Mike Smith knows his 1979 AMC AMX is the only survivor of its type. It’s not a special color or option combination that makes his car unique, it’s the fact that his car is a prototype built in late 1977 for the forthcoming 1979 AMC AMX. As a prototype, it looks nothing like the Hornet-based AMX production model that was offered at dealerships in 1977; his car is a modified Gremlin that became the new-for-1979 Spirit model with the AMX package.

Smith can be confident in his car’s pedigree not just because he has the paperwork to prove it, but because he was an AMC employee who drove the car for business after its development days ended, sometimes with famous people at his side.

Introducing the AMX

In 1968, American Motors Corp. rocked the automotive world when it introduced the two-seat AMX fastback. Launched on the Javelin platform, the “pocket rocket” went against the grain by appealing to both the muscle car and sports car communities. The AMX was AMC’s effort to create a capable automobile with the power and handling necessary to fight in the hot pony car war.

When the AMX day-viewed at Daytona in 1968, it raised a few eyebrows when it was clocked at 130 mph on the speedway. Buyers soon learned that the AMX could not only snake its way through the corners at high speeds on raceways, it could also burn the rubber off its tires at the drag strip.

With the AMX, a jolt of excitement coursed through Kenosha, as AMC had been flailing in the years leading up to the AMX’s debut and that of the Javelin upon which it was based. The AMX was not only a game-changer for the automobile industry, it was a game-changer for AMC by bringing new customers and attention to the brand.

During its creation, the AMC development studio was considering building the AMX in fiberglass, and it even built some prototypes in fiberglass, but in the end, a steel-bodied version won out and went into production due to AMC’s ability to produce steel cars in volume. Unlike General Motors, with its advanced fiberglass technology from the Corvette, AMC lacked the expertise and resources to invest in the production of fiberglass automobiles. Other American companies were having issues with fiberglass body panels, too, so it was logical that cash-strapped AMC management stuck with steel for the AMX.

Using a shortened version of the Javelin platform, AMC built its first production AMX for the 1968 model year. It was the first new two-seat automobile from an American manufacturer since the 1955 Thunderbird.

The AMX evolves

After three years of being a two-seater on a shortened Javelin chassis, the AMX gained a rear seat when the Javelin was restyled for 1971. With the 1971 model, the AMX simply became a performance version of the Javelin upon which it had been based from its beginning. The Javelin lasted through 1974, and with it, the AMX package. During its life, the AMX would inspire sporty versions of other AMC models, which would likewise use the letter “X” in their names (the Gremlin X and the Pacer X among them).

AMC brought back the AMX as a sport package on the Hornet coupe in 1977, but it was short-lived since 1977 marked the final year for the Hornet. However, AMC was already developing another AMX package for an upcoming new model. Based upon a restyled Gremlin to be named Spirit, the AMX was resurrected in prototype form during 1977 with plans to make it available as a performance option when the Spirit entered production for 1979.

The AMX name was, indeed, transferred from the Hornet coupe to the new Spirit liftback body for 1979 and came with either the 258-cid inline six or 304-cid V-8. The new 1979 AMX featured a flush blackout grille with an “AMX” script; fiberglass wheel flares; rear spoiler; ER60x14 white-letter tires on 14×7-inch “Turbocast II” aluminum wheels; blackout trim; “GT rally-tuned” suspension; floor-shift transmission; an optional hood decal; and other sporty touches.

Mike Smith, a retired AMC chief engineer of vehicle development at Jeep, had the good fortune to acquire AMC’s prototype for the 1979 AMX. Dubbed the “SP94-14D,” this AMX prototype was built in 1977 upon a Gremlin with updates that reflected the forthcoming Spirit model. Smith bought the prototype from AMC through an auction in April 1981 and today, the car remains in original, unrestored condition. Smith was at AMC working on new product development for Jeep when the 1979 AMX prototype was developed, and his employment at the company helped put him in a position to appreciate the prototype, then buy it.

Prototype AMX Owner’s Perspective

During his time as an AMC employee working on the Jeep brand, Smith often drove the AMX prototype once it became a company transportation vehicle. He came to know the car well after spending so many hours in the driver’s seat, and kept tabs on the car while it was still in the company fleet. When he heard it was going to auction, he went directly to the auction company and made it a better-than-fair offer that was accepted.

The following is Smith’s recollection of the car during its years with AMC:

This automobile was one of the original prototypes built for the 1979 model year under the AMX label. It’s powered by a 304-cid V-8 engine and four-speed manual transmission.

