending to actually enjoy his life from then on he sold his father's business to charles w nash in 1916 he took early retirement and spent most of the rest of his life doing other things altogether like promoting charities or paradoxically going sailing if charles jeffrey had not been on the lusitania on that tragic friday in may 1915 he might not ever have sold his father's company to nash and amc at least as we would come to know it might never have existed and who knows maybe that's a stretch but for now the newly minted nash motors was on the back foot not that having one's back against the wall was anything new for charles w nash i'm not really going to go that deep into it but nash is an interesting figure in his own right and well worth researching because he has a really fascinating backstory but here's essentially the cliffs notes version born in 1864 nash grew up destitute one of four children born to poor farmers who abandoned him at the age of six after their separation a court assigned the illinois-born nash to work as an indentured servant to a michigan farmer until the age of 21 because his life wasn't enough of a dickens novel already that nash had any business acumen whatsoever borders on miraculous considering he only received three months of schooling a year before deciding to bail on the indentured servitude and go on the run at age 12. earning as much as 12 a month as a farm hand while learning carpentry and forming his own hay pressing company in 2021 money he was making the equivalent of about 400 a month prior to the formation of that hay pressing company after jesse his wife of six years became sick the couple moved to flint michigan where he was hired by future gm co-founder william c durant making one dollar a day stuffing upholstery before climbing the corporate ladder to become superintendent of the production facility this was in 1890 before the century was out nash would become vice president and general manager of durant's carriage company and the rest is history ten short years later nash was vice president of the buick wing of general motors and six years after that well he owned the jeffrey company renaming it almost immediately after purchasing although it's not as if jeffrey's company was going to someone with ill intent or absent knowledge nash knew what he was doing but then so did hudson you see while all of the nash motors business was happening hudson was steadily growing into the 20th century by the end of the 1920s hudson was the third largest automaker in the u.s behind only ford and chevrolet largely off the strength of their essex line of cars which became hudson's budget-friendly option created with the assistance of hudson co-founder roy d chapin in 1918 essex developed and mass produced the first affordable enclosed car in 1922. essex had sold well over a million cars by the time of its dissolution around 1932-33 foreshadowing affordable all-weather legends like my dream car but we'll get to that much much later now by the early 30s the great depression and its after effects had made a mess of the economy to put it as lightly as possible those hundreds of companies vying for positions in the growing automotive marketplace yeah you probably haven't heard of a lot of those smaller regional automakers because this is where it all ended for them there was a narrowing of competition and while hudson and nash weren't the titans that ford and gm were they had the consumer base to weather the depression it was certainly a boon for hudson that they had additional implementations throughout the decade including the inline eight-cylinder engine that succeeded the hudson super six and a rhythmic ride suspension that utilized softer leaf springs for smoother driving experience preventing the car being knocked off course by brakes and bumps in the road this in addition to an electromechanical automatic shift system known as the electric hand which automotive journalist jason torchinsky described as an assisted automatic transmission rather than a proper automatic since quote the driver still shifts gears just via an adorable little gated shifter on a column and the clutch is still used to actuate the shift end quote while hudson was maintained through steady governance charles nash was trying to put nash motors on the map in the first place because this was essentially a rebranding effort and it was going to take time for the public to really catch on to nash motors but charles nash was very proactive about it acquiring the profitable jeffrey quad military contract and taking over the kenosha production plan using that as the basis to expand in the first two years of production churning out cars like the aforementioned quad truck and the new nash model 671 sales climbed from some 10 000 units in 1918 to over 27 000 in 1919 and although military truck production accounted for a significant amount of nash's bottom line it didn't dull their prospects as a commercial vehicle manufacturer as they would soon become the largest producer of four-wheel drive trucks making them valuable not just to military operation but to rural industry nash also implemented a flow-through ventilation system and introduced a straight-eight engine with overhead valves by the late 1920s along with a synchronized transmission and a longer 142 inch wheelbase for the 1932 ambassador 8 an affordably luxurious looking car for its time period to counter the more modest rural options of their fleet but it seemed somewhat poorly timed since only the truly wealthy could afford it given the effects of the great depression and although there's an argument to be made for the value of high margin low volume offerings marketed exclusively to the wealthy as a stop gap measure to survive the depression i'm not really going to make the argument one way or the other because i would guess that at best going upmarket was only one facet of a broader strategy to keep companies like packard afloat or cadillac for that matter i mean look at the v16 either way it's hard to live on the whims of the wealthy alone the needs of the common man must be addressed for hudson the 1930s and 40s weren't as strong as the previous decade but they still managed to take a strike at charles w nash's former home general motors you see gm's high dramatic transmission was the new hotness hitting the market for the 1940 model year as the first mass-produced fully automatic transmission for passenger vehicles although it would take them two years to do it hudson countered in 1942 with their own drive master system also known as the supermatic by engaging a button the driver could select one of three transmissions standard manual shifting and clutch manual shifting with automatic clutch or all automatic yet the all automatic name is kind of a misnomer since to my knowledge this wasn't a fully automatic transmission among auto transmissions developed in-house by a non-big three automaker only the ultramatic offered by packard fit the bill at least from what i've read but i digress hudson kept ahead of gm in some aspects more than others for example they were the first to hire a woman as a salaried automotive designer in the u.s in the form of elizabeth ann thatcher this was in 1939 pre-dating even harley earl's damsels of design yet these progressive efforts didn't mean much for hudson in the long run despite a contract to produce hudson invader engines to power the landing crafts that stormed the beaches of normandy hudson saw a considerable decline in the years that followed chrysler ford and gm took a steady lead in the post-war years to become the solid big three in the american automotive industry in fact companies like ford and general motors were so flush with revenue that they could take risks that smaller companies couldn't for example restyling efforts were more expensive for hudson because of a successful approach they'd taken that was now coming back to bite them in the ass it was a design known as mono built which was an unusually stiff step down unit body slash frame construction that looked to improve passenger comfort overall ride quality and increased durability owing to the outboard frame rails now while this created a reliable car for consumers the trade-off was that it didn't really translate to other styles but at the very least the step down construction offered terrific handling which when coupled with the monster hudson inline six made cars like the hudson hornet a mainstay in 1950's nascar but you see the problem is that you couldn't get a step down wagon or a light truck the latter of which had helped strengthen hudson's bottom line this became a bigger issue as the big three made headway in yearly model change since they didn't base entire platforms around a style that couldn't be redesigned to change with the times the best hudson could do was occasional facelifts because he couldn't change the exterior without completely changing the mono built design from the ground up which would cost a small fortune it was a design that was successful for a time but lasted longer than it probably should have as hudson was in the hole to the tune of some ten million four hundred thousand dollars in 1953 still at least for this time period hudson was doing better than nash and it all goes to the whole executive kerfluffle going on at corporate to make a long story short charles w nash didn't last past the 1930s as he decided to retire and merge nash motors with the kelvinator corporation a kitchen appliance company run by george w mason a wealthy industrialist who had worked with walter p chrysler at maxwell chalmers an automotive company that was essentially a predecessor to the chrysler we would come to know okay maybe not that chrysler but yeah basically mason wasn't a stranger to the auto industry at all so when the merger went through on january 4th 1937 there was nowhere to go but up at least in theory if nothing else mason was eager to make nash kelvinator as successful as the kelvinator brand of kitchen appliances which were second only to frigidaire owned by general motors anyway mason was a lot like nash in terms of dedication to seeing his company succeed which sounds obvious but you know not everybody takes that hands-on approach i mean some people delegate responsibilities and never really learn all that much about the industry in which they've invested but mason overall took the newly merged nash kelvinator in a trendier direction offering options like vacuum controlled shifting the conditioned air system known as the weather eye which wasn't the same as the ac we all recognize but rather a ventilation system that allowed fresh air or heated air into the cabin rather than cooling the air directly but this came complete with a thermostat for 1939 and independent coil front spring suspension for 1940 followed by the first mass-produced unibody construction in the form of the nash 600 in 1941. mason also had the idea to alter the nash rambler to take it from a cheap compact car into an upmarket sedan now this requires some clarification as suggested by my buddy joe from auto moments who's forgotten more about the history of amc than i will ever know basically the rambler name had been out of production since 1941 and it was mason who reintroduced the rambler as a compact nash model in 1950. he wasn't the only person looking into the burgeoning compact car market yet cars like the kaiser henry j and the hudson jet floundered against the nash rambler owing to clever marketing the nash rambler wasn't an econo box but rather an upscale compact features options reliability and surprisingly satisfactory styling for a car at such a modest price level worked to make the rambler the center of the burgeoning american compact car segment it was one of several intelligent approaches mason would take in his time in the big chair which also included overseeing the nash healey partnership resulting in america's first post-war sports car meanwhile the nash metropolitan would make an impression in north america as an audacious collaboration with austin motors in great britain as these cars were marketed directly towards the increasing number of single unmarried quote career girls who were rewriting the story of what women could do in the workforce in the 20th century because you don't just get to rely on the elbow grease of hard-working women for the war effort and then say okay you've had your time in the workforce back to the kitchen with you nash kelvinator was doing well enough that their post-war prospects seemed stronger than hudson's if for no other reason than the sheer variety of their fleet which included suburban models leaner 600s with more conservative front steering and suspension systems and the return of the convertible body style for the popular ambassador line in a way nash kelvinator held all the cards because when hudson failed to recapture the public's attention with their jet line of compact cars the idea of a merge offer was considered by then hudson ceo a.e barrett for his part george w mason had been looking to merge nash with another company since the end of world war ii on the premise that smaller automakers had a better chance of competing with the big three if they formed their own alliance yet he wanted to merge from a position of strength so it didn't come across as the act of a desperate company and really a merger between hudson and nash kelvinator made all the sense in the world for mason's long desired mega company that would strike back against the big three's dominance in the auto industry except for one problem nobody seemed to want to consider the idea now mason's plan was intended to include four independent auto manufacturers preferably nash kelvinator packard studebaker and hudson unfortunately packard had said no some years earlier and in 1954 they would engage in talks with studebaker for their own merger but hey mason was able to get one green light at least as barrett agreed to merging hudson with nash kelvinator and so on may 1st 1954 american motors corporation was born barrett stepped down from his role as president of a company that no longer existed and instead accepted a seat on amc's board while mason became ceo and president of the new venture the plan for amc was twofold kill the jet model redirect resources to the rambler and get the ball rolling on an updated line of full-sized cars in addition hudson dealers got nash ramblers and metropolitans rebadged as hudsons okay so i guess that's more of a what three four five fold plan than twofold whatever we've been through this before liberal arts major terrible at math i'm allergic to numbers unless they have dollar signs in front of them what on earth kind of thing to say is that interestingly amc reached out to packard about buying parts for their nash ambassador and hudson hornet lines namely packard's v8 engine and ultramatic transmission and the companies came to an agreement in july of that year but talk of any further cooperation died on october 8 1954 when george w mason passed away at the age of 63 due to acute pancreatitis and pneumonia this threw a wrench into the plans packard president james j nance had been the man to strike the deal with george mason to share the packard v8 engine and ultramatic transmission the latter of which is significant because it calls back to something i noted earlier about packard being the only non-big three company to build their own automatic transmission from scratch this is because nash hudson studebaker and all the other little guys had to get theirs straight from the big three well either the big three or a third party like borg warner but regardless mason struck the deal with nance despite the men having been rivals since their days as appliance men with mason heading up kelvinator and nance holding court over at rival hot point electric appliance company wow that is a loud motorcycle [Music] nance had agreed that studebaker packard would buy parts from amc to make it a more equal arrangement with both sides essentially helping each other thrive yet after mason's death nance didn't hold to the deal one of the underlying issues here was simply that nance didn't think much of mason's successor as president of nash kelvinator george w romney mason's protege and vice president at amc as well as father to future massachusetts governor presidential nominee and utah senator mitt romney nance had an inflated sense of his own talent in the auto industry the men he employed were mostly carryovers from his appliance stays and he wasn't really a great idea man either whereas romney was right there with mason through each of the late president's peak years as an auto industry leader