AMC Muscle

With over four decades of covering the auto industry, we’ve seen our fair share of car brands, and even entire companies, come and go, but few left as big a mark as the American Motors Corporation. From 1954 to 1987, AMC built over 12 million sedans, hatchbacks, SUVs and even muscle cars. Well this week, Greg Carloss goes “Over the Edge” with a MotorWeek alum to flex some of that AMC muscle.

GREG CARLOSS: I don’t know about you, but when I think of AMC, I think of the Gremlin and the Pacer, even Wayne’s World; but, there’s a lot more to AMC than just weird cars for weird people. And speaking of weird people, MotorWeek alumni Joe Ligo is here to tell us about some AMC history.

JOE LIGO: Yeah thanks for the compliment. But yeah, you’re right, there is more to AMC than just economy cars. And today I’m going to talk about some of my favorite AMC muscle cars.

Now, you might remember the AMC Javelin, that’s their Mustang/Camaro competitor. But, AMC was always good at stretching the dollar. So, what they did is they took a Javelin chassis, shortened it about a foot, took the back seat out of it and created this car, the AMX.

GREG CARLOSS: Well, I hope you didn’t bring this here just to talk about it and look at. Can I actually get in and drive it?

JOE LIGO: Yeah, sure! Let’s go for a ride!

GREG CARLOSS: Let’s do it!

JOE LIGO: So, what do you think?

GREG CARLOSS: I like this part about it. It’s got some get up and go, for sure. Is that manual steering?

JOE LIGO: Yeah, yeah. So, power steering was optional. V8 came standard, but you had to pay extra for power steering.

GREG CARLOSS: So back in the day, what were the competitors for this car?

JOE LIGO: It’s a bit of an in-betweener. You know, I guess you could say it’s a poor man’s Corvette, but, you know, there’s nothing poor about it. It’s a fun car to drive.

JOE LIGO: And they only sold them for three years, so today they’re pretty rare.

GREG CARLOSS: Well, that’s a really fun street car.

JOE LIGO: Yeah, exactly. But, you know, as the muscle car wars were heating up, the real fun was happening at the drag strip. And that’s where this car comes in. When AMC pulled a classic muscle car move and put their biggest engine in their smallest car.

GREG CARLOSS: It certainly looks the part of a drag car.

JOE LIGO: And it came from the factory looking like this! This is a specially-equipped Hurst SC Rambler. And my friend Homer is going to take you for a real ride.

GREG CARLOSS: All right, man, let’s see what you got in this thing. Nice, nice!

Nicely done, you’ve done this before haven’t you?

DARRIN “HOMER” BOECKEL: I’ve done this before!

GREG CARLOSS: Man, that was awesome!

JOE LIGO: Wasn’t it?

GREG CARLOSS: So, we’ve done the sports car. We’ve done the drag car. Where did AMC go from there?

JOE LIGO: Well, as the muscle car era came to an end, AMC wanted to stay in the fight, so that’s where this comes in. This is a 1977 Hornet AMX.

GREG CARLOSS: Well, it’s an AMX so it’s got to be fast, right?

GREG CARLOSS: This is not fast.

JOE LIGO: No, it’s not. But there’s a good reason for that.

So, by the middle of the 70s, the whole industry had been through oil crisis; you know, government regulations were clamping down on air pollution; you know, engines had lost a lot of horsepower; so, performance was not a big priority for AMC or, frankly, any of the U.S. automakers.

While the Big Three started to recover and find new ways to profitability, American Motors really struggled in the late 70s.

GREG CARLOSS: So, was this really the start of the end for American Motors?

JOE LIGO: I mean, I wouldn’t blame it on the Hornet AMX. This was only a tiny niche product. But yeah, you start to see they don’t have the money to do 100% clean sheet new designs like the Big Three were doing and it became a bit of a dire straits for the company.

GREG CARLOSS: Joe, how do you know so much about AMC?

JOE LIGO: Well, this is more than just a hobby for me. My friends and I are actually working on a documentary about the history of American Motors Corporation called “The Last Independent Automaker.”

GREG CARLOSS: Well, how can we watch it?

JOE LIGO: It’s coming to public TV stations soon, and we even have some vintage MotorWeek footage and even an interview with John Davis himself.

GREG CARLOSS: That’s awesome. We’ll have to put that info on our website. But I got to ask, can we hop out of here and get back into that Rambler?

JOE LIGO: Well, I think I could convince Homer to give you one more ride.

GREG CARLOSS: Nice!

The Last Independent Automaker will debut on public TV stations around the country in May 2025, followed by a release on YouTube. Updates are available on their Facebook page.