It was built in September 1977 in Kenosha, Wis., at the American Motors engineering facility using a Gremlin as the donor vehicle. This vehicle still retains its AMC corporate VIN, which reads “SP94-14D,” and still has most of the original paperwork, including the sunvisor card that described the vehicle for people evaluating it. It also has its original keys that have identification tags with the car number stamped on a metal disc, and a bright-green plastic key fob to identify it as an AMC prototype. The documentation paperwork also includes the meeting minutes and work orders for the car. Many of the parts on the car still have chalk marks identifying them with “SP94-14D.”

SP94-14D is one of three AMX prototypes built for the 1979 model year. This one was a development car. The other two were used for testing purposes, then scrapped. Each of the prototypes had a specific role in the AMC Gremlin AMX development program. One was used for safety impact while another was used for durability study research. This third car was used as a Vehicle Development Car for engine cooling, braking, performance, ride and handling, and a series of other tests. Since this prototype was used for ride-and-handling development purposes, it is one great riding and handling machine. The prototype suspension components are still on the car, including front and rear sway bars.

After it was used for development purposes, it went to Dick Teague, chief stylist for AMC, and his group. They used it as a mock-up vehicle for various styling themes, like the final AMX theme for 1979 and beyond.

This prototype was originally painted orange at the AMC Kenosha assembly plant and appears within the 1979 AMC sales brochure in its orange paint scheme. Teague and his group then had it painted black for their purposes, however, they only required the outside surface be black, which accounts for the under-hood and other unexposed surfaces still being the original orange color. Only the exterior and doors jams are painted black on this prototype. It also appears in advertising literature with this black scheme.

Teague’s department used it often and then returned it to Vehicle Development Group. Since it was useful and did not appear on the books as an expensed vehicle that had to be accounted for in the corporate ledger, it was simply ignored. As far as the corporate bean counters knew, it did not exist. That made it very desirable among employees since it could drive in and out of the gate with a manufacturer’s license plate, but no other identification.

Since it hadn’t been used for testing purposes like the other two prototypes, it became a run-around company “pool car” and was mostly used to transport people back to Jeep engineering in Toledo, Ohio, where it sat until someone within the AMC company needed a ride back to AMC engineering in Detroit. Some people passed on using it, because of its four-speed transmission, yet some well-known people drove or rode in it, including Dick Teague.

Jim Thornton, “Mr. Ramcharger” and former driver of the Dodge Ramchargers drag race cars (and also eventual AMC Director in Advanced Engineering), used it on occasion, along with me, to commute from Toledo, Ohio, to Detroit for meetings and various other activities. Jim was over 6 foot tall and did not find it particularly comfortable, and hit his head when getting in it, but was impressed with its handling.

Most of the AMC executives drove the car at one time or another to experience different themes, like a handling demonstration versus the competition, or a new transmission, such as the SR4, which came from the Mustang and is still in the car.

Some of the people who drove the car were not kind to it and hammered it, so to speak, and simply left it in the engineering garage with a note to repair it, or to explain what they had done. One note, which is still with the vehicle from the director of engineering at the time, simply asked why this car was still around and instructed the fleet manager to scrap it. It is a crude, handwritten note on a Speedimemo. Fortunately, he did not follow up; it simply was not on the books so it got ignored.

After it was used for various engineering and styling exercises, and then as employee transportation, the car became lost in the shuffle. It sat for over a year before it was “discovered,” then deemed scrap by AMC. Its saving grace was when it appeared in the corporate books as a company vehicle. Had it appeared as a prototype, it would have been sold for scrap years before. In today’s world, it would have been accounted for and charged to the company fleet budget.

I purchased it in 1981 as scrap from APTCO auction in Michigan, then the state of Michigan issued a special VIN for it. However, AMC’s original corporate VIN, SP94-14D, is still visible and riveted on the driver’s side of the instrument panel where the original VIN would normally have been attached.

An appreciative owner

Although sold as scrap, prototype SP94-14D remained an intact unit, and today, more than 44 years after its development, SP94-14D remains an unrestored original. Despite its value as a piece of AMC history, Smith isn’t afraid to use it, and he frequently drives it to car shows in the Detroit area. 

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Ed Burton bought this beauty back in ’68, drove the snot out of it, and now his son owns it. Somehow it looks factory fresh! How cool is that? Here is what he had to say about the AMX…

• 1969 AMC AMX 343 cid 4-speed
• I bought the AMX new at the end of 1968. It is now owned by my son, Dan.
• I drove the car down to the end of Baja, California in 1969, before the road was paved.
• Ran the first Cannonball race in 1971.
• Ran the second Cannonball in 1972.
• Also ran (2) 4 Ball Rally’s from Boston to South Dakota.
• Also ran 4 Silver States in Nevada.
• Also has been shown in some local car shows.
• A great car, with lots of memories and lots of good stories.