nance really didn't respect romney even as he himself couldn't offer much more than to put the nance in finance and open up the company checkbook of course even with the merger talks at an impasse amc continued to buy parts from the studebaker packard corporation incorporating more extensively with packard would be a step back since romney was once offered nance's role as president of packard before passing it up to work at nash on the premise that nash had the bigger upside and nance wasn't going to go for a merger unless he could be the boss of the whole shebang which wasn't going to happen under romney and it wouldn't have happened under mason either i mean let's be real here by this point studebaker packard's parts had become so prohibitively expensive that the partnership itself no longer made business sense so romney decided amc would just make their own parts which was just as well you know there had initially been some talk of studebaker packard buying body panels from amc simply because amc had excess capacity but then studebaker packard did a bunch of window gazing and no actual purchasing it had become clear to romney that nance had been misleading with regards to any plans to share parts this had the net effect of hampering development on amc's own v8 although it wouldn't be delayed too long it was a dark time for amc with george romney gathering the employees to give an impassioned speech to the effect that the success or failure of the company would ultimately come down to them in essence it seemed like romney was imploring people not to blame men like nance for their hardships this was unlikely to be their first pickle and so they'd better get used to the taste if they were ever going to adapt to the automotive market and to the demands of being a competitive automaker it was time for this outfit to become the big three rival it was meant to be and so amc set the plan for its growth okay so the rise of amc was founded on the notion that you have to spend money to make money and so it was with the decision to sell off the hudson plant and move production of the hudson line to the nash factory in kenosha investing 10 million dollars in the expansion efforts this had the effect of making the hudsons more like nash's so that for the first time it really felt like all the disparate models were all under the same brand from the mostly unchanged nash ambassador and statesman models to the badge engineered ramblers and restyled hudson hornets the latter of which marked the end of the step down models that hudson fans loved resulting in nash chassis designs being pejoratively called hash cars that is until 1957 when the rambler became its own mark to essentially act as the mascot for the company which was more by necessity than anything else though you see nash and hudson's sales were in the crapper and much like getting only one re-rack in a game of beer pong amc could only afford one redesign and so george romney selected the rambler for that redesign going for broke in 1958 by canceling all further production on big car hudson and nash models and this was at the arguable height of the land barge era of american automotives so you could tell romney was really taking a risk here and hoping to get ahead of the curve in terms of consumer trends ultimately when the rambler became its own mark it offered a trio of appealing options like the rambler v8 the rambler 6 and the rambler rebel which was among the fastest sedans built domestically at that time when hudson and nash production was halted george romney decided to take the old 1950-1955 nash rambler and relaunch a slightly tweaked version as the new rambler american in order to boost the profile of the fleet it was the sort of clever on the ball thinking that kept amc in a solid position relative to other non-big three automakers when the anticipated recession hit in 1958 amc managed to be the only automaker to see their sales actually increase as the 1950s came to a close amc was developing an actual media presence with george romney beating lee iacocca to the punch as that one automaker who appears in commercials for his product for some reason basically romney pitched the rambler fleet on tv and secured amc a deal as the sponsor for the walt disney anthology a weekly television series that got amc some much needed exposure and once eyes were on amc romney made fuel efficiency an economy of size the defining elements of amc's brand as a method of differentiating them from the big three as explained in consumer's guide romney's approach was to compare the full-size offerings of the big three to lumbering dinosaurs and amc as the dinosaur fighters quote with the fervor of the missionary that he had once been romney traveled as much as 70 000 miles per year in order to carry his small car message to the nation pulling a china dinosaur from his briefcase he would hold it up to his audience and explain it's called a triceratops it kept getting bigger and bigger until finally it could no longer hold up its head the dinosaur perished because it got too big then pausing dramatically romney would challenge his audience who he would inquire rhetorically wants to have a gas guzzling dinosaur in his garage end quote for the most part the plan worked because these compact cars were also modular cars allowing amc to use parts interchangeably among their fleet while keeping costs down and profits high i mean without the healthy sales of these modular cars who knows if amc would have been able to fund the expensive redevelopment of their kenosha factory which increased capacity from 300 000 to 440 000 cars amc also shored up their roster with real talent like former chrysler gm and packard employee dick teague who joined in 1959 as a member of the design team before becoming principal designer in 1961. by 1964 he was vice president of styling and under teague's guidance the company continued its trend towards smaller and intermediate sized offerings beating the 70s import craze to the punch really of course this remains a point of contention with regards to amc's livelihood on the one hand presenting yourselves as the compact inexpensive car company is great provided that's the popular market your product actually exists in but that wasn't really the case for amc in a way it was the price of innovation you can't base your entire brand identity around a compact product line when the demands of the market sat squarely with land barges and muscle cars it was the early 1960s and the usdm market never seemed particularly ready for what amc was offering in this period granted this didn't stop amc from moving forward with their first all-new models in nearly a decade in the form of the 1963 rambler classic and a restyled ambassador no more gussying up the cars they inherited in the merger amc was now being proactive about their future while not blowing anybody away the new offerings were kind of like the acquisition of a content library for a streaming service sure you probably wouldn't watch ice lake fish wives 90 days of marriage if you were flipping through tv but you might give it a shot if it's part of a larger library of content to which you're already subscribed and all the episodes are already available anyway it's like hey it's there and so whether you were into amc's particular brand of budget compacts the totality of their fleet suggested a little something for everyone at least within reason while the 1963 models were already locked in by this time dick teague's presence was a welcome addition to the amc family especially following the departure of george romney in early 1962. yeah the old political bug bit him and romney was off to make a run for governor of michigan an office he would go on to hold from 1963 to 1969. nice but for now amc was in the midst of establishing itself as a bastion of automotive innovation introducing a standard tandem master cylinder in 1962. joining cadillac is one of the only two automakers to make this brake system failure contingency standard before it was mandated on all cars in 1968. this in addition to an automatic shift indicator sequence on the rambler's flash-o-matic transmission which offered a neutral position between drive and reverse by 1963 amc saw its most prolific year to date manufacturing 464 126 cars which really suggests that the concern over the small car identity was unfounded and yet while amc was arguably ahead of the curve on smaller fuel-efficient offerings they were behind when it came to actual performance which was what people were increasingly looking for as the 1960s wore on on the one hand the amc fleet earned car of the year honors for motor trend anchored by the new rambler classic but i would be remiss if i overlooked the 1963 rambler american which boasted a more energetic 3.2 liter inline six making 138 horsepower and including an optional twin stick manual overdrive transmission that widened the gap between the second and third gears yet still the rambler american was never really presented as an exciting car necessarily so it's not as if people knew to start thinking of it in that way because you know unless you're already naturally inclined to see a car as exciting you're gonna need some kind of proof to change your mind it was the same deal with the marlin a fastback based off of the rambler classic which arrived in 1965 as a sporty option for the people who liked amc but weren't wild about its econobox image it was like a blend between the rambler classic and the rambler tarpon show car that made the rounds on the auto show circuit in 1964. what the marlin lacked in performance it made up in luxury offering a raised roof for more room and the lean fastback appeal of teague's own chrysler norsemen concept now it was pricier than a barracuda or a mustang but the idea was to take that hit in the hopes that people would take a chance on the latest rambler to hit the market it was kind of the same principle of the great depression era where sometimes he just went upmarket and hoped that enough wealthy people bought the car to make the up market risk worth the investment but the difference here is that amc didn't really commit to the risk as the majority of marlins produced in the first year somewhere between two and ten thousand vehicles came with the smallest engine option the 232 cubic inch inline six making 145 horsepower basically amc was at its best when it committed to a direction but suffered whenever they took a new direction in half measures as i mentioned earlier amc could have used their budget-friendly small car image to be the usdm alternative to the import boom of the following decade but they caved and moved more towards what the market demanded then rather than looking towards the future and anticipating what the market would demand years from now and so as a result we get more flaccid attempts at muscle cars and up market offerings and i think one of the issues amc faced at this moment was its change in leadership after george romney when executive roy abernethy took over for george romney in 1962 his approach was to minimize romney's efforts in the name of leaving his own stamp on the amc brand which meant placing less of a focus on smaller economy cars and while this isn't a bad idea in theory he chose a terrible time to implement it considering the big three were narrowing the gap in the compact market with offerings like the corvair the falcon and the valiant now wasn't really the time to go upmarket in a way the lukewarm reception to the marlin foretold a bigger issue on the horizon for amc the loss of dealerships over time in 1965 some 339 dealers abandoned amc and it all ties back to that uncertainty surrounding the company in the wake of romney's departure and the ascension of roy abernethy by way of the crossroads at which amc suddenly found itself they could either continue down the economy path or develop a different persona based in performance and luxury and so facing sales that were steady but unspectacular abernephy opted for risk taking even while he wasn't necessarily big on performance himself yet it felt like a necessary move away from the fairly uninspired economy image amc had cultivated with the rambler line so abernethy was intent on giving the ambassador a makeover something bigger more muscular more sporty and more luxurious which comes across like a checklist of contradictions yet abernephy sort of had something that fit the bill in the form of the mustang adjacent rambler tarpon which took cues from the smaller rambler american rather than the larger ram for classic now i already mentioned the tarpon earlier but this is another situation where the tarpon has influence on the car ahead you see the tarpon was a good idea in theory but it ultimately wouldn't work because abernethy had it in his head that their new offering should be able to carry an entire family and the tarpon was very much not a family-sized people mover and so abernephy forced the tarpon design onto the larger rambler classic chassis essentially grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory because let's be real if we're thinking about the period we were really at a turning point where larger cars were beginning to lose ground a bit those three plus three fastbacks weren't as desirable as two plus two coupes and those larger cars were more expensive to produce in general sure ambassador sales were up but the decline in sales for other models left amc in the lurch when it came to funding the sort of large-scale efforts that would change their public image and maybe they can never be a performance mark but they could be more than the official brand of accessible dullness for abernethy it was a goal worth striving for so he started to reshape the company from the bottom beginning with ditching the rambler name in favor of using amc for the brand moving forward abernethy also turned his attention away from the rambler line and more towards the ambassador in a scatter shot attempt to imbue the brand with a more upscale image and it's a process that kind of worked over the first three years of abernethy's stewardship as ambassador sales went from 18 647 units in 1964 to some 64 000 units just one year later by 1966 sales hit a high of over 71 000 ambassadors for a moment there it seemed like abernethy was really on to something but again the increase in sales for the ambassador didn't seem to be enough to make up for the decline in sales across the larger fleet nor did it offset the cost deficit when you factored in how expensive some of abernethy's changes were like accommodating a longer body for the ambassador with stacked headlights and a v-shaped front end along with cosmetic changes for the rambler classic and the introduction of the aforementioned marlin which attempted to provide amc that sportier image despite not being that much more appealing than rival fastbacks like the barracuda then you had the rebel a two-door coupe version of the classic which offered four barrel 327 cubic inch v8 options in addition to 199 and 232 v6s but it was a tight squeeze for the 232 in the 1965 rambler american which ended up going without air conditioning as a result and while it would regain air conditioning in 1966 thanks to the addition of an extra three inches to the front of the radiator the rambler line was already at a point of transition the torque tube drive systems were being gradually phased out of the rambler line in favor of standard drive shafts while the rambler american itself was de-emphasized in favor of the trinity of the ambassador the marlin and the rebel but this was all part of an ongoing strategic approach that would come to typify amc over the years phasing out past cars while gradually introducing new offerings that more or less ran on components of the discontinued cars or borrowed components from their fleetmates and while not everyone would agree that glorified badge engineering was the way to go it did keep costs relatively low and allowed the company to place their attentions on engineering instead of spreadsheets at least for a time case in point amc began to focus on heftier v8 options like a 200 horsepower 290 and a 280 horsepower 343. the 60s saw the rise of the pony car and the apotheosis of the muscle car craze size didn't seem to matter as much as power for every mustang or gto on the road there was still room for more american muscle in the form of the challenger the camaro the chevelle and yes even the 1967 rebel convertible but despite manufacturing a product in line with the times it's hard to say that abernethy actually got the muscle car craze the v8s in the marlin and ambassador were all well and good but they didn't