The 1974 Ambassador’s ZiL-like styling shows how AMC had succumbed to “GM envy” in the 1970s. This car was so big and ugly that it was doomed to failure. Yet American Motors wasted scarce resources on it anyway.
Why? Because management was intent on mimicking General Motors. That meant continuing to field an entry in the full-sized, low-priced field even though the Ambassador had sold poorly for years.
To make matters worse, AMC styling chief Richard Teague gave the Ambassador one of the weirdest facelifts of the 1970s.
This car was hardly AMC’s biggest flop of its dying years, but it shows the depths of management incompetence. Let’s take a look under the hood. Along the way, we will present a fake design that responds to J. P. Cavanaugh’s (2014) question: How would you have saved the 1974 AMC Ambassador?
The poster child for automotive obesity in the 1970s
The 1974 Ambassador is interesting partly because of its sheer ugliness. How did that happen? But even more importantly, this is a good example of Detroit’s obsession with bigger, glitzier and more powerful cars. I’m hard-pressed to recall another U.S. car that gained so much excess sheetmetal during that era.
The 1974 sedan was 30 inches longer, three inches wider and more than 700 pounds heavier than its 1963 predecessor. What makes those numbers even more compelling is that the 1974 models were based on the same platform that was introduced in 1963. All that growth translated into only two inches more rear-seat legroom and a bit of extra trunk space.
The 1974 Ambassador was hopelessly uncompetitive — but even in its best years did little more than undercut the viability of AMC’s once-popular mid-sized cars (Old Car Brochures).
This is the kind of bloat one might expect of GM. Yet it came from AMC, which broke sales records for an independent automaker by pioneering compact cars. In the late-50s AMC’s crusading CEO George Romney railed against the standard-sized car as a “Dinosaur in the Driveway” (Hyde, 2009; p. 186). Yet the 1974 Ambassador was longer than a 1957 Cadillac.
1963 Ambassador anticipated 1970s luxury compacts
The 1963 Rambler was arguably the most space-efficient, modern U.S. family car prior to the advent of front-wheel drive. Despite a compact 190-inch length, the Rambler was roomy because of a tall greenhouse and short front and rear overhangs. The Rambler also had an unusually short wheelbase ahead of the cowl.
In addition, the Rambler’s thin doors allowed 60 inches of front hip room even though the car was only 74 inches wide. All in all, these cars were hardly sporting, but they had an almost European level of space efficiency.
At that point the Ambassador was merely a top-of-line model. Even so, it anticipated the luxury compacts of the mid-70s by offering custom features typically only available on big U.S. cars.
1974 Ambassador was a ZiL-like caricature
In contrast, the 1974 Ambassador vainly tried to look like a full-sized car even though it was based on AMC’s mid-sized platform. The car’s over-amped styling was most trenchantly summed up by Eric Peters:
“A jutting front end with weirdly disproportionate lines suggested a mechanical incarnation of a freakish, steroid-addled pro-wrestler. The headlights bulged out like a gut-hooked river catfish. Overall, it looked more Eastern European than American — and it’s worth observing that latter-day Soviet ZiL limousines seem to be blood kin.” (2004, p. 120)
Ambassador output fell 49 percent in 1974 — 13 points more than the full-sized, low-priced field — despite its more fuel-efficient size being a plus during a gas shortage (Old Car Advertisements).
The core problem with the Ambassador was that AMC did not have the money needed to field a competitive big car. Yet the automaker persisted.
Romney’s successor suffered from GM envy
Romney’s successor, Roy Abernethy, is usually blamed for AMC’s futile effort to directly compete against GM and the rest of the Big Three (e.g., Hyde, 2009; Foster, 2013). One of his first moves was to push the Ambassador upmarket.
For 1965 the nameplate became a separate line with two trim levels. And for the first time since 1961, the Ambassador received unique sheetmetal. The front end was four inches longer ahead of the cowl.
In 1965-66 the Ambassador was vaguely referred to as a luxury car but in 1967 was marketed as full sized. This shift was justified by a restyled body. Interior and trunk space modestly increased but — even more importantly — square-shouldered styling made the cars look bigger.
In 1966 AMC tried to shed its plebeian image by no longer branding Ambassadors as Ramblers. Pictured is a new DPL model (Automotive History Preservation Society)
The 1967 AMC body was the roomiest of any mid-sized car, but it didn’t match big cars. It couldn’t. On the outside the Ambassador was still roughly a foot shorter and three inches narrower than the big Chevy, Ford and Plymouth.
