Ate Up With Motor’s Aaron Severson (2023) stopped by Curbside Classic last week to post an epic series of comments about American Motors. The thing that most struck me about his 11 comments — which totaled around 1,200 words — was the degree to which he embraced conventional wisdom regarding the independent automaker’s fate.
I have a lot of respect for Severson’s research and writing. He strikes me as one of the most detail-oriented and self-aware American automotive historians on the web. So the point of this post isn’t to wag a finger at him, but rather to bring additional facts to the table and test the logic of some of his assumptions.
My questions start with relatively simple factual issues. The farther down you go, the more the questions deal with interpretation of historical events. In other words, where viewpoints can reasonably differ. Like any other field of study, U.S. automotive history has multiple “schools of thought.”
1. Did the Ambassador prove AMC couldn’t do luxury?
Comment threads will invariably include takes with varying levels of astuteness. That was certainly the case with the thread Severson joined, which was attached to a post about the 1967 Rambler Rebel.
The thread morphed into a discussion about whether AMC would have been more viable if management had made different decisions. For example, J P Cavanaugh (2023) suggested that one market niche AMC could have exploited was a mid-sized car with luxurious features akin to a big Cadillac or Buick.
Severson (2023c) quite rightly pushed back on that idea but was arguably a little too glib. He noted that AMC had fielded an “extra-plush Ambassador, the DPL, although it was nothing to threaten the Plymouth VIP.”
If we step back from subjective takes on “coolness” and instead focus on production data, the Ambassador was one of AMC’s biggest successes in the second half of the 1960s. Output tripled from under 19,000 units in 1964 to a peak of over 76,000 in 1969. That dwarfed Javelin/AMX production.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the Ambassador’s top-end series mostly outsold the Plymouth VIP and its successors in five out of seven years between 1967 and 1973 (not including wagons). This was despite being saddled with two disadvantages.
One disadvantage was that AMC marketed the Ambassador as a big car when it was merely an intermediate with a stretched snout. Thus, the AMC didn’t compare well in terms of roominess with truly full-sized cars such as the Plymouth (go here for further discussion).
Another disadvantage: AMC was so cash strapped that the Ambassador had by far the fewest styling updates between 1968 and 1973 of any big American car — only a front and rear facelift in 1969-70 that involved new sheetmetal.
In contrast, the Plymouth had an average number of updates, including a complete redesign (1969), a reskinning (1972) and two facelifts (1970, 1973) during that time period.
Indeed, in 1972 — the year when Plymouth outproduced AMC by the largest margin — the Fury had received a major reskinning whereas the Ambassador was in its third year of no sheetmetal changes.
To underline what he saw as the Ambassador’s lack of competitiveness, Severson (2023c) linked to an image of a 1967 Ambassador DPL’s interior and stated, “(I)t featured upholstery appealing, to put it delicately, to rarefied tastes.” Which raises the question: Compared to what?
In key respects the Ambassador was more comparable to mid-sized luxury models such as the Buick Skylark, Ford Torino and Mercury Montego MX Brougham and their top-end successors, such as the 1973 replacement for the Skylark called the Century Luxus/Regal. So let’s take a look at their production levels in the graph below (not including wagons).
The output of the Ambassador DPL and its top-of-line successors — the SST and Brougham — was fairly competitive until the Ford Motor Company and General Motors substantially redesigned their mid-sized lineups in 1972-73. At that point, the largely unchanged Ambassador was left in the dust.
2. Was AMC unable to match the competition’s quality?
Severson (2023c) also argued against a luxury mid-sized car because “AMC couldn’t match the quality of cheaper intermediate rivals” such as the Chevrolet Chevelle, let alone the pricier Buick Skylark.
This is such a broad-brush narrative that it obscures more than it illuminates. For example, AMC’s priorities dramatically shifted between the early-60s and mid-70s regarding how it designed, built and serviced its products.
During George Romney’s tenure as CEO, which stretched from 1954-62, American Motors placed an unusual emphasis on the practical aspects of car ownership rather than styling.
Senior Ramblers gained popularity not just for their exceptionally efficient design, but also for features such as an integrated heater/air conditioner, reclining seats, a three- rather than two-speed automatic transmission, dual master-cylinder brakes and ceramic-coated mufflers. These were often the kind of features you wouldn’t find on less-expensive Big Three cars when AMC introduced them.