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Richard A. “Dick” Teague grew up a hot-rodding teenager in Southern California before turning his attention to designing new cars. Even then, his cars often had sport to their style, usually being designed as two-seaters — much like the hopped-up roadsters he would have been surrounded by in sunny So-Cal.

Teague had studied at Art Center School of Design in Pasadena, Calif., where the focus was on form and line, not decoration. He carried these lessons to Kaiser-Frazer where he designed a hardtop convertible in 1946. By the early ’50s, he was working at Packard where he designed the 1954 Packard Panther Daytona. This open car combined Teague’s idea for clean forms with his preference for sporty two-passenger automobiles.

Teague was a young man when he had created the sporty designs for Kaiser-Frazer and Packard. By the age of 40 in 1964, he had been elevated to the position of vice president in charge of AMC styling. By this time, he had become known as “Mr. Clean” in the industry. Car Life said that he represented “fresh air amidst an atmosphere of the all too common ‘design by committee’ school of styling.” Teague still favored less flamboyance and exterior ornamentation on cars. He saw clean design as a “maturing of aesthetics,” as well as a safety enhancement with fewer doo-dads to impale pedestrians.

“Teague has brought a young man’s outlook to Detroit’s styling studio,” wrote Gene Booth in the June 1964 issue of Car Life. The designer had a good handle on industrial design and accurately predicted to Booth that bucket seats, fastback roofs and performance engine modifications would become big trends in the near future. He was, of course, correct.

These automotive sporty and performance features were almost required in the booming muscle car market that grew throughout the 1960s. Teague made sure to include them as the muscle car era mushroomed.

“We thought that it was great to see muscle cars and pony cars coming out,” former AMC clay modeler Keith Goodnough told us at the AMC World Meet in 2003. “Chuck Mashigan was put in charge of the Advanced Styling Studio and he was the one who designed the hot pony cars like the AMXes.”

AMC boss Roy Abernethy resisted the muscle car market. He believed that AMC was doing well selling small cars, and indeed, AMC had experienced an upswing in its fortunes during the early 1960s by building smaller cars. Problems arose when Abernethy started a movement to larger AMC cars, which he personally preferred. These did not sell very well. Meanwhile, the pony car market expanded from 11.2 percent of the market in 1966 to 14.6 in 1967. Total specialty car registrations rose 18.0 percent in 1966 and 17.6 in 1967.

“I decided to do a really hot two-seat car — one like Ferrari would do,” Teague told Motor Trend while discussing AMC’s AMX muscle car. “But instead of (making) 10 a year, we’d design it so we could build 10,000.” Teague wanted the AMX to have a rumble seat, but said, “They (management) looked at me like I was from the moon.” Still, a working model of the AMX — complete with the “Ramble Seat,” aka rumble seat — was approved and built for AMC by Vignale in Turin, Italy. It debuted at the 1966 New York International Auto Show.

About the same time, Detroit industrialist Robert B. Evans bought 200,000 shares of AMC stock. He became the firm’s largest shareholder and was elected to the board of directors. Evans soon dropped word that AMC was going to build a production version of the AMX show car.

Victor G. Raviolo was put in charge of all AMC creative projects in 1967 and wanted to make quick changes. He told a Car Life writer that he had watched women and their reactions to changes in skirt lengths. “The skirts got shorter and women who were 40-50 years old said that wasn’t for them,” he pointed out. “But the next year you see those women and their skirts are a little shorter. This is the influence of young people — they pull the rest of the market with them.”

Not all of Teague’s youthful ideas made it to the assembly line. The Ramble Seat rumble seat was considered a safety issue. However, the 1966 AMX did evolve into the midsize Javelin, which entered production for 1968. The Javelin kept the AMX show car’s sporty looks, but brought the rear seat under the roof. A few short months later, the two-seat AMX did bow, and like those skirts Raviolo mentioned, the AMX was a bit shorter than the Javelin upon which it was based.

The production AMX looked very much like a chopped Javelin with a different grille, hood and roofline. “It is a very hot little vehicle with a strong family resemblance,” Teague said. “We have tried to keep the cost down and build an uncomplicated vehicle, but it is still a different type of vehicle because it is a foot shorter than the Javelin, and a two-place car.”

Although it was good looking, hot performing and innovative, the AMX never captured the fancy of young car buyers the way the Mustang had. Only 6725 were sold in 1968, followed by a slight — and very temporary — increase to 8293 in 1969. Then, in 1970, the total fell to 4116 cars. The AMX was not selling as hoped and environmental and political factors were shrinking its future potential.