The 1967 Ambassador’s body grew three inches in width, two inches in wheelbase and 3.5 inches in length. However, it looked much larger. This is a 990 model (Old Car Brochures).
The Ambassador was similar in size to the 1962 “lean breed” Plymouth and Dodge. As discussed here, I have disagreed with those who have argued that downsizing these cars was a bad move.
The Chrysler twins were initially undercut by weird styling. However, another problem was marketing that usually did not focus on the practical advantages of a smaller size. These included better gas mileage and easier handling.
AMC ignored its competitive advantages
1967 Ambassador ads did not focus on the practical advantages of its smaller size. Click on image to enlarge (Old Car Advertisements).
AMC made the same mistake in marketing the 1967 Ambassador. This was compounded by quality issues resulting from a rushed redesign. For example, the gas tank spilled fuel during hard braking (auto editors of Consumer Guide, 2014). Motor Trend (Kelly,2004) only parenthetically noted this problem but Consumer Reports gave the car a “not acceptable” rating (Beckenbaugh, 2014).
I would argue that this was a big blow to AMC’s reputation. The Rambler’s rise in popularity was not just fueled by its more efficient design. For years Consumer Reports had lauded Ramblers for their superior quality. Reliability may not have been exceptional, but fit and finish were better than Big Three cars. The Rambler was the Toyota of its time — a stodgy but practical and well-built car.
Abernethy ignored all that in his quest to be more like GM. Not surprisingly, for 1967 Ambassador output fell 12 percent. More ominously, total AMC production dropped by almost 25 percent. This threw the automaker into a financial crisis. Abernethy was forced out in early 1967.
Chapin focused on the wrong kind of change
When Roy D. Chapin Jr. became CEO he distanced himself from Abernethy by advocating a “Philosophy of Difference” (Foster, 2007). However, this mainly meant unusual styling rather than functional innovation. Chapin was even more aggressive in offering a full line of cars.
For 1969 the Ambassador’s wheelbase was stretched four inches ahead of the cowl to 122 inches (top image). Then in 1970 the rear sheetmetal was revised (Old Car Brochures)
For 1969 the Ambassador got even bigger. The car gained a new front end that stretched the wheelbase to 122 inches. This was the longest in the low-priced field — but it did not increase interior room.
Why did Chapin let this happen? Patrick Foster (1993) argued that the 1969 models were locked in by the time he took charge. However, Chapin did not downsize the Ambassador later, when he had chances to do so.
AMC didn’t consolidate its lineup as sales shrank
By 1970 the sales of the mid-sized Rebel had collapsed. Meanwhile, the Ambassador’s volume had fallen to the point where the two nameplates together only totaled 110,000 units. This was an alarming drop from the 197,000 units AMC produced in 1966.
The 1967-70 Rebel had a 114-inch wheelbase. It was lengthened four inches in 1971 when the nameplate was supplanted by the Matador (Old Car Brochures).
AMC could no longer afford to field two separate lines on its mid-sized platform. Meanwhile, the company did not have an entry in the growing mid-sized luxury car field. Killing the Rebel and downsizing the Ambassador would have solved both problems.
Instead, Chapin gave the Rebel a facelift and renamed it the Matador. A luxury model would not be added until 1974. The platform’s total output fell even further during 1971-73.
AMC made a last-gasp effort to stay in full-sized field
For 1974 Chapin bet big on a new Matador coupe. Foster (1993) estimated that tooling costs were around $40 million. This was a lot of money, particularly when the coupe’s sheetmetal was not shared with the sedan and wagon. Those body styles received only enough changes to tack on newly required five-m.p.h. bumpers.
The 1974 Matador coupe’s swoopy sheetmetal did not lend itself to a four-door sedan or wagon. Thus, when sales took a nosedive it was impossible for AMC to recover its considerable investment (Old Car Brochures).
Car designers working on a tight budget can only do so much to update an old body. The Ambassador still had sheetmetal dating back to 1967. By Detroit standards, that was ancient. Even so, AMC turned what was merely an old-looking car into a downright ugly one.
The Matador’s nose was uglier than the Ambassador’s — even after a quick grille redo in 1975. The wagon had more stable sales than the coupe and sedan. Pictured is a 1976 model (Old Car Brochures).