give that loud sporty sensation that translated to pure fun performance was important but abernephy just didn't realize how much at the time despite spending all sorts of money to change amc's image to a more youthful edgier automaker while still retaining its budget-conscious heritage it's hard to say that it really worked considering the level of competition the company was facing from the big three it might have just been smarter to stick to the compact car image rather than flying too close to the sun by becoming this weird brand torn between appealing to young people but also going for the personal luxury segment sure the big three could do it but that's because they had the money to do it at least at that time the big three weren't living from one fiscal quarter to the next abernephy recognized it was a time of risk taking in the automotive industry and that if you weren't at the forefront you were miles behind but recognizing that reality and executing a vision to match it are two very different things in his book motor city muscle the high-powered history of the american muscle car author mike mueller describes the troubles abernethy faced writing quote still somewhat of a stick in the mud abernethy at least let some new ideas flow in and some real cash out after he took over amc quickly spent 300 million dollars over the next few years on its future which as rumors soon began claiming would include racing projects new model line retooling for 1967 alone cost 75 million dollars with 40 million of that going into the design of the new 290 v8 a modernized power source that kenosha watchers felt didn't quite mix with the compact company's existing intentions end quote and i can kind of understand their concern since these projects were so expensive that abernephy now had the company struggling to find the working capital to actually produce these cars why because it was all timed perfectly with the miserable aforementioned sales decline in 1966 losing some 12.6 million dollars before taxes on the one hand it made sense for amc to dip a toe into racing since everybody else seemed to be doing it and it was a way to prove the viability of your hardware provided you were successful but you had to actually succeed and success costs money and by this point no one was really in the mood to humor abernethy anymore and so abernephy took the offer of a dignified exit at the end of fiscal year 1967 and who replaced him well it was chapin roy d chapin jr roy d chapin jr what you thought it was the same guy who founded hudson motors nah he passed away in 1936 this is his son the new head of amc at the time roy d chapin jr took over as chairman amc was viewed as a dying company and that's not me saying it that's straight out of the wall street journal chapin would later recall the difficulties that he and new amc president william loonberg inherited some of which chapin who had previously served as executive vice president admitted were his fault quote we were out of money and we had to do something to overcome the immediate problems we had no time to think about long-range problems obviously we managed to solve immediate considerations before i became ceo it was decided to put the marlin sporty model on a large ambassador chassis dick teague the designer and i thought it looked a lot better on the smaller rambler chassis in retrospect i wish we had insisted on the rambler because the ambassador spoiled the whole concept of the car end quote so yeah a smaller marlin would have done better but chapin's approach to solving amc's issues was to focus on the company's strengths and in this case the notion that they weren't doing annual model change at least not to the extent of the big three meant that they could focus on out pricing their competitors and outdrawing the import segment from rivals like volkswagen who was taking away from their compact sails and they could do this in addition to upping the ante on the performance front by retiring the marlin in favor of a mustang offshoot called the javelin arriving for the 1968 model year the javelin was about as close to a pedestrian race car as amc had built up to that point from the coupe design to the bucket seats the racing stripes adding to the sportier aesthetic and tuning that was more in line with the suspension of an actual performance vehicle designed under dick teague's leadership by an array of talented designers and manufactured in the famed kenosha facility it was more or less amc's entry into the pony car market taking cues from two prototypes designated amx an abbreviation for american motors experimental lowercase e and capital x so you know they mean business much like amc's best successes the javelin borrowed parts that were already there like the rambler americans compact junior platform while utilizing teague's best instincts on how to appeal to the same youth market that had been captured by the mustang it was what teague called a wet t-shirt look a design that would emphasize curves for its time and certainly for its manufacturer the javelin was a formidable creation as teague and his team designed it to be a semi-fastback with a 59 degree windshield and more cabin and storage space than its competitors it was an aggressive affordably priced option for people who couldn't take the dive on a mustang or a barracuda but it still appealed to those who could at just two thousand five hundred dollars or around nineteen thousand dollars today the javelin came with a host of engine options you want to keep it simple there's the standard 3.8 liter straight 6 and the 4.8 liter 2 barrel v8 want to pay a little more well there's the 5.6 liter v8 that came in premium fuel four-barrel versions you could take it even further if you chose the go package which added the debuting amx 390 engine a 6.4 liter behemoth making 315 horsepower and 425 torque and offering front disc brakes a new heavy duty suspension and options like redline tires and dual exhaust it was the option of choice for the speed aficionado as it could get you to 60 miles per hour in seven seconds the fastest of amc's fleet at the time all told the javelin was a breakthrough for amc to such an extent that they were able to enter the car into the trans-am racing series and win they claimed three titles in 1971 1972 and 1976 respectively but even with the javelin entering the market to offer a more athletic appeal amc hadn't exactly given up on the amx they brought in engineer vic raviolo who'd worked on the lincoln cars that had raced in the infamous carrera pan-americana in the 1950s check out the feature-length mickey thompson rcr story over on our second channel for more on that cataclysmic race as for the amx the original prototype vehicle was a financially untenable fiberglass model amc could produce steel bodies like nobody's business but fiberglass was a bridge too far so raviolo adapted the fiberglass prototype into a steel-bodied two-seater making it the first american-built vehicle of its kind since the ford thunderbird of the mid to late 50s what you had with the amx was essentially a two-seat gt muscle car with a shorter wheelbase than the corvette and a lower retail price to boot 3245 or around 24 grand today and a full one 1 000 cheaper than the corvette of course i should note that true to the standard approach with amc the amx shared a lot of components with the javelin in order to keep costs down but the two cars were similar enough that it made sense the amx was basically a javelin without the back c which is probably a super reductive way of putting it but there you go just four months into the javelin's run the amx was unveiled at the daytona international speedway claiming speeds of 130 miles per hour the car was produced in a limited run which ultimately lasted just three short years 1968 69 and 70. but its primary function was achieved it bathed amc in waters from the fountain of youth so to speak for crying out loud it set 106 world speed records on texas's goodyear test track an amc vehicle did that in an instant it felt like amc had become hot again not as an economy brand but as a more exciting company brimming with performance possibility and youth appeal this is more or less borne out by the company ending the 1968 model year profitably but as the 1960s came to an end a more familiar amc would come to the forefront the amc that's eulogized in car forums and auto shows alike a brand that was always changing always trying and gaining a following because of it while amc was trying to find a broader approach to mass market appeal a different automaker was looking for a new home back in 1941 the united states government made willis overland and ford motor company work together like kids on a science project taking over the contract for a series of military vehicles from american bantam a company who lost the military contract when it was assessed that they lacked the necessary production capacity required by the government over time willis overland made jeep a household name and they were awarded the trademark on the jeep name in 1950 seeing value in the jeep brand the kaiser fraser corporation or kaiser motors bought willis overland outright for 62.3 million dollars which is nearly 10 times that amount today at over 607 million dollars it was a lot of money but the jeep brand had a lot of potential in the years that followed kaiser produced vehicles under the willis motor name through the 50s and 60s most notably the jeep wagoneer introduced as a 1963 model a vehicle which may or may not be america's first suv depending on whom you ask this in addition to the jeep gladiator full-sized pickup and the newly rebadged remodeled jeepster which willis overland had briefly produced in the late 1940s it was a different kind of fleet from the american norm of the era but now it was 1968 and willis motors had become absorbed and renamed the kaiser jeep corporation because believe it or not despite the name recognition jeep carries these days it was actually a money loser for kaiser who wanted out of the auto industry all together oh boy it was a complete mess of outdated products built in outdated factories marketed towards a niche collection of farmers ranchers and dedicated outdoorsmen they manufactured a utility product to a commercial rather than an industrial market and the ones buying it weren't exactly going to buy it in large enough numbers to make it profitable jeeps weren't the image vehicle they would come to represent the modern automotive market for good or ill because no one thought to use them in that way yet and so roy chapin who was 3 years into his tenure as chairman of amc made the decision to purchase jeep for 70 million dollars or 483.6 million dollars today he did this despite internal opposition because why would a money loser for one company do anything but lose money for them yet chapin was adamant that jeep would help them meet the needs of a segment that wasn't being serviced by the big three automakers and besides jeep had government contracts for postal service and military vehicles that could add to amc's coffers it was a new frontier for amc who reorganized the government contracted vehicles under a separate line known as am general short for american motors general products division while the jeep brand was organized into its own subsidiary known as well jeep corporation there was no need to make it any more complicated than that and so jeep had finally arrived to provide a little variation to the amc lineup and you could easily make the argument that this was the most diverse era for amc's fleet affordable compacts a hint of sport a tow in the personal luxury division and a slice of outdoorsmanship with jeep but part of the problem with having such a diverse fleet is that you aren't really focusing on any one thing in particular bad analogy i know but i used to watch the uk version of kitchen nightmares with gordon ramsay because the american one was garishly overproduced and basically one of the things that always used to drive ramsay bonkers was when a restaurant would lack focus and serve all sorts of different cuisines rather than just focusing on doing one style really well and making that their brand identity in the push for more mass-market appeal going into the 1970s amc was sacrificing the specificity that had made them solvent in the first place they weren't just aiming for the youth market anymore but for everybody this was before the gas crisis when the automotive world was still rife with possibilities and the zeitgeist hadn't been sublimated by the import scene while amc could have anticipated that turn towards small imports by focusing harder on their compact identity chapin bristled against being pigeonholed sort of like an actor who doesn't want to be typecast yet some identities are earned for a reason enter the gremlin released in 1970 as the exterminator to kill volkswagen's beetle before it completely consumed their compact market share the gremlin made it to market ahead of two cars that were more successful but aren't exactly remembered fondly the chevrolet vega was a fire hazard waiting to happen with owners of the period reporting melting engines and fuel tank fires while the ford pinto has a well-documented controversy over the gas tank igniting upon collisions leading to lawsuits from injured parties and estates of survivors alike but the amc gremlin tried to be unproblematic but exciting a fuel-efficient sub-compact with just enough curb appeal to serve as a potential flagship for the brand in the new decade as it goes dick teague sketched the design for the gremlin on the back of a sick bag while on an airplane it was a car that looked like a derivation of the amx gt concept car cross-sampled with the new amc hornet which also debuted in 1970 and was itself a derivation of another amc model the amc cavalier concept car from 1965 which was the company's attempt at expanding infrastructure for modular design through a unified body symmetry for the fleet the cavalier was mostly used as a promotional tool before finding its way into the design of teague's hornet which provided a foundation for his gremlin and it was a necessary foundation because amc didn't really have the money for a new top to bottom design and no this will never stop being an issue for amc not entirely now teague's colleague bob nixon laid out a design that shortened the hornet wheelbase from 108 to 96 inches and chopped the length down from 179 to 161 inches which made it a shorter vehicle than its competitors the beetle the pinto and the vega the base two passenger model ran for the princely sum of one thousand eight hundred seventy nine dollars which is around twelve thousand six hundred fourteen dollars in 2021 and for around 200 extra you could have the four seat hatchback in our review of the gremlin we talked about the time magazine that compared this to a sawed-off station wagon which honestly isn't far off the mark but it fit with the divisive nature of amc's design approach in the 1970s with styling that could be wildly popular or openly hated it was that divisiveness that kept people talking a large-scale manifestation of the notion that there's no such thing as bad press which amc leaned into with their definition of the gremlin quote a pal to its friend and an ogre to its enemies end quote when the gremlin hit the market it ran on amc's 199 cubic inch or 3.3 liter inline six making 128 horsepower although consumers also had the option of amc's 232 making 145 horsepower it was fast for the sub-compact market and was purported by amc to make the best gas mileage of any domestic production car although first-year sales topped out at 25 300 units the car found a following for the same reason as just about any other amc car as reflected in a survey by popular mechanics which found that the most attractive feature of the gremlin was its economy it was a car that at least in comparison to others in its class had an admirable record of reliability ride quality and the notion that you could have an affordable car that wouldn't completely fall apart on you another positive helping the year-over-year sales was the fact that 1970 had been a shortened model year in its first full year on the market the gremlin actually doubled its numbers to 53 480 units it still wasn't a six-figure production but the gremlins seemed to be on its way with sales going up 16 the following year on the strength of amc's new comprehensive buyer protection plan a bumper-to-bumper warranty that covered the first 12 months or 12 000 miles i cannot overstate how huge of a deal this was because amc was the first company to offer a full year's protection which