The most strikingly quality of American Motors’ car designs developed in the mid-60s was how quickly the automaker ditched the Rambler look in favor of styling mostly indistinguishable from the Big Three.
This was a 180-degree change. American Motors had been exceptionally successful in the late-50s and early-60s by being defiantly different.
Daniel Strohl (2019) recently posted dozens of photographs from the archives of Fred Hudson, who oversaw two AMC design studios from 1964-68. The images provide insight into the development of the automaker’s redesigned 1967 mid-sized platform as well as the first-generation Javelin.
Out of respect for copyright, you’ll need to click into the links and scroll down to find each photo I discuss. Strohl’s entire story is also worth a read (go here). The intent of my post is to discuss the context in which these AMC designs were developed.
My thesis is that the highlighted designs reflect an evolutionary wrong turn. AMC’s 1967 mid-sized cars proved to be a sales disaster big enough to throw the automaker into an almost deadly financial crisis. In addition, the Javelin initially sold well but likely did not turn a profit.
The problem wasn’t the caliber of the stylists, but rather the marching orders given to them from company CEO Roy Abernethy. After he took over for George Romney in late 1962, he immediately started to run as far away from the Rambler’s image as he could. So did his replacement, Roy D. Chapin Jr., who became CEO after Abernethy was forced into retirement in early 1967. AMC stylists gave both men exactly what they asked for.
Redesigned 1967 mid-sized cars mimic the Big Three’s
Early concepts of the mid-sized Classic show a modest amount of design continuity with the senior Ramblers, but the proposals became increasingly generic as development progressed.
For example, a November 1964 concept still includes a few traditional design cues, such as a Rambleresque swept-back rear and a Nash-style lower-body crease. Unfortunately, these features were tacked onto a generic greenhouse that made the car look like an upsized Chevy II.
The design that reached production was much more contemporary and pleasant-looking than the 1965-66 models, but it was also mostly devoid of Rambler styling cues. Squint and you can see a bit of family resemblance in the fascia, with the ovoid grille and subtle V-shape around the headlights. Otherwise the car looked like what would happen if you threw all of the Big Three’s mid-sized models into a blender.
AMC further blurred the car’s identity by unceremoniously dumping the Classic name in favor of the Rebel. Although quite a few other mid-sized cars also went through name changes during the late-60s and early-70s, they mostly had a more gradual transition.
In the midst of all this, AMC was also phasing out the Rambler brand name. The 1967 Rebel models still had “Rambler” lettering on the hood but advertisements used the American Motors brand name instead.
This was the epitome of a fresh start. AMC management clearly thought one was needed to revive flagging sales.
The opposite occurred. Rebel output dropped roughly 25 percent from the previous year and a whopping 53 percent from 1965. To make matters worse, this was only the beginning. By 1970, Rebel sales fell to a paltry 50,000 units — an 84-percent decline from the Classic’s all-time peak year of 320,000 units in 1963.
Let’s not mince words here — the 1967 redesign of AMC’s mid-sized cars coincided with one of the more spectacular sales collapses of the late-60s and early-70s. Could it be that updating the Rambler Classic’s image would have been a better idea than throwing it in the trash can?
One body style that was not shown in the Strohl photos but did maintain a semblance of the Rambler look was the wagon. Since 1954, four-door wagons had a downward dip of the roofline at the C-pillar. Although this became an iconic styling cue, it was based upon a practical consideration — to save money by using the four-door sedan’s rear door frames rather than creating unique ones for the wagon like the Big Three usually did.
Also see ‘Film shows Fred Hudson’s design talent — and groupthink’
For 1967 AMC carried over this approach. Much like a one-year-only restyling of the wagon in 1966, the C-pillar dip was modernized with a wrap-around crease that could be accented with two-tone paint. AMC now had the most stylish wagons in the American auto industry.
That didn’t help wagon output, which fell 51 percent between 1965 and 1967 — slightly less than for four-door sedans.
Perhaps part of the problem was that AMC advertising appeared to place more of an emphasis on its stylish two-door models, such as the Rebel SST, Ambassador DPL and Marlin.
AMC’s mid-sized two-door hardtops, convertibles and coupes collectively registered a sales increase for 1967, up almost 16 percent from two years earlier. They actually outsold the wagons for the first time, but we’re talking about a fairly small number — less than 47,000 units.
Meanwhile, four-door sedans — which had traditionally been AMC’s largest-selling body style — fell from almost 154,000 units in 1965 to under 75,000 units in 1967.
The design proposals for the 1967 Ambassador tended to have a more evolutionary look. Most of the concepts pictured in the Strohl article offered a V-shaped fascia and vertical stacked headlights.
Designers also toyed with proposals to stretch the Ambassador’s deck. Presumably this was to make it look more like a full-sized car even though the Ambassador was based on AMC’s mid-sized platform.