One AMX to save them all

At AMC, company president Bill Luneberg informed Dick Teague that the two-seat AMX was going to be dropped after 1970. Luneberg was a production man and knew the extra work involved in building the two-seater was not justified by its sales. Teague wanted to convince AMC to continue building the two-seater, so he customized his own AMX.

Teague’s car was originally an early-production Rally Green Metallic car with a black vinyl interior, the 390-cid 315-hp engine and automatic transmission. Teague painted the front bumper white, installed ’67 Plymouth Valiant turn signal lamps, bolted on a front spoiler and added 8-in. Kelsey-Hayes rims, a Sidewinder exhaust system and a customized fuel filler on the left-hand sail panel. Other touches included competition-style hood locking pins, twin longitudinal racing stripes, special 390 badges and a red interior with armrest.

Some of the changes to Teague’s car became production options, such as its painted bumpers, which were offered on Big Bad AMXes. To get the racing stripes like those on Teague’s car, AMC buyers could specify the ’68 Go-Package option. The Tadco-made Sidewinders were a ’69 option. Later, Javelin Trans Am and AMX models adopted the chin-type front spoiler.

Teague knew AMC was planning a four-seat AMX model based on the standard Javelin and also knew of plans to give the Javelin new front and rear ends on a 1-inch-longer wheelbase without altering the outer door panels, windshield, unibody and trunk lid. He dusted off the custom AMX he hadn’t used for a while and added the front clip off a fiberglass ’71 Javelin mockup. He also adopted bulging fender lines penned by designer Eric Kugler and added red T-stripes that were already set for production.

Teague installed circular 1971-’74 Javelin turn signals in the grille, a set of ’70 Javelin taillamps and a distinctive scooped hood. The racing-type fuel filler and spoiler were deleted. He added updated side mirrors and silver-blue paint. An adjustable rear spoiler was bolted on. Teague swapped steering wheels and seats, replacing the red originals with ’71-style bucket seats, and installed custom door panels in the same color. He added a rear cushion to make the AMX into a car that could be converted to four-person use (if the rear passengers were very small kids). In essence, he turned his personalized AMX into a ’71 concept car that was dubbed “AM 197X.”

Teague showed his personal “1971 styling prototype” to the AMC board of directors on Nov. 4, 1969. The design was rejected and that wasn’t a big surprise. Teague had not had enough time or money to properly integrate the front and rear styling, but the interior did get some additional consideration. In the end, the AMX lived on, but as a package on the Javelin as management had intended.

An AMX keepsake

Teague later gave his AM 197X to his son Rich as a high school graduation gift, and Rich traded it in on a Gremlin. The car was then drag raced on Woodward Avenue before Unique Motorcars in Rockford, Ill., restored it. It almost went to a museum in 1975, but wound up with a teenager who drove it for five years and then stored it in a garage in Whitewater, Wis. Meanwhile, Don Loper, of the American Motors Owners Association, heard about the car and in 1985, he told AMC collector Mike Spangler that the Teague design car was less than 15 miles from his home in Jefferson, Wis.

During storage, Teague’s AM 197X lost a few parts. Regardless, Spangler obtained it and realized it needed re-restoration. He started to disassemble it, and it sat partially assembled for 14 years. During that time, Spangler began documenting its authenticity through Dick Teague himself. Spangler learned that the car used several different AMC V-8s, which explained its 401 badges.

Rich Teague had damaged the fiberglass hood and hood scoop and substituted a flat steel hood. Spangler located an enthusiast in Oregon who reproduces the scoops in fiberglass, but to date has not installed them on the car. Spangler also replaced the damaged rear spoiler with a reproduction spoiler for a Trans Am Javelin. He says just about everything else matches the car when it was turned into a prototype.

Teague died in 1991, before Spangler finished his restoration, which took until 1999 to complete. Former AMO president Darryl A. Salisbury asked Spangler to finish the car for the Eyes on Design show in Detroit, which featured a Teague tribute. Spangler worked hard to put it back to its Nov. 4, 1969, configuration by show time.

Spangler currently stores the car in his private AMC museum in Jefferson where he has two large buildings filled with AMC family cars, dealership memorabilia, literature and petroliana. During the spring and fall Jefferson Swap Meets hosted by Madison Classics, he sells parking spaces on his land opposite the swap area and shows his collection to visitors. Each spring, he also hosts a Graduation Car Show and Pig Roast focused around Nash, Hudson and AMC models.