provided them some much needed good press rather than the mixed dimensions they were getting by 1973 figures finally hit six digits moving 122 844 units but the divisiveness that got the gremlin so much attention at the start was partially what kept it from being more popular than its competitors sure economy is good but when people want something stylish and with name value i don't know that the gremlin was going to get the job done even now the car is a classic but not one of those sexy classics that people appreciate for its beauty and the rhythmic hum of its engine it's a classic to people who are predisposed to liking this era in american automotive history or amc in particular you know people like me after a peak of 171 128 units for 1974 75 numbers declined as the emergent oil crisis led to an utterly baffling decrease in the gremlin's fuel economy owing to an increase in safety and emissions rules that made the car even less fuel efficient the car that had once been touted by amc as the most fuel-efficient production car in america was now found to be the worst in its class for fuel economy when tested on the road by popular science as the gremlin made roughly 21 miles per gallon an unfortunate number when weighted against say the 24 miles per gallon of the new volkswagen rabbit which brings us to an important offshoot in the history of the gremlin you see if you got a gremlin you were basically getting the standard amc straight six with a v8 tossed in as an option no four-cylinder for the gremlin yet amc was quickly becoming strapped for cash as the 70s were on you know more strapped than they typically tended to be and so amc decided to pay volkswagen 60 million dollars in 1977 to use the audi 2-liter four-cylinder engine for the gremlin the plan was to assemble these four-cylinder engines at amc's newly acquired richmond indiana plant and not only used them in the gremlin but also sell the assembled engines back to volkswagen audi at a premium but the entire plan was just too pricey for the sort of sales the gremlin was doing at this point the gremlin just wasn't selling well enough for a 4-cylinder engine to change its fortunes and besides amc was already late to the punch since 4-cylinder and 4-speed sticks weren't exactly new by that point yet even then the volkswagen deal came with a bizarre stipulation amc was forbidden from divulging the origin of their new four-cylinder which left them without a way to explain to people why this engine was over 250 dollars more expensive than the inline-six for consumers it was a price that was way too much to justify for a car that was clearly on the way out but they had to stick to volkswagen stipulations which is basically like i don't know kind of a side chick deal like yo claim us in public volkswagen i thought what we had was real is it real or not even long before the volkswagen deal sales for the gremlin plummeted concurrently with the hornet upon which it was based one of the reasons for this is that amc didn't really manufacture the gremlin in high enough volumes when you compare the totals to what ford and chevy were doing in the 70s which makes a lot of sense because those companies had the money to do that but a lot of the money that amc could have used to update the gremlin instead went to the pacer project competitors like the chevy vega and the ford pinto were selling in the hundreds of thousands a competitor like the chevy vega for example would sell some 394 592 units in 1972 alone while the ford pinto would go on to sell around 480 405 units in the same time frame but it took the gremlins near entire eight-year lifespan to sell the sorts of figures that its rivals made in the course of two yet the figure is still pretty impressive at least by my count from 1970 to 1978 the gremlin would sell nearly 700 000 units and in the process secured its own legacy as america's first domestically built subcompact not too bad for a car that probably gets a harsher wrap than it deserves throughout this period amc continued to sell existing jeep products such as the wagoneer the jeep gladiator j series pickup and at least until 1973 the jeep commando it's weird to talk about amc struggling when you consider the first three years of the 1970s were really damn good for them were they dominating the market of course not but pre-oil crisis amc was in a good position to maintain their spot in the market for years to come which is why amc was still viewed by chapin as a valuable acquisition owing to its potential for growth in the recreational vehicle market which was seeing an increase in the early 1970s and i truly believe he was right in this assessment amc was on a roll and they kind of earned that after years of trying to get to a place where the cars they were making actually got the attention that they deserved you know what i mean the two-door jeep cherokee sj was introduced for 1974 to tap into a younger demographic it was a livelier alternative to its jeep brethren presented as more off-road worthy than say the jeep cj-7 which would come along just two short years later and would inspire such a demand that the long-running cj-5 which had been in production since 1955 would be retired but that wouldn't be until 1983 the year without a corvette go check out that rcr story in the archives but for now the gremlin was on the way out and maybe it was time during the gremlin's heyday was the rise of one of the icons of the company the amc pacer released in 1975 the pacer was wider than any compact amc had ever made up to that point with a width on par with full-sized vehicles of its era it was a cab forward design that was far more spacious than you'd think from its exterior dimensions bigger on the inside with 16 percent more surface area of the car's windows and glass than the standard passenger car measuring 5615 square inches and when you consider this was a car whose body surface accounted for 37 glass laminated safety glass windshields became more vital than ever all told it was an iconic design with big ass windows and a more aerodynamically friendly jelly bean body style it was the culmination of a design dick teak had been working on since 1971 with amc later stating the pacer to be quote the first car designed from the inside out four passengers were positioned with reasonable clearances and then the rest of the car was built around them as compactly as possible end quote roy chapin meanwhile described it as a design that quote represents a transition between what has been and what's coming today versus tomorrow end quote yet you could argue that amc was hedging its bets in the event that people didn't like the car as though the mere fact of acknowledging how divisive it would be might somehow preempt the criticism the pacer was likely to face and i mean the criticism wasn't unfounded in 1971 amc had released the ambassador platform sharing matador a model line offered in two-door hardtop and coupe variations in addition to four-door sedan and station wagon options and premium trim levels that would place the full and mid-size offering squarely in the personal luxury market for its second generation moving it away from the family vehicle connotations of the car it was introduced to replace the amc rebel it was a smart idea but one that came too late by the time amc released the personal luxury trim levels of the matador named the barcelona and the oleg cassini respectively ford had already cornered that market with the granada which while not a revolutionary bit of business still cut into amc's sales such that the matador would be out of sight and out of mind before the decade was up and so the focus of the pacer led amc away from its temporary focus on personal luxury at the cost of beating one of the big three to a potentially profitable market segment but honestly it's all conjecture who's to say if the matador barcelona would have been a hit had it come out sooner than it did in a way the history of amc is a tale of monday morning quarterbacking backseat drivers the captain hindsight mentality because you could say such in such a car would have succeeded but we have the benefit of literally decades of data and information and dissection and in those crucial moments amc definitely felt like the automotive equivalent of a patient at a dentist's office no matter how you floss you're doing it wrong and your dentist is disappointed in you wait did we use that analogy before i don't remember did you get uh he's doing laundry let me not bug him i suppose the argument such as i've read online is that in trying to get away from being the small budget-friendly car company and leaning into a more youthful aggressive image they missed out on the potential money maker of going after people who actually had cash to burn especially with the fleet's fuel economy taking a hit at a time when gas mileage was more important than ever at that point if you can't be the small car company with the great fuel economy you might as well just make something gaudy and expensive in the hopes that you can make your money back again back to that great depression mentality with automakers like cadillac with the v16 or packard you know what i mean but amc wasn't that kind of company even if they wanted to be with the pacer amc fell back on manufacturing practices that weren't all that different from the norm it's a tired tale but no less factual to say that the finances weren't there to build the pacer from the ground up and so amc either repurposed components they already had or reached out to third-party suppliers willing to play ball the result was the famous cab forward design that pushed the a-pillars forward and offered generous room to backseat passengers which is a positive although if you were looking for something more rigorous in the way of performance that wasn't really what you were going to get here although a transverse mid-engine configuration was considered not unlike any of a number of times the corvette went through similar considerations amc ultimately stuck with the front engine rear-wheel drive devil they already knew yet the pacer still drew attention for exactly the reason they expected the gremlin to it's simply an odd car i don't know that it's necessarily something fun or stylish but it's so unique that it exudes a certain kind of careless cool it offered a low drag coefficient thanks to teak putting the kibosh on rain gutters and a passenger door that was longer than the drivers to improve ease of access to the rear bench for passengers it was also only the second american production car to offer rack and pinion steering after the ford pinto and it just felt like the right party car at the right time for those aimless nights on the road getting up to mischief with friends and this is way before wayne's world but still it felt like the movie captured the general spirit of the car no pun intended of course not everything went smoothly and some of this is an issue of amc's own making um maybe all of it actually as amc initially hoped to get this thing loaded with a rotary engine similar to the wankel that chevrolet was working on for the vega but that didn't happen because amc had struck a deal with global manufacturing company curtis wright to license wankel engines for their cars until they realized it'd be cheaper to just get their engines through gm after learning about the plans for the vega and a possible wankle-powered corvette and so they bailed on the curtis wright deal with the thought being that these gm wankel engines would increase fuel efficiency and provide a lighter car and a more dynamic on the road experience that would appeal to a broader audience yet amc was sort of left out to dry after gm decided to abandon the wankel project altogether due to cost issues since the oil crisis was in full swing and it didn't really make economic sense to build a high revving engine for a domestic audience that wouldn't appreciate it in large enough numbers to make it profitable i mean okay on its face the pacer wasn't a bad car the issue with the pacer was that between the high cost of development the relative lack of shared components when compared to other cars in the mc fleet namely that the pacer has just two body styles in comparison to say the hornets five and the entire wankel engine fiasco well this car would have to sell huge numbers to justify itself much less become profitable and it didn't help that this car diverted funds and resources away from other amc products that could have badly used the attention like the aforementioned hornet a car that could have still had legs in the changing american automotive landscape but in an age of small cars getting more of a foothold in the market amc the de facto small car company in the united states made the mistake of marketing the pacer as a small car when it was really an intermediate now why is this important well for an intermediate sized car the pacer got decent fuel economy enough to be appealing to a more fuel-conscious society but for a small car the fuel economy was pretty bad leaving consumers unimpressed and then there was the whole engine issue you know due to the whole wankle engine mess with curtis wright and gm a panicked amc brain trust had to redesign the pacer to take the old reliable straight six they already had on hand for other amc models and while the approach thankfully worked it came at the expense of fuel economy as the 18 mpg rating was poorer than the 23 mpg of its four-cylinder counterparts engine options boiled down to inline six engines of 3.8 and 4.2 liter displacement or a 5 liter v8 and at that point you kind of have to wonder if it wouldn't have made more sense to skip the pacer and just focus on getting four-cylinder engines and five-speed transmissions in the compact offerings you already had rather than adding a new one to the lineup but again the wankel deal still would have fallen through and left amc in the lurch ultimately the pacer shared the story of countless other amc projects selling well enough in the early going but declining as interest eroded in a car that didn't really speak to the consumers to whom it was intended to appeal for the 1976 model year 117 244 units were sold with the station wagon being added to the lineup for the following year but by then sales were halved at roughly 58 000 units and change which dropped even further in 1978 to a paltry 21 231 units although it had come highly recommended as a futuristic sturdy thoughtful and appealing car to those looking for a new compact from publications such as motor trend consumer reports popular mechanics and car and driver road and track had a bit of a harder time with it noting quote in the usual panic stop tests our driver had one of his most anxious moments ever as the pacer screeched skidded and demanded expert attention at the steering wheel to keep from going all together out of control the histrionics are reflected in long stopping distances from highway speeds the car's engineering old-fashioned and unimaginative in the extreme does not match the perky design end quote the pacer was bright but burned out quickly production officially ended in 1979 with the 1980 model year marking the end of the pacer which was in and out of the public eye within the span of a single presidential cycle but major change was on the way for amc in the form of a partnership that would reshape the landscape of the american motors corporation the 70s were winding down and although roy d chapin jr would remain as chairman of amc he made the decision to step down as ceo and so on october 21 1977 amc president and chief operating officer gerald c myers would become the youngest ceo in the auto industry at the time at the baby-faced age of 49 which is less surprising when you realize that in addition to holding all sorts of positions along the corporate ladder from director of purchasing to vice president of manufacturing myers was the architect of the vaunted buyer protection plan and you might not immediately think of this as that big a deal but i really can't stress enough just how badly the public mistrusted corporations tying in to ralph nader calling for more strict consumer protection laws to keep buyers from getting given the short shrift and so the buyer protection plan was a strike at the heart of the growing anti-corporate sentiment among consumers by assuring them they could take a risk with amc products and feel taken care of and be taken care of myers had a hand in all of that so it's not like they were promoting some guy fresh out of business school in addition to holding all sorts of positions along the corporate ladder from director of purchasing to vice president