How AMC’s AMX/3 Concept Car Could Have Been A Real Mustang Fighter

After watching Autopian contributor Joe Ligo’s The Last Independent Automaker, an insightful look into the history of AMC, my imagination was brimming with different scenarios that might, just maybe, have changed the fortunes of the often-struggling firm.

As Joe’s film reveals, there were many lights at the end of the tunnel for poor American Motors that turned out to be freight trains headed right at them. The Pacer, as conceived with a lightweight and efficient rotary engine, might have been a world beater; but the eleventh-hour death of the Wankel motor resulted in it being an overweight six-cylinder turd. The Eagle defined the modern crossover formula, but it came a decade too early with a product that, beyond the unique all-wheel-drive system, was a decade too old.

One of American Motors’ greatest concepts was an unlikely mid-engined exotic sports machine to rival Ferraris. Naturally, AMC’s perpetual cash challenges meant this masterpiece would never get close to production. However, I can see a way that this design might have been transformed into something with the potential for a big hit just when American Motors needed it most.

Turin? Milan? Kenosha!

“Halo car” typically refers to an ultra-luxurious or high-performance flagship vehicle meant to showcase a manufacturer’s engineering prowess and technological advancements. Most importantly, a halo car needs to enhance the brand’s image and drive sales of other models. After suffering major losses in the sixties, American Motors could ill-afford to make a halo car that was ultra-anything, but AMC still needed one to prove the brand was a worthy contender for car-buyers’ dollars. And boy, did AMC deliver.

The AMX was American Motors’ shortened two-seat Javelin production car, and the AMX/2 name was applied to a mid-engined concept car not unlike Ford’s Le Mans hero GT40. AMC knew that the upcoming DeTomaso Pantera was going to be distributed at Lincoln/Mercury dealerships, so a limited production exotic could add some major cachet and showroom draw for American Motors. The well-received show car was hurried into would-be production form as the AMX/3.

Of course, it’s not like AMC had any mid-engined chassis available to use in such a car, or even the in-house resources to develop one, so the Kenosha firm turned to a veritable who’s-who of famous European contractors. As with many projects like this from half a century ago, details are a bit sketchy now, but it is believed that ex-Ferrari legend Giotto Bizzarrini was credited with the suspension work, and Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Ital Design designed the chassis. BMW did road testing and further development of the prototype, while Germany’s Karmann was supposedly earmarked to do series production starting in 1971.

Looking very much like a product of an Italian styling house, the AMX/3 body design was actually the work of American Motors’ in-house team led by Dick Teague; many consider the AMX/3 to be the ultimate realization of Teague’s design skills in a career of great looking cars. The engine mounted behind the rear seats was also a full-on AMC powerplant: a 390 V8 from the Rebel Machine.

Production goals of 1000 or even up to 5000 cars a year were rumored. If it all sounded too good to be true, it was. Only six examples of the AMX/3 were produced, and while no official reason was given as to why AMC pulled the plug, it didn’t really come as a surprise to anyone.

A halo car is nice, but American Motors was too deep in the hole for overseas boondoggles. Still, the positive press the AMX/3 received was something that they capitalized on, and Dick Teague applied the look to cars you didn’t need to be rich to enjoy. As AMC’s usual lack of luck would have it, he didn’t necessarily apply it to ones that could have saved the company.

Go Brougham Or Go Home

Automakers are always taking risks, and American Motors rolled the dice on an emerging category of cars that they thought might be a sure bet. Unfortunately, AMC might have picked the wrong horse in the end; in football terms, Peyton Manning was passed over for Ryan Leaf.

In the early seventies, cars like the Chevy Monte Carlo, Pontiac Grand Prix, and the no-longer-sporting Ford Thunderbird launched the class of “personal luxury coupes.” These were typically nothing more than two-door versions of plain-Jane sedans, modified with long hoods, ostentatious grilles, flourishes of extra chrome, and thick rear pillars covered in vinyl or “opera” windows. The epitome of the genre might be the soft Corinthian leather-clad Cordoba, a marketing hit that was one of the few bright spots for ailing seventies Chrysler.