He and his wife Cheryl have definitely earned their status asVIPs in the American Motors Owners Association and are the best caretakers one could find forDick Teague’s historic AMX.

American Motors Owners Association
1615 Purvis Ave.
Janesville, WI 53548
608-752-8247
www.amonational.com

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The 28th Orphan Car Tour took place on Saturday, June 2 along the winding, scenic back roads of Maryland’s Harford and Baltimore counties.

This year’s Tour was nicknamed “How the Other Half Lives” because the route wove past prosperous estates and horse farms of My Lady’s Manor and Worthington Valley, which lie north of Baltimore.

An all-day downpour had been forecast, but fortunately the rain held off until the tour had almost ended, late in the afternoon.

The day began in Jarrettsville, Maryland, where drivers of 42 cars converged on the Jarrettsville United Methodist Church parking lot starting at 9:30 AM. At least 28 of the autos were vintage “orphans”: antique cars with discontinued marques. The rest were modern automobiles, driven by those concerned about how their old cars might behave in the rain.

Participants greeted one another, registered their cars, and received the printed driving directions that each driver follows at his or her own pace. At 10:45 the cars were released, one by one, onto the tour route. For the next five hours drivers traversed a 30-mile route, making occasional stops at designated places of interest along the way. Among these were Ladew Topiary Gardens, Boordy Vineyards, Oregon Ridge Nature Center, and Prigel’s Creamery, a family farm that serves up outstanding ice cream treats.

Perhaps the most interesting attraction was a private automobile collection. This one is eclectic, containing everything from Model A Fords to 1960’s European and British sports cars, along with some early racing cars. There’s even an Isetta, a Fiat 500 and a customized tow truck nicknamed “Tow-Mater”.

At 4:30 PM, after the driving portion of the tour had ended, a buffet dinner was served at Friendly Farm Restaurant in Upperco, Maryland to a crowd of 64. As is the custom for Orphan Car Tours, the direction sheets had been sprinkled with questions about sights glimpsed along the route, in order to test the observational abilities of drivers and passengers. After the meal, prizes were awarded to those who had answered the most questions correctly. First place went to Randy and Sharon Fryer of Monkton, Md.; second place was awarded to John and Vivian Czajkowski of Odenton, Md.; third place was won by Harley and Carol Smith of Annapolis. This year’s Hard Luck Award went to Tom Cox of Woodstock, Md., whose car stalled while idling in the long line of cars waiting to start the tour. The Long Distance Award was given to Fred and Nina Hammer, who drove their 1966 Mercury Comet Cylone convertible from State College, PA.

Cars taking the tour ranged in model years from 1928 to 1993, with a nice sampling of cars from the ’30’s through the ’60’s. Automotive marques included AMC (AMX, Hornet, Marlin, Rambler), Corvair, DeSoto, Edsel, Henry J, Kaiser, Mercury (Comet and Cougar), Morris, Packard, Plymouth (Valiant), Pontiac, Studebaker (including Hawk and Lark), Terraplane and Triumph. There were also two Hupmobiles – a 1928 from Nevada and a 1933 from New Jersey – whose owners had paused to take in the Orphan Tour on their way to the Hupmobile National Meet in Staunton, Virginia.

The directors of this year’s tour were Ross Miller and Bob Godwin. Ross had laid out several tours in previous years and Bob and his wife Phyllis had been frequent past winners of the “observational” contest. Assisting with the Tour were Harley Smith, Bill and Susan Johnson and Jon Battle. Mike Bianco facilitated one of the stops along the way.

The Orphan Car Tour is an annual event designed to encourage the driving enjoyment of antique “orphans”, which the Tour defines as vehicles at least 25 years old which were produced either by now-defunct manufacturers or by the discontinued divisions of still-existing companies. Each year it moves to a different location in the greater Baltimore- Washington area. It is sponsored by six local chapters or regions of national “orphan” clubs: Mid-Atlantic Packards (a region of The Packard Club); the Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the Hudson-Essex-Terraplane Club; the Potomac Chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club; the Potomac Ramblers (an affiliate of the AMO and AMCRC); the DeSoto Owners Club of Maryland; the Keystone Region Chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club. The Tour maintains a website at www.orphancartour.org/.

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By Brian Earnest

Scott Raney never figured he’d have to leave Arizona and head north to the “rust belt” to find a car, but when the Phoenix resident finally got the chance to turn back the clock and land a 1971 AMC Javelin AMX like the one he had in high school, he was willing to fly just about anywhere.