of manufacturing meyer's promotion remains one of the contentious aspects of amc's history similar to the succession fiasco that would plague lee iacocca's departure from chrysler over a decade later the departure of roy d chapin jr resulted in questions of whether the right guy had actually been chosen to replace the outgoing chairman let me explain the vice chairman and vice president of marketing was a man by the name of r william mcnealy jr or bill mcnealy and some would argue he was every bit as vital to amc survival as myers particularly with regards to the game-changing warranties the company was offering mcnealy's son scott who would go on to co-found sun microsystems in 1982 would tell cnet in 2006 that his father quote pioneered multi-year warranties in the car business leveraged the fuel crisis of the early 70s by featuring amc's compact car lines and drove the acquisition of jeep which was one of the best ever acquisitions in the car business end quote and you know that ladder point isn't too far off the mark even overlooking the bias of a man talking about his father or me talking about amc you see americans in the 70s did want their fuel-efficient cars emphasis on cars because trucks and suvs were held to a different standard people didn't really care if they were good on gas or not because nobody really expected them to be and this is where the profit for jeep was hiding as amc sales declined jeep sales increased alongside its considerably bigger profit margins mcnealy had every intention of capitalizing on this cutting bait on the unprofitable attempts at mass market appeal for the amc fleet and instead pivoting towards the niche market because let's remember this was essentially amc's entire business model in the early going do what other people weren't doing yet and do it better even if it wasn't in tune with the cultural moment the suv market in the 70s could have done for amc what the compact car segment did for them in the 1950s because at least in theory it's better to have a huge piece of a smaller market than a small piece of an even bigger market find the place where you have the least direct competition and grow your market there amc could have focused on developing jeep to get ahead of the eventual rise of these sports utility offerings but the window of opportunity was incredibly small and by the time of the second oil crisis in 1979 jeep sales finally began to take a hit bill mcneely was a guy who could have been another george romney but taken to the farthest possible extreme rather than simply focusing on compact cars that made them money in the past mcnealy was a big proponent of the jeep brand to the point of exclusion to everything else this isn't to say that mcnealy would have put the kibosh on selling any cars at all but perhaps a reduced fleet of cars and a more dedicated emphasis on the jeep brand could have been the cure for what ailed but a corporate restructuring resulted in the departure of bill mcnealy in 1977. it's all detailed in a washington post article dated november 19 1977. amc would post its first full year of profitability since 1974 numbering some 8.3 million dollars yet it would come as certain executives were shown the door and others choosing to walk through it a meeting of the board of directors resulted in bill mcnealy's resignation which mcnealy himself would later call a mutual decision and i'm sure it was to an extent presuming mcneely disagreed with the direction the company was set to take although i don't think meyer's approach was so radical as to inspire distrust it was simply a clashing of two separate ideologies and i think amc would have been stronger with both men in positions of power but i guess it just wasn't meant to be in his first years in power myers de-emphasized the competitive aspect of amc's approach instead choosing to focus on maximizing the value and versatility of their four-wheel drive division good start right almost by necessity myers had to cut their fleet to the bone killing the matador and the pacer in successive years and dedicating resources to vehicles that could run on the low-cost hornet platform as we would see with the premium compact amc concord the downsizing approach helped amc meet cafe standards that required corporate average fuel economy of the entire fleet to hit 27.5 miles per gallon by 1985. myers was also the man under whom my dream car came to light as the amc eagle was introduced in 1979 but more on that in a bit because that story is entirely subordinate to an important partnership that unlike a well-placed rko didn't exactly come out of nowhere you see even with the streamlining of their fleet and the retirement of models that were no longer doing justifiable numbers amc was still short on cash a report by time magazine in february 1977 revealed that amc had lost in the ballpark of 73.8 million dollars across 1975 and 76. to make matters worse their bank credit had expired a month earlier although they were able to get the banks to agree to an extension on that credit it was for 72.5 million dollars which wasn't enough to cover the losses of the past two fiscal years everyone was struggling even the people holding the line for amc stock okay not that amc stock the shareholders were struggling because no dividends had been paid in over three years by that point and yet jeep was bringing in strong sales earning some 36.7 million dollars in profit for 1978 but the profits were offset by years of losses coupled with the aforementioned cost of getting the cars to meet the fuel economy mandate this meant amc would need to look for outside help to keep the grim reaper at bay and so it was that amc and french automaker renault came to an agreement renault would front the capital for a stake in the company and it wasn't exactly a new partnership either because renault had a past with amc not only investing in recent years but even going farther back to the 1960s when they assembled rambler models for distribution through their network of european dealers but this was a more significant capital p partnership as both companies now had a foot into each other's respective markets essentially both companies would look to expand their global reach a new york times report broke down the plan for the partnership which amounted to a joint manufacturing and distribution agreement as the article lays out the agreement included quote combination of the company's distribution efforts in the united states and canada development of future product plans regarding renault and amc passenger cars to be sold in the united states and canada consideration of the eventual manufacture of one or more renault cars in amc assembly plants sales of jeep vehicles through the dealer network in selected international markets shipment by renault of increased quantities of le carr its best-selling compact in the united states to this country as soon as possible for sale throughout the dealership networks in the united states and canada end quote the article would go on to quote an investment analyst for a new york investment firm quote amc was not going to be able to hack it alone by the same token renault was not going to be able to set up the 1 000 dealerships or so that it needed in order to expand in this country it's logical and it's a case where one plus one could equal more than two end quote both companies needed one another and so the deal was finalized renault received a 22.5 minority stake in the company in exchange for operating capital as american motors would receive a 150 million dollar cash injection plus an additional 50 million dollars in credits it was the right deal at the right time and gave amc the breathing room they desperately needed to plan more ardently for the future as evidenced by a bold approach to drastically reduce the company fleet in order to maximize profits it was a three-legged stool approach and it was one of gerald meyer's bolder strokes taking amc from a wide array of sub-compacts to a lean trio of small cars it seemed like a wild idea keeping just the amc concord pacer and spirit cars cutting the fleet down and hoping for the best and yet the idea not only staved off bankruptcy it led to a sudden cash influx when coupled with strong jeep sales and the long-standing military truck contract and the government deal for postal service vehicles suddenly amc was looking healthier than they had in years even if they still technically weren't cash flow positive in a november 1979 time magazine article the benefits of the three-legged stool approach were made readily apparent quote last week like proud parents of a sickly child who suddenly won the bantam championship amc announced that profits more than doubled to a record 83.9 million dollars on sales of 3.1 billion dollars for the fiscal year ended in september true earnings declined in the industry's dismal last quarter but they were down less than those at the big three in october amc rode up again car sales surged 37 while they sank 21 for the industry as a whole end quote but as the 1970s neared the end amc had to look ahead to an auto industry that would change significantly in the years to come as the needs of the many demanded the attention of the few who could meet it this is where my dream car comes in a man by the name of roy lund who was the chief design engineer for jeep had an idea for a 4x4 car which was basically a concorde with a lifted suspension and full-time four-wheel drive he'd made a proposal for the car in 1977 writing quote the ongoing product situation particularly relating to emissions and fuel economy legislation is also necessitating complete redesign of basic vehicles to meet a new market created by standards rather than customer demand or desire amc is not financially or creatively capable of being able to meet this changing situation in the main segments of the market we have therefore to accept progressive annihilation or get back to where we started by finding unique slots in the marketplace which are legal on a continuing basis and are within our financial and creative capabilities this product proposal relates to such a unique product as a natural combination of jeep and passenger car factors end quote in essence it was a targeted attempt to get away from all the shared platform vehicles that accounted for half of the amc fleet at the time the hope was to create a new line of four-wheel drive vehicles that didn't feel like a gremlin or a hornet and can meet the rigorous fuel demands without sacrificing performance or curb appeal of course this was a company that generally wasn't in the business of making new products from whole cloth instead opting for using what they already had to make something that could fill whatever hole in the market they could find yet they had to get this project off the ground somehow author doug shepard recounts in his article the egg development of the amc eagle quote project eight zero zero one plus four was the designation given by lund for a line of four-wheel drive vehicles with the ride and handling conventions of a standard rear-wheel drive car and mr lund was going to apply this four-wheel drive system on a unit body vehicle something that was not thought practical up until now all us-built four-wheel drive vehicles were of the standard body-on-frame construction the conventional wisdom of the time was that a unit body vehicle could not withstand the stresses associated with four-wheel drive end quote yet one persisted which led to ff development being hired by amc to help with constructing the prototype in february 1977. when that first prototype was delivered in june lum thought it was a decent start but needed to use amc's inline six rather than a v8 in addition they would need to add an extra two and a half inches of ground clearance over the hornet and maybe use a concord body instead oh and the torque split really ought to be 50 50 rather than 33 66 but other than that the prototype was great it proved the viability of the concept with the first phase down a second round of prototypes would be delivered in october 1977 then a third round by february 1978 right up until 1979 when the car would be finalized for the 1980 model year which is more or less what happened as lund saw the multi-year plan through to completion and the amc eagle was born ultimately what we ended up with in the amc eagle was something akin to a concorde but with the relative power and drivability of a jeep wagoneer the comfort of a sedan the capability of a jeep and with full-time four-wheel drive until select track came around for 1981 the select track four-wheel drive system gave you the option of switching between two and four-wheel drive to get better fuel economy if the conditions weren't a miserable white hellscape because don't get it twisted these sold like hotcakes in regions where snow hit the heaviest you can mark the time of year by how many eagles went flying off the lot which is probably why we saw so many of these in pa in the late 80s and early 90s especially on used car lots but then i'm starting to wonder how much of that is just my own past coloring my perception you know what i mean hey brian help i'm supposed to be doing a journalism but i'm i can't be objective in august 1979 when this hit the market for the 1980 model year the eagle wasn't exactly as formidable as it would become offering a 4.2 liter inline-six engine that was by then pretty outdated in fact the engine was knee-capped by the emissions technology to such an extent that they just omitted the engine output in brochures all together for that first year and this was just for the mid-sized eagle the sx-4 model had a hobbled 2.5 liter four-cylinder iron duke that was no great shakes really the best reason to get this was the four-wheel drive whether you went with the automatic transmission or the four or five speed manual offerings as a 1979 newsweek article noted these were the only four-wheel drive passenger vehicles being produced domestically at the time and for the most part they were built to last through as many winters as regular attentive maintenance would allow so the eagle was an attractive option to weather-battered regions particularly due to amc's famous affordability particularly when coupled with their extensive warranties at least for the time upon release the two-door eagle went for six thousand nine hundred ninety-nine dollars or twenty-one thousand nine hundred eighty-three dollars in 2021. meanwhile the four-door station wagon ran for seven thousand five hundred forty-nine dollars or a smooth twenty three thousand seven under ten dollars today i have no idea why i called that number smooth and while there's an argument to be had for just how groundbreaking this car truly was it definitely spoke to buyers in a way few economy cars did at the time as rob sass recounts in his 2008 new york times article a breed of 4x4 hatched on the fly the eagle benefited from the low expectations people had for amc in the 1980s they took the world by surprise with this car opening up a new marketing segment for four-wheel drive utility sedans and wagons with major credit to roy lund who pushed hard to bring the project to fruition the article states quote not only did the eagle have four-wheel drive it was a rather advanced system for its time an automatic clutch in the transfer case enabled the cars to be driven in four-wheel drive all the time on any kind of surface and the cars rode and handled much better than truck-based suvs because of a simple and effective independent front suspension engineered by mr lunn and his team in a recent interview mr lund said amc had conducted little formal market research before introducing the eagles he said that he had sensed that there was a niche in the market for such cars and that the idea was presented to a somewhat incredulous but generally supportive management there was little in the way of a benchmark in mr lund's opinion the jensen ff was crewed by comparison because of its driveline vibrations owners of eagles share little in common with other persnickety vintage car owners rather than owning their cars for purposes of nostalgia status pleasure or even investment eagle owners tend to keep their cars because they work extremely well for that reason eagle enthusiasts are refreshing and often self-deprecating unlike boosters of other makes they have a sense of humor about the cars and are not blind to foibles like their odd styling and the company's spotty quality control end quote you want to know how much confidence people had in the eagle back in the early 80s these were the cars used in the first ice driving schools in the united states that's the