What Killed AMC

[unit731]

The short answer is the AMC Pacer.

The long answer is the 1970 AMC Hornet.

American Motors had some nice good looking quality cars. Competed in all lines except trucks. Although AMC at that time owned Jeep. The Jeep J10 was a nice pickup truck. And the smaller Jeep Commanche.

The AMC (Rambler) American was a properly styled car. AMC should have kept making the American and just made it better. Tooling was already paid for. And this smaller sedan could have competed with say the BMW 1600 and the Datsun 510 with some upgrades.

The funds spend on the redesign of the American into the AMC Hornet should have been spent on a small economy car with front wheel drive and transverse 4 cylinder engine. Volkswagen did that in 1975 with the Rabbit. Sir Alec Issigonis did this in 1959 with the original Mini. The original Mini was in production for over 40 years.

For the youngsters here - there were two gasoline shortages in the 1970's. If AMC had a small 4 cylinder car in the 1970's - they would have had much of that market. Yes, there was the Pinto, Vega, Maverick, etc.

Instead of spending funds on the Hornet - AMC could have upgraded the Matador and the Ambassador.
Some remember that many police cars of the time were AMC Matadors. Including a tad of the taxi business.

AMC in later years came up with the concept of the wide small car - popular when new - but poor gas mileage and lack of 4 door doomed that car. Never mind relying on GM for the smaller Wankel engine that never materialized.

Today, most cars are front wheel design. AMC could have been way ahead of the curve.

Management and marketing killed AMC.

Had AMC copied Sir Alec Issigonis design - they might still be in business.