What Raney found when he arrived in Detroit was an unmolested survivor that was even better than he could have hoped. The orphaned muscle machine needed some attention and cosmetic help, but as far as Raney was concerned, he had hit the jackpot. He had owned a 1973 Javelin AMX during his younger days, but it had to be sacrificed when he went off to college. He knew there weren’t many others around — at least not nice originals — and he didn’t have to think too hard about the Mustard Yellow AMX he found in the Motor City.

“I’m 50 years old now, and when I was 18, we had moved to Florida and I had a ’73 AMX and I absolutely loved the car,” Raney recalled. “I always wanted another one, and finally about seven or eight years ago I put an ad on one of the AMC forums saying that I was looking for a restorable ’71 to ’74 AMX, but I really didn’t expect to get anything from it.”

He got a reply from a man in Detroit who owned a nicely preserved ’71, got to see some pictures, and before he knew it, he was cruising down Woodward Avenue with four other people in the car and trying to figure out how he was going to get the car home.

“I hadn’t driven one since I had gotten rid of my old one in, like, ’83,” Raney laughed. “When I went to Detroit, the guy and his wife couldn’t have been any nicer. I was there all weekend, and the weather was nice because it was August, and the guy said, ‘Let’s go out to dinner and go cruise Woodward Avenue.’ He threw me the keys and said, ‘You drive, you’re buying it.’… It was great. It kind of scared me at the time. I was really shocked at how well it did run. It was a little bit ratty, but it drove really nice. It still had the original carpet in it, so it was all pretty much the way it came from the factory.”

The brightly hued Javelin had gone through at least a couple of previous owners, but apparently sat untouched for many years. The man Raney bought the car from had only put 3,000 miles on it between 2001 and 2005, and the odometer showed just 32,000 ticks when he brought it home.

“The guy I bought it from bought it from a used car lot in western Michigan, and they had taken it in on a trade from a guy who had to get divorced and had to get rid of it,” Raney said. “They had parked it for a long time. I don’t know how long, but I think it sat for quite a while. Otherwise, I’m sure it would have been history.

“It hadn’t been driven much, but I think it was driven hard back when it was on the road.”

And there definitely weren’t many on the road, even when the Javelin AMXs debuted for 1968. Only 2,054 examples were produced in ’71, which was the first year the nameplate was used on the four-passenger Javelin. Previously, AMXs had been power-packed two-seaters, and the AMX monicker turned the Javelin into a completely different machine.

The 1971 Javelin was completely re-styled. Prominent, sculpted fenders, a twin-canopy roof and new full-width tail lamps made the cars look even bigger and heavier than their 3,244-lb. listed weight. The interior was completely redesigned and upgraded. It featured a curved cockpit-type instrument panel inspired by aircraft motifs. In addition to having a rear seat and entirely new profile, the new AMX had a rear-facing cowl induction hood, flush wire mesh grille and optional front and rear spoilers that were credited to Mark Donohue, who raced Javelins to victory on the SCCA Trans-Am circuit where AMC won the championship that year.

With its flamboyant design and loud colors and graphics, the AMX definitely stood out in a crowd, and it packed plenty of fun under the hood, too. The base two-barrel 360-cid V-8 was rated at 245 hp, but for a few more greenbacks added onto the AMX’s $3,432 base price, one could jump up to a 285-hp “Go Package” 360 with a four-barrel carb. If they really wanted to dust somebody between stoplights, buyers could go to the top of the menu for the 401-cid V-8 that offered 330 hp.

Raney’s car is equipped with the Go Package 360, power disc brakes and a few other extras. It came with an AM radio and no power steering. “It’s very similar to my first car, but my ’73 had air conditioning. This one does not,” he said. Raney added a power steering unit “because I’ve got a really tight corner to get in my garage. After doing that for a while, I said, ‘This is not going to work,’ so it has power steering now.”

Raney was wary of the rust problems that often plagued the Javelin’s unibodies back in the days when they were daily transportation, but he found no such issues with his orange car. “It had been Ziebarted and didn’t have much rust,” he said. “When I got it, it had probably 70 percent of the original paint, but whoever had it had put dents and creases on all the fenders in the front and back. These cars are hard to see out of, especially the back window, and whoever had it didn’t know how to aim it very well. It had creases on both back fenders, and on both sides in front. It had them in all four corners — it was pretty funny.”

Raney drove the AMX the way he bought it for about a year, then decided to take the car in and have the body worked on and repainted. That process started in April of 2007 and he had the car back and ready for car shows one year later.