kind of faith people had in the eagle and how vital its independent front suspension and full-time four-wheel drive system would be to the car's early success of course the eagle wasn't really meant to compete against non-passenger four-wheel drive cars not that it stopped people from treating it like an off-roader yes the full-time four-wheel drive allowed passengers to overcome sand snow dirt mud all that stuff but rocks maybe not so much there were limits to what the eagle was capable of but again this was primarily a passenger car wearing an indiana jones hat remember those early gta games where there were random buildings but you couldn't go inside and most people didn't even want to go inside but like the thought of knowing that if the building was there they theoretically could and then when i guess vice city came out or whichever was the first one where you got to go inside buildings it was basically mind-blowing that's more or less what the eagle offered the knowledge that while there were certain places you probably couldn't take this car those roads were ultimately accessible in a way they wouldn't be in a standard passenger car of the time the eagle was lauded by bbc autos writer dan carney in 2013 for being quote the kind of segment busting product that engineers and marketers spend entire careers trying to create end quote this in addition to author and automotive journalist martin padgett naming the eagle as having been responsible for quote midwifing the suv end quote 1980 saw the delivery of the final 1000 pacers leaving the concorde and the spirit as the sum total of amc's traditional car line with the eagle filling the gap as the new third leg of the stool which seemed like a viable enough plan but required further cutbacks in the form of the discontinuation of the 3.8 liter engine which left just the 2.5 and the 4.2 since the 5.0 was only available for the jeep line as typical the second oil crisis hit amc pretty hard in addition to the overall decline of the kenosha wisconsin facility which had been america's longest running automotive production plan at that time by this point the unthinkable had begun to occur as jeep sales were now starting to decline too whether as a result of high fuel prices high interest rates and the aforementioned lousy economy you also had foreign automakers pressing on amc's market segment offering better fuel economy better performance and better customer satisfaction amc was in a rough spot but they'd managed to get their backs off the wall one way or the other but this time was different because in 1980 amc had gone to the banks for a loan but the banks said no and they weren't getting bailed out like chrysler so they had to turn once again to renault to come save their bacon this time for a loan of some 90 million dollars which wasn't an easy sell at first until amc told their shareholders that due to their plummeting slice of the domestic market totaling roughly 1.7 along with a drop in quarterly sales the options were either renault or bankruptcy the shareholders had to approve the plan because this time renault wanted controlling interest which meant they would have the freedom to get buck wild when it came to installing their own people in executive positions as was their right as the new majority shareholders the deal went through on december 16th 1980 at which point renault's former treasurer a man named jean-marc lepieux became the new vice president for finance at amc chairman and ceo gerald myers announced that renault would construct all amc cars moving forward while amc would take care of the jeep and eagle product lines the delegation of responsibilities allowed for a more common sense allocation of resources for instance the renault 18i wasn't selling at least not to the extent of the renault liquor which you can now get with four doors presumably to appeal more to the us dm market prices were lowered by 10 percent on all current amc cars in a bid to win back buyers by economic default okay not that kind of default and it was a decent enough idea i guess not unlike gerald meyer's three-legged stool approach and no not that kind of stool and yet despite having signed a new four-year deal after the renault merger gerald myers decided to leave amc in january 1982. former company president w paul tippett jr took meyer's place as chairman and ceo while long-time renault manager jose de deurwater ascended to the presidency of amc oh my gosh i probably pronounced that name i butchered it yeah you know i tried to find places online and there were way too many conflicting pronunciations so i just went with one apologies if that's your last name and i butchered it the sudden change in leadership didn't instill loads of confidence in the dealer network as amc had to prevent them from bailing altogether they did this with vague promises of a new amc renault car that would blow away the competition and other customer friendly amc exclusives like the old buyer protection plan the new zbart rust protection and a new borgwarner 5-speed that would increase fuel economy significantly when paired with the 4-cylinder engine amc also moved to create a smaller eagle based on the spirit in the form of the sx-4 and the eagle cam back the eagle also offered select drive part-time all-wheel drive to improve fuel consumption the eagle had been a vital component to the amc lineup but its sales figures bumped around like a super ball during the early 1980s for the 1980 model year the eagle moved 32 641 units before rising to 43 221 units for the 1981 model year but sales saw a gradual decline over the years that followed with 35 209 units for 1982 31 207 units for 1983 and a sudden precipitous drop to 20 654 units in 1984. the size of the drop could be chalked up to amc trimming down the eagle line over time for instance 1983 was the final year for the eagle sx4 while 1984 saw the elimination of options body styles and engines and while i could probably list off every single thing that changed let it simply suffice to say that amc's priorities were elsewhere and the eagle suffered for it i mean when you compare it to some of the sales figures that models in the 1970s were doing for amc reading some of these numbers was really a big eye-opener for me but of course like this was more or less concurrent with the business going on with the renault 18i it was this sporty little four-door front-wheel drive sedan that offered a fuel-injected four-cylinder engine and it was in a more european style than the eagle or the concorde i mean it still didn't sell to the degree that was necessary but part of me wonders to what extent it was even supposed to this entire period feels like one massive stall for time as amc and renault tried to piece together some genius new creation that would vault them back into competition with the big three i mean there was the fuego the sports coupe meant to battle the celicas and 300 zx's and stereos of the world and over the course of the six year life span that the fuego was active 265 367 units were produced but a high production volume doesn't always equate to high demand or even modest sales for every imported model amc dealers could apply for rebates as high as a thousand dollars per car which doesn't sound like a great way for an auto maker to see a healthy return on their investment and the same could be said of the r18i which suffered from bad build quality and better alternatives this coupled with the discontinuation of the spirit and the concorde it all hurt the company all of it but not as badly as the sale of am general the continuously profitable division focused on producing government vehicles why did they sell it well i don't know if they really had a choice amc turned to the french to bail them out only because the us government wouldn't but now that amc was partnered with a foreign automaker the us government didn't like a french-owned company building their fleet vehicles and so they essentially lost their military contracts and it went beyond just being like a french automaker because the french government also had a stake in renault so it was kind of an understandable conflict of interest i suppose with regards to military contracts thus amc renault had to scramble even harder to come up with a product that could save the company this is where the renault alliance enters the picture the long-awaited collaborative effort between amc and renault was a fuel-injected front-wheel drive sub-compact with rack and pinion steering and a more appealing design to modern sensibilities not as divisively european as one would expect but not so blandly american to turn off consumers wanting to gesture towards refinement it was exactly the shot in the arm that amc renault so desperately needed because it sold well when compared to the rest of their line and the secret to its success in some regards was how innately european the alliance really was it was based on the popular renault r9 which had won european car of the year honors in 1982 and motor trend car of the year in america for the 1983 model year 20 years after the rambler won that same award it would go on to become one of the most popular cars in all of france so it was the most natural car to retool for north america but once you got past the initial veneer of affordability what you got was a 1.4 liter engine making an anemic 64 horsepower and with a resale value about on par with any other shabby domestic without european influences the overhead valve inline four was mounted transversely with throttle body fuel injection from the lakar and with a top speed of 89 miles per hour and a 0 to 60 time of 14.3 seconds you weren't exactly going to be the envy of the cul-de-sac then again you did have the potential to get up to 38 miles per gallon city and 61 highway and the fully independent suspension and rack and pinion steering made for a reliable daily driver so much so that amc renault spun the alliance off into a hatchback called the encore for 1984 followed by a soft top convertible for 1985. the additional focus on research and design meant reallocation of financial resources which is just a long way of saying amc renault had to build a new assembly plant in brampton ontario as the company petitioned the local and national governments of canada for 100 million dollars each to build the new plan which was granted on the condition of the government's receiving a one percent royalty per vehicle manufactured at the assembly plan the sum of 200 million dollars canadian that amc renault received balances out to about 501 million canadian in 2021 which then converts to 394.7 million dollars in america bucks today but again liberal arts major when the building was completed it cost 260 million dollars in 1984 which i guess is around 651.8 million dollars so the loan certainly helped a lot and the new facility was a huge upgrade increasing production to 400 cars per shift combined with the efforts of the old brampton plant and the kenosha factory amc renault was really cranking out vehicles at an unprecedented rate which is great except for one problem although jeep sales were recovering from their brief sales slump they had once again become basically the only division consistently making any money essentially fuel had gradually become cheaper which prompted the public to take an unexpected turn away from the smaller gas-sipping vehicles and back towards the largesse that typified american automotives prior to the oil crisis great news for people looking to buy a jeep less so for the rest of the product fleet amc renault might have been able to weather this storm had their partnership begun earlier than it did the higher the gas prices when renault became the majority shareholder the likelier would have been that the european-inspired fuel-sipping renault alliance could have been fast-tracked for the american market with the full-size executive renault premier waiting on the other side of the divide once the fuel was cheap again because the premiere would have been a return to the age of rambler american at a time where america was actually ready to receive that style of car and they could have been at the forefront of this relaunch but needless to say by the time the premiere launched for the 1988 model year it was simply a good idea that came far too late to matter in any meaningful way it was also one of the last cars dick teague designed prior to his retirement and i think he did some of his best work adapting the renault 25 framework and giorgetto guggiaro's exterior styling concepts and blending them together with a more tech forward design that brought driver controls close to the steering wheel and cruise control built into the steering wheel the amc renault partnership was at a serious crossroads when you put this much money into something you almost feel compelled to stick it out you've already invested so much you know for all anyone knows the entire ship could turn around tomorrow and you'll wish you'd held on just one week more but not every company or individual has the luxury of taking the wait and see approach not if they've been waiting a long time and seeing very little worth waiting any longer for which left the amc renault partnership in a tough spot as they would have to look to an american automaker to give them a bit of a boost but where would they turn well to the company that got the government bailout they never did and to the man who secured those government-backed loans and paid them back just a few short years later because on a long enough timeline all rcr stories come tumbling back to lee iacocca when you're in a tough spot you hit up the k-car czar himself so amc renault went to lee iacocca who'd saved chrysler from bankruptcy and not only brought the company out of the red but into the black by 1984. now the plan was to allow chrysler to utilize amc's kenosha plant to assemble m body cars like the dodge diplomat and the chrysler fifth avenue thanks to the excess capacity of the plant now that renault sales were down at around the same time paul tippett was on the way out to be replaced by french executive pierre simerina further hammering home how prominent renault had become in this partnership mostly by necessity if amc could have done it alone i'm sure they would have but that just wasn't meant to be semarina sold off the wheelhorse products division a little-known lawn care segment of the company in order to increase capital for new projects this while also signing a deal with china to build jeeps because money is money and it's better than going broke i guess for better or worse these were the necessary moves if the french wanted to salvage any part of their amc partnership but as captain jean-luc picard once said you can make all the right moves and still lose that's just life which is not to say that renault made all the right moves but rather to state that even if they had the die was already cast in some regards the fate of the amc renault partnership would ultimately be decided by an event that had almost nothing to do with the automotive side of things a tragedy beyond anyone's ability to control or predict one of the reasons the amc renault partnership was at such a crossroads was because renault itself was struggling back in france hurt not only by the iffy sales of their domestics but by their own investment in amc which didn't benefit the french automaker nearly as much as they had hoped and since renault was partially owned and controlled by the french government sinking money into a failing u.s automaker basically represented a political quagmire and even with the loan from the canadians renault was still on the hook for the construction of the second brampton plant now known as the bramalea assembly sure it was an awesome advanced facility and jeeps were commanding the sort of demand rarely seen for any of the products under an amc umbrella to say nothing of the new fuel-injected l engines but renault found themselves in a no-win situation because again these gains were not enough to cover their substantial losses the only option left was to sell in the hopes of recouping something from this ill-advised american venture yet one man pushed back against the urge to sell and his name was george bess then chairman of renault bess wanted to stick it out with amc as a way to assure the future of renault in north america in his eyes it was basically only a matter of time until amc started to see an increase in profits due to the increased output of the bromoly assembly and the surge in demand for jeep products in particular the downsized 1984 jeep xj cherokee and wagoneer proof that amc still had the potential to crank out