It’s hard for anyone today under the age of seventy or so who won’t find these things laughable, but in their period they were hot sellers. Consumers liked how they were affordable cars that looked “fancy”, while manufacturers liked the fact that the “fancy” part was just cheap crap they stuck on that allowed them to rake in profits. American Motors felt they had to get in on this action, so they gambled on investing in all-new tooling for a 1974 Matador coupe that shared no body panels with its sedan counterpart- and looked a lot like the AMX/3. This was a major expense that tiny, money-losing AMC couldn’t afford to waste.

The gamble wouldn’t pay off. While a lot of Autopians like the funky-looking Matador coupe, the styling polarized many buyers. The biggest issue with the Matador coupe might have been that AMC eschewed the popular “baroque” personal luxury car look and went more “sport coupe” with the styling.

Compared to the Big Three’s offerings, I far prefer AMC’s approach to coupe design, as did the villain in the James Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun.

Sadly, most polyester-clad buyers of the time wanted the cheesy, stuck-on Temu Rolls-Royce look. I hate to say it, but if American Motors had done something rather cringe-inducing like below to the Matador with a stand-up Cordoba-style radiator grille and a more notchbacked landau roof, it would have sold far better. You don’t want to agree with me, but you know it’s true.

In retrospect, though, AMC might have had a better chance of success by investing in a different market that was also exploding: subcompact import-style coupes. This was just the market that American Motors should have gone for, and I know exactly the car that this independent automaker could have used as an inspiration.

From Pony Coupes To Puny Coupes

Pony cars might have been all the rage in the late sixties, but by the time of the first energy crisis they were getting pushed aside by small, economical sport coupes. The Mustang-fighter Dodge Challenger, Plymouth Barracuda, and AMC’s own rather AMX/3-looking Javelin gave up their fights after 1974.

What about the Mustang itself? This became a drastically smaller Pinto-based product called the Mustang II, which was about a foot and a half shorter than the 1973 Mustang and the last Javelin.

Chevy’s larger Camaro soldiered on, but to hit the new market segment, Chevy also offered a Mustang II-sized coupe in the form of the Monza.

Foreign competition filled this field as well, with entries ranging from the modern front-drive VW Scirocco to a Toyota Celica that looked like a ¾ scale 1970 Mach I.

You were actually spoiled for choice by the Blue Oval’s dealers, as in addition to the Mustang II, Ford offered an actual European small coupe to America in the form of the Capri, available at Mercury dealers. It was a hit; in the early seventies, the Capri was actually the second-best-selling import behind the VW Beetle.

Poor Mopar: having no small car to use as a basis and captive Mitsubishi coupes (the Plymouth Arrow and Plymouth Sapporo/Dodge Challenger twin) a few years off, Big Three member Chrysler was conspicuously absent from the little coupe party. It was definitely a party worth attending; Ford sold 513,000 Capris in America over its eight-year run, while Chevy sold over 800,000 Monzas during six years on the market. The Mustang II sold a whopping 386,000 Mustang IIs in 1974 alone. Clearly, as a brand famous for small cars from way back when Mitt Romney’s dad ran the company, AMC should have had an entry in this lucrative segment. How could they have made that?

This Hornet Wasn’t No Alfa Clone

Besides that Matador coupe and last Javelin, which were obviously interpretations of the Italian-developed exotic, American Motors also applied elements of the look to a two-door hatchback version of their compact Hornet. Notice the kicked-up hips styling details from the AMX/3:

You might remember a red example of this car doing a corkscrew stunt jump in the same Bond film mentioned above.