Output fell by 49 percent, so the Ambassador was dropped at the end of the 1974 model year. The Matador sedan and wagon also did not sell well despite having two advantages. AMC’s upright body was the roomiest of any mid-sized car while was also being the lightest. Should not a fuel-efficient family car have done well when gas prices were high?
The biggest problem was that the cars were ugly. However, AMC also continued to do a bad job of marketing their practical advantages.
The Matador’s rear looked odd even before five-m.p.h. bumpers. However, having sedans share the same rear bumper as wagons resulted in a real eyesore (Old Car Brochures).
Even though sales slowed to a trickle, the Matador was kept alive into 1978. That was the same year AMC belatedly came out with a luxury compact. The Hornet was given a facelift and renamed the Concord. The Ambassador name would have had more “brand equity,” but Chapin mostly ran away from AMC’s past.
Sales went down when AMCs got bigger
The graph below shows how the Ambassador strategy backfired. By positioning the nameplate as a full-sized car, it cannibalized sales of mid-sized cars, which were once AMC’s bread and butter. Management apparently thought this was okay because a big car could be priced higher. This would generate more profits.
The problem with this approach is it diverted scarce resources needed to keep the mid-sized cars competitive. The Rebel and Matador sold poorly because they had an overly narrow range of models, few styling updates and inadequate marketing.
The Ambassador failed to pick up the slack. Aside from a few one-year upticks due to restylings, production of the mid-sized platform fell as the Ambassador kept getting bigger.
Imagine an Ambassador with a nip and tuck
AMC could have done better in the mid-70s if it had focused on space- and fuel-efficient family cars. That would have been easy to do. AMC’s mid-sized body was so old school that it anticipated the downsized cars of the late-70s.
The 1974 Ambassador’s styling could have been improved even without major sheetmetal changes. The trick was to keep a facelift clean and functional. That could have been done by switching to the Matador sedan’s shorter front fenders and using interchangeable front and rear bumpers.
The Ambassador could have been shrunk to roughly the size of a Granada or Volare without reducing interior or trunk space, Click on image to enlarge; base photograph courtesy Old Car Brochures.
The fake Ambassador shown above goes a step further. The front and rear fenders, rear doors, hood and trunk lid are all restyled. This could have cut roughly 20 inches in length from the actual 1974 model. Eight inches were removed by shrinking the wheelbase back to the Rebel’s footprint. Meanwhile, a squared-off rear deck could have shed inches without reducing trunk space.
A roomier competitor to the Ford Granada
These changes could have cut more than 300 pounds in weight. This would have brought the car’s weight close to the compact Ford Granada.
The Ambassador’s front-door sheetmetal is carried over in the photoshopped image. However, reskinning the entire body would have allowed the width to shrink back to its original 74 inches. This would have been similar to the Granada and Volare.
AMC could have ended up with a competitive luxury compact. Just as importantly, the car’s body had been produced long enough that its development costs had likely been largely — if not completely — paid for. The fake Ambassador could thus have earned a profit with lower sales than the Matador coupe, which had costly changes such as a new windshield.
A modular platform would have been even better
My scenario isn’t even the ideal one. That would have been to put the Ambassador on the Hornet platform — along with all other AMC cars. Economies of scale would have been far better than by keeping two platforms.
The new Concord sold much better than its predecessor, the Hornet, but in 1978 output totaled only 121,000 units — far too low to help AMC to make money on passenger cars (Old Car Brochures).
Of course, this is not an original idea. Foster (1993) argued that AMC should have come out with a luxury compact instead of the Matador coupe.
The fake design was created mainly to show how far AMC had strayed from its roots — and how easy it would have been to return to them.
All of the three cars pictured — a 1974 Ambassador, Hornet and Javelin — failed to keep up with the times because AMC could not afford to maintain such a broad lineup (Old Car Brochures).
AMC could have helped Detroit navigate the 1970s
The U.S. auto industry has been healthiest when it includes a diversity of approaches. AMC’s early success with compacts helped push the Big Three to bring out their own in the early-60s. A decade later AMC could have helped Detroit better respond to a second wave of imports.
The most important ingredient AMC needed was not lots of money. They merely needed to reject GM envy.