Romney was also prescient in boosting manufacturing quality, which would become an important reason why Americans shifted to imported cars in the 1970s. For example, in the 1962 marketing pitch shown below, Romney discussed a new factory initiative that gave staff the power to “stop the production lines any time quality isn’t measuring up.”
Romney’s successors — Roy Abernethy and Roy D. Chapin Jr. — threw away his approach and instead placed an emphasis on styling. Over time the Rambler’s practical advantages mostly disappeared.
Also see ‘AMC’s Roy Abernethy was confronted with three big threats in 1960s’
AMC’s quality began to decline in 1963 and reached a dangerous point in 1967, when redesigned senior models were unusually stylish and roomy but suffered from mediocre roadworthiness and manufacturing defects. Most alarmingly, the gas tank leaked under hard braking — which led Consumer Reports to give the Ambassador an “unacceptable” rating (Beckenbaugh, 2014). Are we surprised that AMC sales fell to their lowest level since 1958?
AMC management didn’t begin to resurrect Romney’s emphasis on quality until 1972, when Chapin introduced a Buyer Protection Plan that included clamping down on manufacturing defects, improving dealer service, and ditching archaic features such as vacuum-powered windshield wipers and a balky automatic transmission.
This resulted in AMC cars ranking better in quality. For example, Popular Mechanics found in a survey of owners that the 1973 Matador rated higher than its 1970 predecessor, the Rebel, “on many important aspects — quality, ride, and handling. They also point out fewer mechanical defects and claim better dealer service,” wrote Michael Lamm. He concluded that AMC “must be doing something right. Or righter” because the Matador was “basically the same car as the 1970 Rebel” (1973, p. 133-134).
Severson (2023f) rightly noted that switching to another automatic transmission before 1972 depended on whether it would have been available. I would add that all of the other improvements made in 1972 could have occurred years earlier.
The lesson I draw from this trajectory is that there was no intrinsic reason why AMC couldn’t mostly match — if not exceed — the quality of its competitors. Rather, it was a management choice.
3. Was a Europeanesque coupe not worth trying?
Severson (2023e) also brushed aside Daniel Stern’s (2023) “dreamy-dream land” idea of selling the IKA-Renault Torino in the United States. That was a legendary grand touring coupe and sedan built in Argentina with a modified compact Rambler body (Wikipedia, 2023; Margeit, 2020).
The top-end Rogue two-door hardtop, Severson countered, had performance “very similar” to the Torino “with less fuss, and it didn’t look THAT different.” And since the “Rogue sold barely 10,000 copies in total in 1967–1969 (not counting the Hurst SC/Rambler), this does not appear to have been an untapped goldmine.”
Severson’s response made sense if you took Stern’s idea literally — of selling the actual Torino in the United States. Importing it would not have helped AMC keep its factories busy, and the car needed to be “federalized” anyway. So a more realistic debate would have been whether a Torino-like coupe and sedan would have been a useful addition to AMC’s lineup.
Also see ‘Rambler pays price for not listening to Car and Driver magazine’
That said, I question how the Rogue’s sales could be a proxy for the potential market for a Torino-type model. The Rogue was neither suitably equipped nor was it marketed as a Europeanesque grand touring coupe. In addition, after 1967 the Rogue was decontented and virtually ignored, presumably so it wouldn’t draw sales away from the Javelin.
A Torino-type model might not have become an “untapped goldmine.” However, that doesn’t strike me as the best standard for a model based upon an existing high-volume body. Even if sales were relatively low, they could still have generated incremental profits while helping to improve AMC’s image.
I could see a well-designed, Torino-style coupe and sedan developing a cult following — and giving the automaker better street credibility with import-oriented car magazines than the two-seater AMX or the SC/Hurst Rambler.
4. Was the Javelin the best use of limited resources?
Severson (2023a) argued that the “Javelin was a desperately needed step in trying to fix AMC’s hopelessly uncool image.”
This suggests that he may think along the same lines as Patrick Foster, who has excused the mostly weak sales of the Javelin and AMX by arguing that these cars “went a long way toward changing AMC’s image in the marketplace — just as intended” (2021, P. 63).
The problem with this narrative is that AMC’s image change did not translate into substantially better sales. Passenger-car output from 1968 to 1972 mostly hovered below the automaker’s breakeven point of 275,000 units (Business Week, 1970). And in 1971 production sank to under 236,000 units, which was not much higher than in 1967, when the automaker teetered on the brink of insolvency.