Other Ambassador proposals went to exceptional lengths to mimic Big Three styling. For example, a four-door sedan had a 1967-68 Pontiac vibe, with fender skirts and an arching lower-body character line. The design that reached production looks downright plain in comparison.
Ambassador output was relatively stable for 1967, but that did not compensate for the Rebel’s collapse. Almost 63,000 Ambassadors left the factory, which was only 2 percent lower than two years earlier. However, with the exception of a spike in sales during 1969, it was pretty much downhill for this nameplate.
The main long-term impact of the Ambassador was to siphon development dollars and marketing attention away from the Classic/Rebel — effectively destroying what had long been AMC’s biggest-selling car.
Among the Strohl photos was a proposal for a 1968 Ambassador. Whereas concepts for the 1967 models tended toward a conservative and luxurious look, this particular design went in a sporty direction, with a donut-shaped bumper and more rounded front fenders.
I have mixed reactions to this particular concept. It was one of the more attractive mid-sized proposals shown, but was also remarkably generic. The front looked like a mash-up of a 1970 Charger and Coronet. The identity of this car would have confused a lot of people if it had reached production.
Javelin concepts hint at struggle to pay for pony car
Strohl offers a handful of photos that show how the Javelin morphed from a sporty version of the Rambler American into a pony car with its own sheetmetal. Perhaps because the latter was a financially risky move for such a small automaker, designers also developed variations that might have expanded the Javelin’s customer base. Among the concepts were a four-door sedan, a three- and five-door sports wagon, and the two-seater AMX.
Why did AMC end up producing the Javelin variant that had the smallest potential for sustained sales? Only 19,000 two-seat AMXs were produced over a three-year model run.
The AMX’s low sales were predictable because the car didn’t do anything very well. Even though ads compared it to the Corvette, the AMX neither looked nor acted like a real sports car. Meanwhile, the AMX was more expensive than a Pontiac GTO but its performance stats had less to brag about . . . and the lack of a back seat made it a less versatile daily driver.
In addition, cutting 12 inches out of the Javelin’s wheelbase gave the AMX a problematic weight distribution — 58/42 percent for a 1970 model versus 53/47 percent for a 1971 version, which had been demoted to a top-end Javelin model. Weight distribution didn’t help handling, and it contributed to the brakes locking up during panic stops (Clarke, 1994).
Nor was this car particularly good looking. The shorter wheelbase made the front and rear overhangs look out of proportion compared to the Javelin. And those speed sweeps on the rear fenders looked cheesy.
If management was willing to invest in an extra Javelin body style, a sports wagon would have been a better fit with the automaker’s reputation for practicality. A three-door wagon would presumably have required less expensive structural changes than the AMX.
Was there a market for a sports wagon? I suspect that it would have been larger — and, perhaps as importantly, more stable — than a two-seater’s. Production of the Rambler American wagon averaged around 12,000 units per year during the second half of the 1960s, and the Hornet Sportabout — which was similar in design to one of the Javelin concept cars — reportedly exceeded 73,000 units in its first year.
I assume that the Javelin/AMX program lost money. Only in the first two years of production did the Javelin exceed 35,000 units, which was reportedly the car’s break-even point (Foster, 1993). From 1970 to 1974, the Javelin’s final year, production hovered around 27,000-to-31,000 units.
Also see ‘Collectible Automobile puffs up the 1971-74 AMC Javelin’
A key reason why the Javelin may not have been a financial success was that it did not share a body with the rest of AMC’s compacts. This was not preordained in the heavens. The Javelin could have used major body components from the American, in much the same way that the 1967-69 Plymouth Barracuda drew from the Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Dart. Note that Chrysler’s “A-Body” compacts also shared their inner-door construction with the “B-Body” mid-sized cars (go here for further discussion).
It seems odd that American Motors, which was much smaller than Chrysler, would pay less attention to maximizing economies of scale. What’s even odder is that Chrysler may have learned how to do this from AMC.
AMC ditches strategy for gaining economies of scale
The redesigned 1963 mid-sized Rambler Classic and Ambassador were given a 74-inch-wide body that shared inner-door parts and outer-door sheetmetal with a new 70-inch-wide body for the compact American, which was introduced the following year.
That was only one way AMC designers maximized economies of scale. Unlike most American cars of that era, front and rear bumpers were interchangeable. In addition, the Rambler may have been the only post-war American car whose four-door body styles used diagonally interchangeable window frames. This helped to reduce the cost of curved side glass, which Romney presciently approved because it would keep the new platform competitive for a longer period of time (Foster, 1993).
These steps helped AMC to equalize the lopsided advantage the Big Three automakers enjoyed because they could amortize costs over much larger production volumes. Finding new ways to increase AMC’s economies of scale became particularly important after the automaker decided to maintain two separate platforms, which significantly increased its costs.