The tragedy of the 1974 Ambassador was that it could have helped lead the U.S. automakers into an era of more space-efficient family cars. Instead, it helped fuel AMC’s demise.
NOTES:
This is an expanded version of a story originally posted April 25, 2014. Production figures for individual nameplates were calculated from base data found in the Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975 (Gunnell, 2002); the Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999 (Flammang and Kowalke, 1999); and the Standard Catalog of Independents (Kowalke, 1999). Brand-level production figures are from Wikipedia (2013). Product specifications are from these books as well as the Classic Car Database (2014).
The image used to make the fake Ambassador is from an AMC brochure that contains a lot of distortion designed to make the car look longer. I was not able to fully counteract this in the photoshop.
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6 Comments
A lot of trendy (trending) buzz words in this editorial
Monday morning quarterback musings from a fan of “whatever the winning team is”. The simple matter was that AMC had nowhere to go when GM offered the ‘64 Chevelle and BOP intermediates. Look up sales figures: AMC died in ‘64. Mustang in April, along with Ford intermediates. Rambler’s unique market was now flooded.
End of story.
Dick Teague did a terrific job considering the beer and peanut styling budget. Imagine a ‘63 Chevy body restyled as a ‘64.
Psst- it wasn’t the ‘74 Ambassador, but the Matador sedan that had an ungainly snout.
GM envy, indeed. Sheesh. Look how they are squirming today. They have transformed into 2020’s AMC!
Henry, it’s true that GM became the 800-pound gorilla when it entered the mid-sized field in 1964. You might find some interesting data on that here.
In 1964 AMC produced almost 400,000 units and was solidly profitable. If they had stuck to the Romney playbook, AMC might have maintained altitude for at least somewhat longer than under Abernethy and Chapin.
Romney was best known for his championing of small cars, but his greatest strength was his grasp of economies of scale. In 1975 AMC lost money on output of around 300,000 units; Romney would have squeezed out a profit on that volume. This is because he kept a tight lid on costs, whereas Chapin overextended AMC with too many platforms.
Yup, the Matador sedan had the ugliest snout, particularly with the 1974 grille. I don’t get how Teague let that one out the door — it was a huge embarrassment.
I use the term “GM envy” because General Motors was the company that first developed the basic structure and strategy that is now used by virtually all of the world’s larger automakers. For example, look at how aggressively VW has adopted a hierarchy of brands. VW’s basic approach was once the antithesis of GM’s.
Yeah, just a little over the top. The Ambassadors and Rebel/Matador were nicely styled cars, comparable to all the big four offerings, not just GM. Nash/AMC had offered the Ambassador for generations, they always offered a larger luxury car. I see no “Zil” in these cars and quite frankly totally disagree with the opinion. Most importantly, AMC did not die. It merged with Chrysler. The transaction happened because AMC was seen a ansset/partner to increase Chrysler portfolio and shareholder vaule. There is no shame in a merger. AMC did not die.
“when sales took a nosedive it was impossible for AMC to amortize its considerable investment”. I am sorry but only bean counter discuss amortization, not car guys. I don’t really understand this comment? Tooling in the automotive industry would be depreciated on the books in three years. Since the tools and dies were used from the fall of 1973 till the summer of 1978, the assets would have been fully depreciated based on generally accepted accounting principles. With respect to amortization, I doubt that any required funding would spread payments extended beyond 1978. No auto company takes out loans to develop cars on a long term basis, these types of investments are typically short term due to the depreciation assumptions. No bank would make a loan with terms that would essentially have the auto company paying for debt on a fully depreciated asset (assets that no longer had value).
Thank you for stopping by, Joseph. I think that the 1967-73 AMCs look fine; the story’s ZiL reference is about the 1974 facelift, with its exaggerated Jimmy Durante nose and aircraft carrier rear end on the four-door sedans. Of course, styling is subjective, so we’re all welcome to have our personal preferences.
What we can say objectively is that AMC reportedly spent around $40 million on the 1974 redesign of its biggest cars. Sales for the 1974 Ambassador were so low that the nameplate was discontinued. More importantly, it is unlikely the automaker made a profit on the substantially redesigned Matador coupe because — except for the first year — production was well below what Patrick Foster estimated was the car’s breakeven point.
In the caption you quote from I’ve changed the word “amortize” to “recover” to clarify what I mean. Thank you for your feedback on that point.