In addition to the paint and bodywork, Raney swapped in a new automatic transmission, bolting in a circa-1972 AMC TorqueFlite in place of the original Borg-Warner transmission. “1971 was the last year for the Borg-Warner in these cars, and it was not really known for being a performance transmission,” he said. “In ’72, they went to the TorqueFlite… so I went with that and put a 727 [TorqueFlite] in it.”

For now, the AMX also has an Edelbrock intake and carburetor, and Holley Super Comp ceramic headers, but Raney still has all the original items and has not ruled out returning the car to its factory dress at some point.

“Actually, I was tempted to do more to soup it up, but as I got into it and realized how rare it is, I decided not to do too much. I keep thinking eventually it will get the recognition it deserves. If I do want to put it back to original, it wouldn’t take much.”

Aside from a new headliner and new seat coverings, the interior is original. One thing Raney did not consider changing was the car’s sassy color. It would have simply been too much of a personality change for a machine that was meant to seek attention.

“It’s a base coat-clear coat, so I did do [the modern] two-stage, but I stayed with the original Mustard Yellow,” he said. “After I got the car everybody kept asking, ‘Are you really going to repaint it the same color?’ It’s not my favorite color, but I didn’t really have a choice. It needed to stay this color. It looks like Velveeta cheese, that’s what I tell everybody.”

Raney has put about 3,000 miles on his AMX since acquiring the car. That’s not much, but the car has certainly met his expectations as a fun weekend cruiser and great conversation piece at car shows. He doesn’t street race and do all the crazy things he did with his first AMX back in Florida, but his orange car can still crank his heart rate up on any straight stretch of road.

“It’s fun on an entrance ramp!” he says. “You can still do the 0-to-60 in no time. It’s incredibly firm and the handling is really surprising. The power steering is really soft, so it really feels over-assisted, which is typical of cars in the early ’70s. There’s really not much steering feel with it. On the highway or on the freeway, it’s great. It’s got a ton of power, it’s quiet and it handles great at speed. It hugs the road better than you would think it would.”

Raney also has a 1968 Cadillac deVille that he is working on, and Mustang GTs from 1986 and 1994. None of the others brings back the same feeling of nostalgia that the AMX does, however. “I will hang onto it for a long time, just because it means a lot to me and brings back a lot of memories,” he said. “And nobody else has one. That’s the best thing, plus every time I drive it, it always brings a fun compliment of some kind. Positive or negative — people like to make fun of the color — it never fails to get some fun comments, and I like that.”

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The post Car of the Week: 1971 AMC Javelin AMX appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

“We made the AMX look tougher this year because it’s tougher this year,” heralded advertisements for the 1970 edition of American Motors’ two-seat sports car. It came with a new 360-cid V-8 as standard equipment. This engine developed 290 hp — 65 more than last season’s 343-cid base engine. Other standard features included courtesy lights, a heavy-duty 60-amp. battery, rear torque links (traction bars), a tachometer, a 140-mph speedometer, 14 x 6-inch styled steel wheels, fiberglass-belted Polyglas wide profile tires, an energy-absorbing anti-theft steering column, a Space-Saver spare tire, heavy-duty shocks and springs, an Autolite Model 4300 four-barrel carburetor and dual exhausts.

Base-priced at $3,395 (and advertised as “the only American sports car that costs less than $4,000”) the new AMX had a production run of 4,116 units, which made it the rarest of the three two-seat editions—1968, 1969,1970—that AMC offered. The height of the fastback coupe was reduced about one inch. While the wheelbase remained at 97 inches, the car’s overall length grew about 2 inches to 179 inches. The increase gave it a longer nose and made it look more like its Mustang-Camaro-Firebird-Cougar-Barracuda-Challenger competitors, which should have helped sales, but didn’t. It sold better when it was a totally distinct car. At 3,126 lbs., it was the heaviest AMX yet, but only by 29 lbs., so with the bigger engine the effect on performance was negligible.

Appearance-wise, the AMX got new rear lamps and a completely restyled front end that was shared with Javelin performance models. The frontal treatment featured a grille that was flush with the hood and a redesigned bumper that housed the “mutant square” parking lamps. A horizontally divided, crosshatched grille insert with four very prominent, bright horizontal moldings was used. AMX lettering filled a gap at the center of the second and third moldings. The grille also incorporated circular rally lights and the bumper included an air scoop system to cool the front brakes. The restyled hood had a large ram-induction scoop that took in cold air for the engine.
Inside the AMX cockpit were new contoured high-back bucket seats with integral head restraints and a completely redesigned instrument panel. An exclusive Corning safety windshield was also available.

