Once considered exotic technology, electronic fuel injection has been around a surprisingly long time. In this installment of Ate Up With Motor, we review the origins of EFI and examine the relationship between the pioneering Bendix Electrojector, Bosch D-Jetronic, and the second-generation Bendix system that introduced GM to electronic injection in the 1970s — a complicated web of technology, business, and politics.
Continue Reading Electrojector and D-Jetronic: Early Electronic Fuel Injection
The AMC Javelin was American Motors’ only foray into the popular “pony car” market, and the model that almost single-handedly transformed American from a peddler of Scotsman-like economy to a two-time Trans Am racing champion. This week, we take a look at the 1968-1974 AMC Javelin and AMX, how they came to be, and why they disappeared.
With its smooth curves and clean lines, this week’s subject could easily have been a prop on Space: 1999. Car and Driver called it the best-styled car of 1974, but some critics still consider it one of the ugliest designs of the seventies and it remains one of the most divisive. It was a bold move for struggling American Motors and ultimately became a financial disaster. This week, we look at the history of the AMC Matador and its midsize predecessors, the Rambler Classic and Rambler/AMC Rebel.
Continue Reading What’s a Matador? The AMC Matador, Rebel, and Classic
If you’re an American over 30, you may have some hazy, not necessarily happy memories of the Renault Le Car, sold here from 1976 through 1983. To Europeans, who will need little introduction, it was known as the Renault 5, a ubiquitous French subcompact that helped to popularize the supermini genre. Although it never sold very well in the States, Renault moved more than 5 million of these cars in other markets between 1972 and 1986, making the “Cinq” one of the best-selling French cars of all time. It also spawned a wild little rally car: the fearsome mid-engine Renault 5 Turbo.
Continue Reading Five by Five: The Renault 5 and the Mid-Engine Renault 5 Turbo
For much of its existence, American Motors’ focus was on compact economy cars, a cause that the company once promoted with missionary zeal. How, then, do we explain this car? Not simply a Supercar, but a bona fide street racer bearing the well-known name of performance-parts guru George Hurst — and the last car to wear the Rambler nameplate. This is the story of the 1969 Hurst-AMC SC/Rambler.
Continue Reading Going out with a Bang: The 1969 AMC SC/Rambler
Every ten years or so, the American market rediscovers the compact economy car. This “discovery” is inevitably treated as a revelation, as is the idea that a small car might not be a sluggardly automotive hair shirt. Our younger readers may therefore be surprised to know that the idea of a small, luxurious economy car goes back at least to this primordial American compact: the original Nash Rambler. This week, the story of the 1950–1963 Rambler and Rambler American.
Continue Reading Fashionably Small: The Compact Nash Rambler
Best known today for the “Fabulous Hudson Hornets” of 1951-1954, the Hudson Motor Car Company merged with Nash in 1954 to form the American Motors Corporation, disappearing as a separate marque in 1957. This week, we look at the history of Hudson and of their most famous models, the 1948-1954 Step Down Hudsons and the Hudson Hornet.
Continue Reading Step-Down: The 1948-1954 Hudsons
Diminutive size, clown-car looks, and Fifties-style two-tone paint — it could only be the Nash Metropolitan. Designed in Wisconsin and built in England, the “Met” was one of America’s first subcompact cars. More than that, it helped to make the career of a former Mormon missionary named George Romney and to transform Nash Motors into the American Motors Corporation (AMC).
Continue Reading From Small Things: The Nash Metropolitan and the Birth of American Motors
Even when the compact Gremlin bowed in 1970, AMC knew it would not be enough to stem the tide of imported subcompact cars. By the beginning of 1971, the company was already at work on a follow-up. When it finally appeared in 1975, it was hailed as a revolution. When it died four and a half years later, it was already becoming the butt of jokes. We’re referring, of course, to the unmistakable 1975-1980 AMC Pacer.
By the late 1960s, the demand for small, compact imports, temporarily sated by Detroit compacts like the Ford Falcon, was on the rise again and Detroit was getting scared. Each American automaker fielded its own response, but American Motors, which had built its market position with economy cars, came up with two. The first was a clever improvisation, the second was a brave attempt to do something genuinely new. Some people call them the ugliest cars of the 1970s — a title for which there are many contenders — but nobody would ever mistake them for anything else. We’re referring of course, to the Gremlin and Pacer.
We begin with the 1970-1978 AMC Gremlin.
Continue Reading Do Not Feed After Midnight: The AMC Gremlin