AMC's Sports Car: 1968-70 AMX (Part 1/2: beginnings-1969)

Hoods didn't come any longer, nor decks any shorter. - AMX design philosophy

THE BEGINNINGS

It’s 1966, the muscle car era is in, the Ford Mustang is in its second year, and Kenosha, Wisconsin based American Motors is still making more or less stodgy economy cars. In an attempt to shed themselves of this reputation, they begin showing off a series of new and exciting cars at their “Project IV” car showing tour. Two cars at the 1966 show used this name, the “AMX”- a fiberglass two seater, and the “AMX-II”- a four seater car.

The two AMX concepts were big crowd pleasers at the touring shows and, for seemingly the first time, got people excited to drive an AMC.

AMC’s board chairman Robert B. Evans, himself often criticising the company’s model range as being, “too conservative”, as well as promising to, “shake things up in Kenosha”, requested a car like the AMX to be put into production to appeal to the performance-oriented youthful market, his wish would be granted.

DEVELOPMENT

Development of the car began that same year, 1966, with two programs starting simotaniously. One was to develop a car off of the AMX’s sister car, the Javelin, the other a new fiberglass platform. Eventually, the fiberglass idea was dropped in favor of the cost-savings method of basing the new car on the Javelin by chopping 12 inches off the car and shortening the wheelbase by one inch. Like all of AMC’s other passenger cars, it would be unibody construction. The “Ramble” seat was also axed.

The AMX was the first steel-bodied two-seater since the 1955-57 Ford Thunderbird and, at the time, was the only other American two-seater on sale, the other obviously being the Chevrolet Corvette. Speaking of the Corvette, the AMX had a one inch shorter wheelbase than the Corvette’s (97in-2,464mm versus the Corvette’s 98in-2,489mm) and at an MSRP sticker price of $3,245 ($22,836 in today’s money), was also more than $1,000 less than the Corvette’s MSRP.

AMC’s two-seater was ready to be put into production.

The only American sports car that costs less than $3,500. - AMX advertisement

1968

The AMC AMX was released on February 24, 1968, five months after the Javelin to praise from the automotive press. All sorts of road tests led to people describing it as a “handsome two-seater with American-style acceleration and European-style handling”.

Available engines in the AMX were all V8s. The base engine was a 290 CID with 225 BHP. Next up was a 343 CID rated at 290 BHP. Finally, the big-dog 390 CID “AMX”, rated at 315 BHP and 425 lbs of torque.

Transmission choices were either a Borg-Warner T-10 4 speed manual or a 3 speed “Shift-Command” automatic.

AMC only sold about 6,725 AMXs in it’s first year, compared to the 55,125 of the AMX’s sister car, the Javelin, and the 28,566 Corvettes sold that year. AMC knew they would never sell as many compared to the competition and they never intended for them to sell as many either, they likened it to a sort of halo car. AMC even put in a badge on the interior saying which number AMX you had.

AMX preserves the status quo this year, being virtually unchanged, remains an absolute delight to drive. -Popular Mechanics, 1969

1969

The 1969 AMX remained fairly identical to the previous year, the biggest, and probably the most important change was the changing from the Borg-Warner T-10 4 speed to a new Hurst 4 speed in January 1969. The “Shift-Command” automatic remained. There was also a $52 increase in price to $3,297.

AMC also created a handful of Super-Stock AMXs for 1969. These AMXs had the 390 CID V8, but with increased compression ratio to 12.3:1, custom Doug’s headers, and a new exhaust system. AMC factory rated these at 340 BHP, but the NHRA found that they actually made around 420 BHP.

Playboy also gave the 1968 Playmate of the Year, Angela Dorian, a 1968 AMX in 1969. The car was specially painted in Playmate Pink from the factory.

1970 and beyond

If you’ve gotten this far, thank you so much for reading all of this, I’ve decided that this article is big enough and will warrant a part 2 in a little bit. As stated, I will cover 1970 and beyond in part 2.

Let me know what you guys think so far, I know it’s a little long-winded, I may do more of these, covering cars I feel deserve more time in the limelight.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this article and/or learned something, have a happy fourth of July, I’ll see you in part 2.

-Nick