cards that could excite the public even as numbers were taking a tumble even if renault was doing hit or miss business at home there was still a possibility that success in north america could lead to an international brand resurgence if nothing else bess seemed determined to see it through especially after he took drastic measures to improve renault's financial situation back at home within his first 18 months as chairman bess was able to get renault back into good financial standing by laying off more than 21 000 workers it was a move that got him on the bad side of the trade unions which is not an enviable position for any businessman much less the head of an automaker but for a lifelong industrialist like bess these were necessary actions having previously run a state-owned aluminum and chemical corporation bess had turned millions of dollars in losses into profits in just two short years it was for this reason that the french government appointed bess to the post as renault chairman since the company was losing in the neighborhood of one billion dollars per year yet bess was able to turn the ship around largely through dramatic cutbacks perhaps the knowledge of how this strategic approach would be received was what prompted his personality while at renault as the new york times reported that he quote had developed a reputation as a patient tenacious and highly successful manager who tried to maintain a low profile he avoided public statements and gatherings a preference that prompted industrialists to call him a man of the shadows end quote but sometimes when you live in the shadows your enemies will come to meet you on your home turf and sadly that's what happened here on november 17 1986 georges bess was dropped off by a chauffeur in front of his home in paris montparnasse district from an upstairs window one of bess's daughters saw her father stepping out onto the sidewalk near the front steps to the home the time was approximately 8 25 pm bess was expected home at 8 30 and his daughter was by the window in anticipation of his return as bess approached the villa he shared with his family two unknown assailants either a man and a woman or two women according to witnesses at the scene approached bess and fired four gunshots although some witnesses reported as many as six shots having been fired regardless the bullets struck bess in the chest and in his head if he didn't die immediately he would have passed away shortly thereafter the assailants fled into the night bess was 58 years old a new york times report on bess's killing describes what happened next quote the neighborhood was sealed off prime minister jacques shirak said he was horrified by the beastly assassination adding nothing can justify or explain this action end quote yet justification would be forthcoming albeit only after three long months authorities began receiving brochures from a militant organization known as action direct an anarchist collective the police had initially suspected due to similar domestic attacks in these leaflets action direct took responsibility for bess's killing citing his controversial decision to lay off renault employees as the motivating factor in addition to the killing of an action direct member by a renault security guard since this wasn't the first time bess was targeted for his actions as a part of quote capitalist imperialism end quote in time four arrests were made in the murder of bess in march 1987. two women 31 year old natalie menigo and 28 year old joelle albron were charged with the murder while two men 33 year old jean-marc ruin and 38 year old george cipriani were charged as accomplices all four were high on the totem pole in action direct which had carried out in the neighborhood of 80 attacks between 1979 and 1988 if convicted all four faced life imprisonment which is precisely what they received in a judgment that essentially put an end to action direct but it was cold comfort for amc loyalists those fateful bullets not only put a tragic end to the life of george bess but to the end of american motors corporation really bess was the biggest proponent of the ongoing amc deal from renault's investment in the six-cylinder 4-liter engine to confidence in the jeep brand's longevity and to the potential for amc's profitability but after his death renault couldn't get out of the amc deal quickly enough bess was replaced by a man named raymond levy who didn't stand up to the renault executives who wanted to divest from amc because well presumably he didn't have the same faith best did especially in the face of so many detractors and to be fair to levy it's hard to blame him since the amc deal to the average person looked like a drain on company resources with little apparent gain to where it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that another best like mass layoff would be necessary to further boost profit margins which obviously wouldn't be the best idea in the world particularly in the wake of what had happened to george bess with 91.3 million dollars in losses for 1986 the decision to get out made all the sense in the world and so on march 9th 1987 some six months after the assassination of george bess chrysler opted to buy out renault's 46.1 percent of amc to become the new majority shareholder the decision to sell to chrysler wasn't exactly a surprise given the pre-existing relationship that wasn't unlike renault's own with amc amc was still assembling the m-body rear drive chryslers and the pot was sweetened by the prospect of getting hands on the jeep brand all told the deal went through for some 1.5 billion dollars in 1987 which is roughly 3.4 billion dollars today for lee iacocca this would prove to be four victories stacked on top of one another the acquisition of jeep a sweet new canadian factory and two designs that were nearly finished and ready to head into production in the form of the renault premier sedan later known as the eagle premiere and the jeep zj this deal led to a near instant increase in brand confidence but upon being purchased by chrysler amc was basically assimilated as if chrysler were the borg amc became a chrysler subsidiary renamed the jeep eagle corporation the jeep zj grand cherokee was one of the vehicles chrysler was most eager to get out to the public and the company was similarly eager to utilize the valuable dealer network that would shore up the chrysler's distribution pretty much overnight since every car on an amc dealership lot was now a chrysler product for better or worse however state franchise laws limited chrysler to three dealer organizations in addition to barring chrysler from selling their own products through amc dealers even though once again amc products were basically chrysler products now it was a bit of bureaucratic red tape that chrysler managed to overcome by having amc jeep renault dealers become jeep eagle dealers in order to avoid violating state franchise laws while maintaining comfortable relations with standing chrysler plymouth dodge dealers in similar geographic markets it's american business law it's all complicated suddenly with eagle being upgraded from a model to a brand renault products were given the axe and rebadged as eagles such as the eagle premiere eagle medallion and well the eagle wagon of course none of this was really sustainable long term when you consider chrysler was already taking vehicles from jeep eagle and doing badge engineering as part of other partnerships they had made in the interim the eagle talon is a car i'd love to get my hands on but it was basically a poor man's mitsubishi eclipse running on the chrysler d platform and produced by the diamond star motors partnership between chrysler and mitsubishi it was stylish and sporty for its time but there was no meaningful difference between the talon the eclipse and the similar plymouth laser which all used the same engine and transmission options it just didn't inspire a whole lot of enthusiasm from the buying public even despite making car drivers 10 best list now the jeep division did well bolstered by george romney-like ads from lee iacocca promising to maintain the brand for the u.s domestic market but eagle sales fell behind chrysler dodge and even plymouth models to where the jeep eagle subsidiary no longer made sense on march 29 1990 the jeep eagle corporation was fully merged with chrysler although the eagle brand would continue for another seven years it was retired once chrysler entered into a merger of their own with daimler-benz and thus was the end of american motors corporation but by then the spirit of amc no pun intended had been dead for at least three years with the last true amc cars being the 1988 eagle wagons built in canada in 1987. these were the last cars containing all the proper logos and badging on the various trim pieces throughout and man i would love to get my hands on one it's almost kind of anticlimactic given everything we went through to get here from the consortium of businessmen getting into the auto industry to the sinking of the lusitania prompting one man to sell his father's company all the way through to mergers of product acquisitions iconic cars and outright flops right down to a politically motivated assassination by an anarchist group smothering the second wind of an automaker that arguably deserved a fairer shake than it got in its own country but who's really to say just how fair amc's reception was even in its best years if it had appealed to more people it would still be around one would think which unfortunately suggests a flaw in amc that couldn't be reconciled with the demands of its era thereby preventing it from surviving past that period and yes in a jean-luc picard way you can make every right move and still lose but at some point even us amc enthusiasts can't point fingers to external factors for everything yeah it'd be easier to blame the government for not bailing out amc like they did chrysler or gm for bailing on the wankel engine amc had made the deal to utilize or renault for not continuing to fund the company indefinitely but ultimately the buck stops with amc as george romney told his employees in 1955 it was they who were responsible for the company for its success for its failures for its survival even if ultimately they weren't the ones directly responsible for shutting off all the lights when news of amc's buyout by chrysler first made the rounds kenosha employees were stoked they saw it as lee iacocca coming in to do the same for amc as he did for chrysler but when the economy took a downturn it became apparent that the factories wouldn't remain open it was a tragedy in some respects because we often say that hard work is rewarded and good work even more so and the kenosha plant had the lowest number of defects per car of any plant in the country but these factories were prehistoric in comparison to other automakers and amc's expensive union contract was costing chrysler significant money and so the kenosha maine and kenosha lakefront plants were closed and torn down in 1989 and while the kenosha engine plant stayed open where the jeep 4.0 and countless other chrysler engines were built until 2011. it was no comfort to those who lost their jobs in the wake of the chrysler buyout so yeah i don't imagine lee iacocca is very popular in kenosha of course the reason i mention this is because it's been a theory of mine that a lot of why amc's popularity continues to survive is because perhaps more than many other car brands that have gone by the wayside there was a real feeling that amc got cut off before its time that it hadn't yet shown the totality of what it could do that like those workers in those factories that were closed fans of amc had hope ripped away which is admittedly a really dramatic way of looking at things because it's not like fans of amc lost their jobs in the closure but it's a stark parallel to the way people felt about this automaker even now amc is popular in the same way it was then at a niche level but the passion of the people who care about it is unlike enthusiasts for other dead brands i've encountered except maybe saab i i don't know but if you look at it amc clubs tend to be on the smaller side but they're filled with collector gems like javelins and amxes and matador wagons and eagles all in various stages of aesthetic and mechanical health but then the fact that they're still running at all speaks to the passion of the people maintaining them and how well-made these cars were for their time the legacy of amc is one of necessary innovation to justify their own survival whether it was advocating for greater fuel economy nearly 20 years before the oil crisis or bringing smaller more compact cars to the forefront of buyer interest at a time when land barges were still king for all its faults amc was a remarkably resilient company finding new ways to continue surviving in the face of overwhelming odds whether by making manufacturing deals both foreign and domestically or introducing innovations that would prove cost effective sure badge engineering wasn't unheard of but one innovation that amc actually did bring to the forefront was coding cars and primer paint long before the big three started doing it in the mid-1960s this is something i meant to mention earlier but just never got around to but it's one of those things that you know just sort of made amc what they were just little things like that and i mean economy of size and space made amc a notable industry leader when it came to the sub-compact market and their buyer protection plan made them downright revolutionary and the value of the jeep brand it just goes without saying and of course like i don't know how much you can put of that on amc but still amc was more than the sum of its parts and when you hold the sum of those parts up to the light you get something really special now chrysler themselves would see a similar european rescue operation as renault's temporary rescue of amc when fiat came knocking in 2009 and again you can check out my rcr story on chrysler's merger woes if you're interested but suffice it to say that the companies interacting with amc tended to learn more than their share from the experience renault wasn't deterred by their experiences with amc when it came to partnering with other automakers and it would go on to form the renault nissan mitsubishi alliance in 1999 perhaps we'll talk about it in another rcr story maybe not i'm not really advocating for amc's return even though it comes up in conversations that i have with people about what automakers i would bring back if i had the power because if you think about it much like pontiac amc it it wouldn't be the same company they wouldn't be making the same cars but i would be lying if i said i wouldn't still be interested in seeing what a modern amc would look like i don't know it would be different minds but that mentality that subcompact mentality fuel-efficient sort of stylish mentality is something that i think is badly missed in usdm markets at the end of the day i think amc was the ultimate underdog of the automotive industry and like the first rocky movie the underdog doesn't always win but they can go the distance and last a whole lot longer than anyone anticipated i wouldn't say it's a situation unique to amc again it's similar to how i say i would bring back amc or pontiac while also recognizing that those companies can never exist in the way they did because they were all a product of very specific moments in time and like rocky balboa once said father time is undefeated if you've made it to the end of this i really want to thank you for joining me and if you enjoyed it feel free to hit that like button i shouldn't be saying that it's too youtuber-esque let me try and say it my way if you made it to the end i really appreciate you guys watching this listening to this however you enjoyed it and if you did enjoy it please leave a like or a comment or subscribe because i will be doing more of these i just will never do another one that's this long ever again and check out the links in the description if you want to check out some other rcr stories that might tangentially connect to this one ultimately this whole channel these rcr stories are weekly reviews they don't happen without you and so your support literally means the world to us so thank you so much for watching for however long you did and i hope you guys have a really great week whenever you're watching or listening to this so this will be available as a podcast i'm going to give it a little bit of time on youtube before i upload it to our rss feed and until then everyone take care be safe be well and be good to each other thanks

