In the early 1950s, George W. Mason, chairman of Nash, attempted to convince all of the smaller independents to join forces as a single conglomerate, reckoning that it was the only way to survive against the Big Three. GM, Ford, and Chrysler were hammering them with annual model changes and technical innovations the small fry simply couldn't afford to match. Packard president James Nance refused, mostly out of pride, and instead opted for an ill-fated merger with Studebaker; Packard would die after 1958, and Studebaker would stumble mortally wounded into the 1960s. The management of the moribund Hudson company was more receptive, and in 1954, Hudson and Nash-Kelvinator merged to form the American Motors Corporation, with George Mason in charge. Mason then died unexpectedly, leaving in charge his deputy, one George W. Romney.

Romney proved to be an able administrator (a skill he would later parlay into a successful political career), consolidating American's makes under the Rambler name, after the compact Nash had introduced in 1950, and dropping the Hudson and Nash marques. Fortuitously, the frugal Rambler proved to be the right car at the right time in the late-fifties recession, and by 1960 and 1961, Rambler had achieved third place in the industry, displacing Plymouth.


A 1959 or 1960 AMC Rambler American Super two-door sedan.

By the mid-1960s, however, the situation was looking grim. Romney was gone, having successfully run for governor of Michigan. The American economy had recovered nicely, the Baby Boomers were reaching driving age, and the standard-bearers for the auto industry were the Mustang and the GTO, sporty cars aimed at the young. Meanwhile AMC continued to market the frugal, Scotsman-like virtues of the Rambler line, with a half-hearted tagline, "the Sensible Spectaculars." AMC could have entered the Mustang market in 1965 with a fastback show car called the Tarpon, but chairman Roy Abernethy decided the design should be based on the midsize Classic chassis, rather than on the compact Rambler American. The result was the gawky-looking Rambler Marlin, which proved to be a complete blunder. Fresh troops were needed if AMC, then bleeding money badly, was to survive.

Since the early sixties, AMC's VP of design had been a talented man named Richard A. Teague, a veteran of the final days of Packard. Dick Teague was also a car enthusiast, a surprisingly rare quality in the American auto industry. He felt AMC needed a sporty car like the Mustang, and he was extremely frustrated when Roy Abernethy made him turn the Tarpon into the awkward Marlin.

By 1966, even Roy Abernethy realized that Teague had been right, and he authorized the creation of a smaller "Mustang-fighter" for 1968. The first public sign of the new program was a set of show cars called Project IV, which AMC displayed in 10 U.S. and Canadian cities throughout the year. The most popular of these, designed by stylist Chuck Mashigan and built by the Italian coachbuilder Vignale, was the AMX, a sporty hatchback coupe with a backlight that could rise at the push of a button to expose a set of occasional rear seats. (AMC's PR department inevitably dubbed it the "Ramble seat.") That design evolved into a subsequent prototype called AMX II, styled by freelancer Vince Gardner, with full four-seat capacity. Gardner's design became the basis for AMC's new sporty car, the Javelin, which made its public debut in September 1967.

The Javelin was, like the Mustang and its ilk, based on a compact sedan, in this case AMC's Rambler American. Riding a 109-inch (2,769-mm) wheelbase, with crisp, semi-fastback styling in the now-orthodox "short deck, long hood" mode, it looked good, and, equipped with AMC's new small-block V8 engine, it was a decent match for low-line V8 Mustangs, Camaros, and Firebirds.

Ordinarily, the two-seat AMX show car would have been forgotten, but financier Robert Evans, who'd become chairman of the AMC board in June 1966, took a fancy to it. He asked Dick Teague if it would be possible to build the two-seater, as well as the Javelin.

To create the AMX, AMC engineers sectioned the Javelin, removing 12 inches (305 mm) from the wheelbase and eliminating the back seat. The 290 cu. in. (4.7 L) V8 was standard, rather than the Javelin's six, as was a four-speed manual transmission, which cost $184.85 extra on Javelin. Compared to its four-seater sibling, the AMX was 112 pounds (51 kg) lighter, comparably equipped, and had somewhat stiffer rear springs, with trailing links to better control the axle. The hood and grille were also distinct, but that was pretty much it; everything else was almost pure Javelin, inside and out.


The black car in the photos is a '69 AMX. From the front, it's hard to distinguish from a Javelin; save for the hood and grille, they're nearly identical back to the trailing edges of the doors. While the AMX looks very butch, AMC gave a pink one to Angela Dorian, Playboy's 1968 Playmate of the Year, as a publicity stunt.

By AMC standards, the Javelin and AMX had a very sporty Mod interior, although some contemporary reviewers criticized it for being overly plasticky. First-year Javelins and AMXs also suffered from poorly chosen ratios in the Borg Warner T-10 four-speed, as well as a ropey, vague shifter. The '69s had closer-spaced gears and a standard Hurst shifter, a vast improvement. (An aftermarket Hurst would've cost the buyer an extra $95 plus labor, so this was also a good value.) With heavy-duty suspension, the AMX handled well, although the stiff rear springs and short wheelbase made for a choppy ride.


The transmission is the ubiquitous Borg-Warner T-10, with a Hurst shifter. In common with other sporty cars of this year, the deeply tunneled instruments are not always easy to read. The red object in the passenger foot well is a fire extinguisher -- definitely not standard equipment.