That Hornet 2-door hatch was almost a foot longer than the Mustang II, and also taller, but that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t form the basis for a new small sports coupe to go head-to-head with the Pintostang and the Chevy Monza. A modified Hornet chassis was used by Malcolm Bricklin to underpin his gullwinged SV1, and people actually didn’t mind how that drove.

I’ve mentioned it before, but years later a group of AMC Spirits (which were essentially reskinned Hornets) were driven 24 hours at the Nürburgring and actually won in their class. James Brolin (Mr. Barbra Streisand and Josh’s dad) was one of the drivers, and he claimed that the brakes and suspensions were essentially shot on the cars at the end, but they sure as hell finished. Clearly, the chassis could be made to at least be competitive with the likes of Mustang IIs and Vega-based Monzas.

Somehow, I get the feeling that a Hornet-based sports coupe with the looks of an AMX/3 might have been a hit for American Motors at a crucial time. Let’s bring it to life.

The Gremlin’s Good-Looking Brother

Let’s say that it’s the fall of 1974, and you need something new to replace your sixties Mustang. You hop into your rusting steed and flip on the AM radio, which will almost certainly be playing this or this OVER and OVER and OVER again for your car shopping soundtrack. You head out to dealerships to look at leftover 1974 or new ’75 sport coupes that’ll be efficient but still fun; I’ll aim this new AMX directly at you.

Using the Mustang II and Monza size as a guide, the AMC will chop nearly a foot off of the Hornet’s length and lower the height by a few inches as well to create the new AMX.

To make a subcompact 2+2, the proportions of the AMX mid-engined exotic obviously change to something far taller and not as elongated. Surprisingly the look holds together for this new coupe, which has a bit of an Opel GT or Capri in appearance. Stock AMC aluminum wheels are shown, but the optional steel “rallye” wheels with trim rings could be standard.

The body-colored five-mile-per-hour crash bumpers added to the front and back don’t look too bad. Pop-up headlights would be exclusive to AMC, and add immeasurable cool to any car. You can see from this animation that the proportions become much more upright than the AMX/3 sports car but still work for the Mustang/Monza category:

At the rear, a hatchback replaces the sunken-in rear window of the mid-engined concept car:

Again, the animation shows the car gets much larger, but it still seems to work.

Overall, I think it compares favorably to the competitors.

Note the slight bulge on the hood needed to clear the standard straight six. We’d have to relocate the air cleaner to lower the hood line; a two-barrel carb would be standard but the SC package adds a four-barrel for performance to match or exceed the anemic optional V8s of the Ford and Chevy (I know some people that have added quad-barrel Holleys to old 240 or 260Zs for big power gains). Feather the throttle and the two primary barrels could give you reasonable gas mileage; punch it to get the secondaries singing and, well, you won’t tear up asphalt, but you’ll move as well as any other hot-for malaise-years coupe.

I think that the vaunted GT40 was one of the influences behind the AMX/3 concept, so I’d like to look at the interior of that car for some inspiration.

You can see that I’ve kept that overall look in the AMX, complete with toggle switches and gauges that could honestly be Stewart Warner bits for a race-car-style appearance (and to save AMC on some tooling costs).

As expected, we’ll use parts bin radio, steering wheel, and the “Weather Eye” climate controls with the infamous DESERT ONLY setting on the A/C. It’s got the sort of hokey fake-Lemans-car interior styling that would pair nicely with a pair of cheap stringback driving gloves; what could be better?

X-ceptional For X-asperating Times

Would introducing a sporty, small AMX like this simply have been rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? Was AMC doomed to failure regardless of which direction they had turned? Certainly, their plight against Big Three giants was always going to have been a David-versus-Goliath battle, yet a few more hits and a few fewer Pacers might have put them in a better position than poor Chrysler in the seventies. Maybe Iacocca would have found American Motors to be a better place to hang his hat after Ford showed him the door. We’ll never know. I do know that the AMX/3 show car was a true American masterpiece from Dick Teague; we couldn’t give it the production life that it deserved, but at least we can give it the respect that it’s owed.