“It all boiled down to the cost of tooling amortization, and Romney’s plans would always keep that vital fact in the forefront,” noted AMC historian Patrick Foster (1993, p. 88-89).
Also see ‘Would AMC have done better if George Romney had stayed longer?’
Romney’s successor, Roy Abernethy, immediately began to step away from this approach. He instead sought to compete directly against the Big Three. That required a broader range of models, more frequent styling changes, and emphasizing bigger, glitzier and more powerful cars.
After only two years the senior Ramblers were given a complete reskinning designed to make them look bigger. Along the way they stopped using interchangeable bumpers and sharing sheetmetal with the American.
In addition, the Ambassador was expanded into a complete line of cars and given a distinct front end on a four-inch-longer wheelbase. And whereas Romney had confined the two-door hardtop and convertible body styles to the American, Abernethy added them to the mid-sized platform. AMC also entered the personal coupe market with the oddly styled Marlin.
Abernethy justified the cost of this expansion by predicting a sales increase for 1965 (Foster, 2013). Model-year output did inch up by 1 percent. However, this was during the same year that total U.S. automobile production grew by 14 percent, hitting what then was an all-time record.
More ominously, the new designs didn’t age well. Just one year later, total AMC production plunged 25 percent. This was partly the result of a lengthy strike in the fall of 1965 and softening American sales. Even so, the biggest problem was the Classic, whose production fell more than 38 percent. This was mostly driven by collapsing sales of four-door sedans and wagons. AMC was losing its core market.
Foster (1993) has quite rightly criticized Abernethy for his expensive — and ultimately futile — attempt to directly compete against the Big Three. Even so, Abernethy turned out to be a penny pincher in comparison to Chapin, who took model proliferation to a whole new level.
One of Chapin’s most important early decisions was to permanently retire Romney’s idea of sharing major body components between AMC’s mid-sized and compact platforms. Although the 1970 Hornet and Gremlin did use chassis components from AMC’s parts bin, its new body had no commonalities even with the Javelin.
If AMC had maintained Romney’s approach, the next-generation compacts would have inherited the inner-door hardware of the 1967 mid-sized models. The main structural change to the 1964-69 American body would have been that the window frames on four-door models would no longer have been diagonally interchangeable.
Also see ‘Counterfactuals and whether AMC had a chance of survival’
One could argue that the Hornet’s brand-new body was much more fashionable, with its fuselage side curvature and steeply-raked windshield. Indeed, this design turned out to be advanced enough that it stayed in production for 18 years. While this point is well taken, the lack of interchangeability also cost AMC dearly in economies of scale.
Even much-larger Ford was more frugal than AMC in redesigning its compact line. The 1970 Maverick was heavily based upon the Mustang body. Why couldn’t the Hornet have been based upon the Javelin?
It’s unclear from photographs whether the Javelin used the same inner-door construction as the 1967 mid-sized two-door hardtops. The shape of the windshield, side windows and beltline look similar, but perhaps there are subtle differences.
If the Javelin had been designed so that its inner-door construction was interchangeable, that opened up the possibility of outer-door sheetmetal also being shared. This could have had surprisingly wide-ranging impacts on future AMC cars.
Interchangeability could have saved AMC from itself
The version of the mid-sized design that reached production in 1967 expanded the body’s width to 77 inches. However, one can see from a few of Strohl’s photos that earlier proposals maintained the previous width of 74 inches. The latter would have allowed outer-door sheetmetal on the mid-sized cars to be shared with the Javelin and an updated Ameri, er, Hornet.
As a case in point, the Strohl story showed a Classic design concept whose side styling was in the same ballpark as the Javelin’s.
In retrospect, the Javelin’s side treatment would have had more staying power because it worked well with a fuselage-style C-pillar, which became a major design trend in the late-60s and early-70s.
Unfortunately, AMC’s mid-sized cars were instead given squared-off fender shoulders and slab sides. This led to much stylistic misfortune during the 12-year lifespan of the mid-sized body. AMC designers were put in the impossible position of trying to keep these cars looking contemporary without restyling the increasingly obsolete side sheetmetal.
Why was the mid-sized platform allowed to atrophy? Because by 1971 AMC was offering five different nameplates on three passenger-car platforms and five wheelbase lengths. That’s an exceptional amount of variation for an automaker whose sales hovered around 300,000 units. To make matters worse, Chapin had just engineered the purchase of Jeep, which needed substantial investments.
Chapin’s model-proliferation spree was not financially sustainable. But rather than learning from his early mistakes, he doubled down on them with the ill-fated 1974 Matador coupe and mid-1975 Pacer.