My basic argument is that the Matador coupe’s failure contributed to AMC’s demise as an independent automaker. In other words, a company that could chart its own course. While it is true that there is no shame in a merger, I would also suggest that a financially healthy and independent AMC contributed a great deal to the U.S. auto industry. So my curiosity is how AMC could have survived longer without partnerships or mergers that curtailed the autonomy of its management.
A lot of trendy (trending) buzz words in this editorial
Monday morning quarterback musings from a fan of “whatever the winning team is”. The simple matter was that AMC had nowhere to go when GM offered the ‘64 Chevelle and BOP intermediates. Look up sales figures: AMC died in ‘64. Mustang in April, along with Ford intermediates. Rambler’s unique market was now flooded.
End of story.
Dick Teague did a terrific job considering the beer and peanut styling budget. Imagine a ‘63 Chevy body restyled as a ‘64.
Psst- it wasn’t the ‘74 Ambassador, but the Matador sedan that had an ungainly snout.
GM envy, indeed. Sheesh. Look how they are squirming today. They have transformed into 2020’s AMC!
Henry, it’s true that GM became the 800-pound gorilla when it entered the mid-sized field in 1964. You might find some interesting data on that here.
In 1964 AMC produced almost 400,000 units and was solidly profitable. If they had stuck to the Romney playbook, AMC might have maintained altitude for at least somewhat longer than under Abernethy and Chapin.
Romney was best known for his championing of small cars, but his greatest strength was his grasp of economies of scale. In 1975 AMC lost money on output of around 300,000 units; Romney would have squeezed out a profit on that volume. This is because he kept a tight lid on costs, whereas Chapin overextended AMC with too many platforms.
Yup, the Matador sedan had the ugliest snout, particularly with the 1974 grille. I don’t get how Teague let that one out the door — it was a huge embarrassment.
I use the term “GM envy” because General Motors was the company that first developed the basic structure and strategy that is now used by virtually all of the world’s larger automakers. For example, look at how aggressively VW has adopted a hierarchy of brands. VW’s basic approach was once the antithesis of GM’s.
Yeah, just a little over the top. The Ambassadors and Rebel/Matador were nicely styled cars, comparable to all the big four offerings, not just GM. Nash/AMC had offered the Ambassador for generations, they always offered a larger luxury car. I see no “Zil” in these cars and quite frankly totally disagree with the opinion. Most importantly, AMC did not die. It merged with Chrysler. The transaction happened because AMC was seen a ansset/partner to increase Chrysler portfolio and shareholder vaule. There is no shame in a merger. AMC did not die.
“when sales took a nosedive it was impossible for AMC to amortize its considerable investment”. I am sorry but only bean counter discuss amortization, not car guys. I don’t really understand this comment? Tooling in the automotive industry would be depreciated on the books in three years. Since the tools and dies were used from the fall of 1973 till the summer of 1978, the assets would have been fully depreciated based on generally accepted accounting principles. With respect to amortization, I doubt that any required funding would spread payments extended beyond 1978. No auto company takes out loans to develop cars on a long term basis, these types of investments are typically short term due to the depreciation assumptions. No bank would make a loan with terms that would essentially have the auto company paying for debt on a fully depreciated asset (assets that no longer had value).
Thank you for stopping by, Joseph. I think that the 1967-73 AMCs look fine; the story’s ZiL reference is about the 1974 facelift, with its exaggerated Jimmy Durante nose and aircraft carrier rear end on the four-door sedans. Of course, styling is subjective, so we’re all welcome to have our personal preferences.
What we can say objectively is that AMC reportedly spent around $40 million on the 1974 redesign of its biggest cars. Sales for the 1974 Ambassador were so low that the nameplate was discontinued. More importantly, it is unlikely the automaker made a profit on the substantially redesigned Matador coupe because — except for the first year — production was well below what Patrick Foster estimated was the car’s breakeven point.
In the caption you quote from I’ve changed the word “amortize” to “recover” to clarify what I mean. Thank you for your feedback on that point.
My basic argument is that the Matador coupe’s failure contributed to AMC’s demise as an independent automaker. In other words, a company that could chart its own course. While it is true that there is no shame in a merger, I would also suggest that a financially healthy and independent AMC contributed a great deal to the U.S. auto industry. So my curiosity is how AMC could have survived longer without partnerships or mergers that curtailed the autonomy of its management.