An all-synchromesh “four-on-the-floor” transmission with a Hurst shifter was standard. Performance options included the AMX 390-cid V-8 with 325 hp and a close-ratio four-speed manual transmission. Very desirable today is the code 391-392 “Go-Package,” that was available on 360-powered AMXs for $299 and on 390-powered AMXs for $384. It included power front disc brakes, F70-14 raised white-letter tires, a handling package, a heavy-duty cooling system and a functional Ram-Air hood scoop.

The metal dashboard plates affixed to 1970 models were numbered 014469 to 18584. This was the final year for the original type AMX. Although the nameplate was to be used again on Javelin- and Hornet-based models, the two-seater AMX was the true sports car and the real high-performance edition.

Eric Dahlquist wrote up the ‘70 AMX in the December 1969 edition of Motor Trend and summed it up as “one of the better constructed cars around.” The test car had the optional 390-cid V-8 that produced 325 hp at 5000 rpm and 420 lbs.-ft. of torque at 3000 rpm. It drove through the Borg-Warner four-speed gearbox to a 3.54:1 rear axle. Zero-to-60 mph took 6.56 seconds and Dahlquist did the standing-start quarter-mile in 14.68 seconds at 92 mph. Top speed in fourth gear was recorded as 109 mph.

PRODUCTION

Series Body/Style Body Type Factory Shipping Production
Number Number & Seating Price Weight Total
AMX — SERIES 30 — V-8
30 7039-7 2d HT-2P $3,395 3,126 lbs. 4,116

ENGINES
Base V-8: Overhead valves. Cast-iron block. Displacement: 360 cid. Bore and stroke: 4.08 x 3.44 inches. Compression ratio: 10.0:1. Advertised hp: 290 at 4800 rpm. Advertised torque: 395 at 3200 rpm. Five main bearings. Hydraulic valve lifters. Carburetor: Motorcraft 4300 Series four-barrel. Exhaust system: Single standard, duals optional, duals standard on AMX.

Optional V-8: Overhead valves. Cast-iron block. Displacement: 390 cid. Bore and stroke: 4.17 x 3.57 inches. Compression ratio: 10.0:1. Advertised hp: 325 at 5000 rpm. Advertised torque: 420 at 3200 rpm. Five main bearings. Forged crank and rods. Hydraulic valve lifters. Carburetor: Motorcraft 4300 Series four-barrel. Exhaust system: Duals standard on all models with 390 engine.

OPTIONS
Shift-Command automatic transmission. Close-ratio four-speed manual transmission with floor shift. AMX V-8 390-cid/325-hp four-barrel engine ($11). Heavy-duty 70-amp battery ($13). Axle ratios, all optional ($10). Heavy-duty cooling, standard with air ($16). Dual exhaust, as separate option ($31). Twin-Grip positive traction rear axle ($43). Power brakes ($43). Power steering ($102). Air con¬ditioning ($380). Rear bumper guards ($13). Command Air ventilation system, without air ($41). Tinted glass. Two-tone finish with “black shadow” treatment ($52). Rally side stripes, solid color ($32). Power front disc brakes ($84). Eight-track stereo tape with manual radio/twin rear speakers ($195). Leather-trimmed bucket seats ($34). Quick-ratio manual steering, for racing ($16). Tachometer and 140 mph speedometer with V-8 ($50). Shift-Command, floor control AMX with “390” V-8 ($118). The Code 39 1/2 Go-Package retailed for $298.85 on the “360” AMX and $383.90 on the “390” AMX. It included one of these engines, power front disc brakes, F70-14 blackwall tires with raised white letters, Handling Package, heavy-duty cooling system, and functional Ram-Air induction scoop.

COLLECTIBILITY

By the heyday of the muscle car era, the landscape of domestic automakers had thinned to the “Big Three” and American Motors Corp. (AMC). Often defined as the “David” going up against the multiple “Goliaths” in Chrysler Corp., Ford Motor Co., and General Motors, AMC nonetheless distinguished itself with a series of performance cars that had appealing design. One of its stand-out performers was the two-seater fastback AMX that, in 1970, was in its final year of production in that configuration. The AMX name would live on affixed to future versions of the Javelin and Hornet.

Survivors of the 4,116 AMX fastbacks produced in ’70 are coveted among muscle car fans, especially the AMC enthusiasts, a loyal group of devotees who take pride in ownership of a product from the “underdog” manufacturer. While the ’70 AMX might not rank in value with the more famous two-seater models in the Chevy Corvette and first-generation Ford Thunderbird, it’s just as powerful and as much of a thrill ride while being far more affordable at $37,000 to $45,000 in prime condition. 

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The post Car of the Week: 1970 AMC AMX appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.