It’s true that continuing Romney’s strategy for maximizing economies of scale would have constrained AMC management’s quest to compete model for model against the Big Three. However, this could have been a blessing in disguise.
Also see ‘AMC’s Roy D. Chapin Jr. succumbed to the illusion of bigness’
As a case in point, in 1969 the Ambassador’s wheelbase was stretched to 122 inches in a vain effort to better compete in the full-sized class (see image below). AMC might not have taken this counter-productive step if the platform’s width was still 74 inches. Such a long and narrow car would have looked even more awkward than the 1969-74 Ambassador.
By the same token, the Gremlin might have made less sense stylistically if AMC had consolidated its small cars onto the Javelin body rather than developing an entirely new one.
Nixing the Gremlin would have been a net plus for AMC because its attention-getting looks ultimately could not compensate for the car being too heavy and space inefficient to successfully compete against subcompacts such as the Volkswagen Beetle.
A car sized closer to the Ford Maverick might have generated steadier sales than the Gremlin. In that scenario, AMC might have been better off referring to the car as a body style of its compact nameplate. That would have allowed AMC to slice its already tiny marketing budget into fewer — and larger — pieces.
Finally, the Javelin could have been a money maker if its costs had been amortized across an entire range of compacts. Of course, it would have helped if AMC did not subsequently destroy the Javelin’s clean looks with an outrageous 1971 reskinning. But even then, the financial damage would have been more tightly contained.
One could go a step further and argue that AMC shouldn’t have tried to directly compete in the pony car field. A nicely styled fastback American that offered a range of models similar to the 1970 Plymouth Duster could have cost a lot less to develop and given AMC a jump on one of the biggest-selling market niches of the early-70s. Go here for further discussion.
Of course, all of this was not to be. Abernethy and Chapin were both determined to run as far away from the Rambler — and Romney’s management strategy — as possible.
How trendy styling can kill a small automaker
The photos shown in Shrohl’s article display a great deal of design talent at AMC. Yet they also hint at why the automaker lost its independence only a decade later. Most of the design proposals might have worked fairly well at one of the Big Three automakers, but they mostly were a mismatch with what AMC needed.
Also see ‘Richard Teague’s styling helped to kill American Motors’
Production data tells the story pretty well. As we have discussed, the redesigned 1967 mid-sized platform coincided with a spectacular collapse in sales. It would be fair to partly blame that on intensifying competition in the mid-sized class. Nevertheless, anonymous styling arguably didn’t help the Rebel. Nor did the futile effort to make the Ambassador look like a full-sized car . . . but not possess the functional advantages of one.
The Javelin was the most successful design shown in the Strohl story, but that’s not saying a whole lot in light of its rapid fall-off in sales. The first-generation may have had an unusually well-executed design, but the Javelin wasn’t able to support itself on a stand-alone body — particularly with a companion two seater that was the answer to a question nobody asked.
The meta problem was that AMC could not afford to offer a proliferation of trendily styled cars that looked little different from what the Big Three offered. To achieve sufficient economies of scale, AMC needed a smaller range of cars with an unusually high level of parts interchangeability — and designs that could be kept on the market longer without frequent restyling. That, in turn, required AMC to emphasize other qualities such as versatility, reliability, technical innovations and superior customer service.
Foreign brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen showed that eschewing trendy styling didn’t have to result in cars that sold poorly after the first few years. Romney got that. Abernethy and Chapin did not. Even the most inventive styling in the world couldn’t compensate for their strategic miscalculations.
NOTE:
Production figures are calculated from the Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975 (Gunnell, 2002). Dimensions are from the Classic Car Database (2019).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Clarke, R. M.; 1994. AMX & Javelin Muscle Portfolio 1968-1974. Brooklands books, Surrey, UK.
- Classic Car Database; 2019. “Search for specifications.” Accessed December 16.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Foster, Patrick R.; 1993. American Motors: The Last Independent. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- ——–; 2013. American Motors Corporation: The Rise and Fall of America’s Last Independent Automaker.MBI Publishing Co., Minneapolis, MN.
- Strohl, Daniel; 2019. “Rogues, Ramblers, Rebels, and more: Fred Hudson’s tenure at American Motors.” Hemmings. Posted December 19; accessed December 19.
ADVERTISEMENTS & BROCHURES:
- wildaboutcarsonline.com (Automotive History Preservation Society): AMC Javelin/AMX (1972)
- oldcaradvertising.com: AMC Gremlin (1970); AMC Hornet (1972); Rambler Rebel (1967)
- oldcarbrochures.org: AMC Ambassador (1963, 1965, 1967, 1969, 1970); AMC AMX (1969); AMC Javelin (1969); Rambler American (1967; 1969); Rambler Rebel (1967)
PHOTOGRAPHY:
- Gallery: 1969 AMC Javelin SST 2-door hardtop
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