Channel: RegularCars

Views: 374,312

Rating: 4.9039874 out of 5

Keywords: Regular, Car, Reviews, Regular Car Reveiws, Car Review, Car Satire, Mr Regular, RCR, AMC, American, Motors, Corporation, Regular Car Reviews, American Motors Corporation, Death of AMC, Life of AMC, Why did AMC die?, AMC Renault, Renault, RCR Car Stories, RCR Stories, RCR AMC, RCR Renault

Id: TCmHII0Pp9w

Length: 147min 5sec (8825 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 12 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/jjtheheadhunter]

Just finished, another great RCR story by Roman! Makes me wonder if the Studebaker/Packard story might be coming next down the road.

[u/Skybreak2020]

RCR Car Stories are brilliant. Thank you Roman and Mr Regular - your videos are both entertaining and informative. You guys do great work 👍

[u/gogojack]

I'm gonna have to set this aside for when I have a little more time, but...

A friend of my dad used to work as an executive for American Motors. Nobody really high up, but he did have some juice.

My dad was looking for a vehicle powerful enough to tow his boat, and Bob was looking to sell his 78 (or maybe 79) Cherokee. It had the blue denim seats, and plenty of horsepower. It worked great for towing, was practically indestructible, and served our family for many, many years.

Then my mom mentioned to Bob that she was thinking of selling it. He said "oh no, don't do that. It's the only one."

He'd had it custom built at the factory. Literally walked around the floor and said "I want that engine and that transmission." Guy says "um, sir...that engine and transmission don't come with that trim level on that model" to which Bob replied "I don't care."

Engine, transmission, suspension, etc. were all non-standard. The heaviest of the heavy duty stuff they made. The thing was a beast. We did eventually sell it after Bob had passed away. The family dentist had been drooling over it for years.

[u/Aberroyc]

Thank you for this /u/RegularRoman I always enjoy these stories you guys put together.

[u/wsu_savage]

holy shit little over 2 hours, lets gooo. so excited to listen to this after work

[u/Blckbeerd]

This was a great listen while I cooked for the week. History and the business side of the car industry is underrated in car culture. Keep up the good work.

[u/Extroverted_Recluse]

I really like the RCR Car Stories, thanks for sharing!