Our photo car's optional 390 cu. in. (6.4 L) engine was a new offering for 1968. A bored and stroked version of the 290/343 engine that had been introduced in mid-1966, it was light for its displacement -- around 550 pounds (250 kg), not much more than a Chevy small block. It was rated at 315 gross horsepower (235 kW) and 425 lb-ft (574 N-m) of torque. In the 3,300-pound (1,500-kg) AMX, it was good for 0-60 mph (0-97 kph) in a bit under 7 seconds, running the quarter mile (402 meters) in the high 14s in the low-to-mid 90-mph range. This was a match for a 390 cu. in. (6.4 L) Mustang or a 383 cu in. (6.3 L) Barracuda, but a 427 Stingray or a Mustang 428 CJ would kick sand in its face. Nevertheless, it did (and does) make an impressive sound.


In profile, the radically shortened wheelbase becomes apparent. Other than the fake vents in the hood, the AMX is a lot cleaner than a contemporary Mustang, which had a lot of glitz.

The AMX may have been little more than a stubby, slightly lighter Javelin, but the fact that it was a two-seater had some interesting implications. It was, AMC ads proclaimed, not merely a sporty car, but a sports car -- and, even more boldly, they intended to race it. Things had definitely changed at AMC, which previously had a less than sporty reputation. In September 1968, new CEO Roy Chapin, Jr. told Car and Driver's Leo Mandel that the racing program was a public statement that things were changing at AMC.


The AMX's wide sail panels were carried over almost unchanged from the show car. The tail looks a little like a contemporary Chevy Nova, but the semi-recessed rear window is more reminiscent of the contemporary Mustang hardtop. Side pipes were optional on the AMX, although this car obviously doesn't have them; they add a little horsepower, but they're irritatingly loud.

Chapin soon put his money where his mouth was. In 1968, Craig and Lee Breedlove used two slightly modified AMXs to set 106 different speed and endurance records, and in 1969, AMC organized a team to race the AMX in SCCA B Production, earning five wins and the Central Division championship. Shirley Shahan, the popular "Drag-On Lady," took a blueprinted AMX to the drags and set a couple of records in NHRA Super Stock/D. (The Javelin, too, was raced, with a factory-supported Trans-Am team.)

Despite all this, the original two-seat AMX lasted only through 1970. Racing aspirations were all well and good, but AMC still had to sell cars. With a dealer body that was accustomed, for better or worse, to marketing to dowagers, reinventing AMC as a purveyor of Pontiac-style performance was not an easy task. Javelin sold around 55,000 copies its first year, and averaged around 30,000 a year after that, a fraction of Mustang or Camaro sales.

The AMX, meanwhile, managed only a total of 19,134 sales in three seasons; in '69, its best year, only 8,293 were sold. The AMX was never intended to be a volume car, but AMC finally decided that sales didn't justify the production complexity of producing it.


The rear view makes the car's wedge shape particularly pronounced -- the sharp inward angle of the roof sides is called tumblehome, and this car has a lot of it.

The AMX nameplate survived as a model of the restyled 1971 Javelin, and then ended up on a number of less-distinguished AMC models, but the original concept and its brief but auspicious racing career were over. Sadly also stillborn was Dick Teague's wild, mid-engine AMX/3, which AMC planned to offer as a competitor to the De Tomaso Pantera sports car sold by Lincoln-Mercury in the mid-seventies.


One of the handful of AMX/3s built by Bizzarini. Despite its Italiante looks, Dick Teague styled this car, beating out a competing design from Giugiaro. AMC management came very close to actually producing this car -- a few prototypes were actually built, and several survive today. (Photo © 2006 Brian Snelson; used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)

AMC's struggles through the seventies and eighties are a story for another time, but American Motors would never again produce something as aggressive or sporting as the AMX.

I asked Nat if his car still sports its original paint. It's in excellent shape, but it's got the patina of a very well-preserved vintage job, not a recent respray. He told me he'd had it repainted when he bought it in 1974, and left it that way ever since.

"It was originally Aztec Bronze," he said, with a tight, wry smile. "But I love black."

I couldn't argue with that.

# # #

Our sources for this article included Donald MacDonald, "Wither AMC?" and "Red-Blooded American!" Motor Trend, May 1966 (Vol. 18, No. 5), pp. 36-40, 70; Arch Brown, "1968 Javelin: AMC's Ponycar Answer," Special Interest Autos #94, August 1986, and John A. Conde, "drive report: 1968 AMX: X meant exciting and exceptional," Special Interest Autos #52, August 1979, reprinted in R.M. Clarke, AMX & Javelin Muscle Portfolio 1968-1974 (Cobham, Surrey: Brooklands Books Ltd., 1994), pp. 129-140; and John F. Katz, "Teague's Terrific Two-Seater: 1969 AMX 390," Special Interest Autos #139, January-February 1994, reprinted in Richard A. Lentinello, ed., The Hemmings Book of Postwar American Independents: Drive Reports from Special Interest Autos Magazine (Hemmings Motor News Collector-Car Books) (Bennington, VT: Hemmings Motor News, 2002), pp. 12-19.

We also consulted the following period road tests: "Engineering the Javelin," Car Craft, January 1968); "Road Test: AMX 390," Car and Driver, March 1968; Leon Mandel, "'Let's Hear It For Javelin!' 'Javelin Who?'" Car and Driver, September 1968, "The AMX - Its First Year," Road Test, November 1968; "How the Pros Compete with Javelins, AMXs," Car Life, January 1969; "AMX: $3446 Los Angeles," Road Test, February 1969; "The AMX...A Matter of Detail," Motor Trend, December 1969; "AMX - the Scene Stealer," Australian Motor Manual, January 1970; and "AM Javelin," Car and Driver, October 1970, all of which are reprinted in R.M. Clarke, ed., AMX & Javelin Muscle Portfolio 1968-1974 (Cobham, Surrey: Brooklands Books Ltd., 1994).

Write comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email: do not notifynotify

Website:

Comment:

Title:

UBBCode:         -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge

Message:

Security

Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.