Let’s think about this for a moment. Between 1967 and 1971 AMC had completed a massive new-product blitz that covered the full-sized, intermediate, compact, subcompact and pony car fields. In addition, the Rambler name was ditched and even the corporate logo and dealer decor were dramatically redesigned. With all that new coolness, how come AMC sales were still bad?
The data suggests that one reason why AMC did not bounce back more strongly in the late-60s and early-70s was because the automaker overextended itself with too much product proliferation. The Javelin was a major part of the problem.
The Javelin hurt AMC’s financial viability in two ways. First, the pony car likely lost money because it only met its sales target of 35,000 units in two of a seven-year production run (go here for further discussion). Second, the money that was spent on the Javelin was not available for AMC’s high-volume cars, which desperately needed more rapid updates and broader lineups to stay competitive.
Management made matters worse by not sharing any of the Javelin’s major body parts with other AMC cars. And then they pretty much flushed money down the toilet by coming out with the poor-selling, two-seater AMX.
The tragedy of the Javelin is that it might have been profitable if AMC’s next-generation compacts had shared its body. Instead, $40 million was spent developing a brand-new body for the 1970 Hornet (Foster, 1993). In addition, the compact no longer shared even inner body parts with AMC’s mid-sized cars.
Post-Romney leadership not only spread AMC’s resources thin with too many entries using unique sheetmetal, but they also failed to recognize that trying to keep up with the latest Detroit styling fads was a losing game. Curbside Classic commentator Geeber (2023) did a good job of explaining why:
“AMC management needed to remember that Romney watched tooling costs carefully because he realized that a small company could never hope to compete head-on with GM. Restyling the senior cars in 1965 and 1967, and then trying to turn the Ambassador into its own model with unique sheetmetal, were dead ends from a profit standpoint . . . and Romney would have realized that.”
The Javelin was but one symptom of a larger problem — post-Romney management paid alarmingly little attention to economies of scale. Severson (2023d) mostly sidestepped this issue although he acknowledged that “one could certainly argue” that fielding two platforms “was still one more than AMC could really afford.”
5. Could AMC have survived solely on compacts?
Commentators such as VanillaDude (2023) suggested various scenarios where AMC dropped its mid-sized cars and concentrated on compacts.
Severson (2023d) raised questions about those scenarios and concluded, “I’m struggling to see what AMC could have done in [the compact] class that would have been a ‘killer app’ against varied competition that often had the advantage of much bigger dealer networks and ad budgets.”
I would counter that the level of competition in the 1970s was not so intense that AMC needed a “killer app.” After all, the automaker’s early-70s breakeven point of 275,000 units was rather modest — and could have been lower if AMC had put all of its passenger cars on a compact modular platform.
The Plymouth Valiant is a useful case study. In the first half of the 1970s the compact’s production could have single-handedly kept AMC’s factories busy. Yet the Valiant was hardly a “killer app.” It had an old body with rather dowdy styling and a limited lineup, both in terms of body styles and models. If the Valiant could sell that well, then a more modern and comprehensive lineup of compacts by AMC presumably could have also been successful.
Severson might argue that Plymouth had advantages of scale, such as a larger dealer network and advertising budget. That may have been true, but it wasn’t enough to give the VIP a decisive edge over top-end Ambassadors.
Nor was this an anomaly — the Javelin topped the Plymouth Barracuda’s output in six out of seven years. Although the Barracuda’s sales may have been dampened by the Duster 340/360’s, the Javelin may have had a similar experience with Hornets and Gremlins equipped with the X sporty package (production breakouts not available).
Severson (2023b) expressed skepticism about focusing on compacts partly because their sales were lower and they were less profitable than intermediates. He also argued that abandoning the intermediate market “would have been a tough swallow for AMC dealers, who had been used to [Rambler] Classic sales keeping the lights on.”
This narrative strikes me as having two weaknesses. First, compacts sold respectably compared to intermediates in the second half of the 1960s when you include pony cars (which were merely dressed-up compacts). It’s true that regular compacts bottomed out at around 524,000 units in 1967, but that partly reflected Detroit’s lopsided emphasis on pony cars. Automakers loved this market segment because buyers tended to add lots of bells and whistles, which boosted profitability.
Between 1966-68 almost all compacts were pruned of high-end, sporty models as well as two-door hardtops and convertibles. Only the Rambler and Ford Falcon kept their wagons, but the latter was only a decontented, mid-sized Fairlane. The attitude seemed to be that compacts were only for misers. If you wanted something fancier, you had to either step up to a pony car or an intermediate.
Also see ‘Compact cars became the neglected stepchildren of U.S. automakers’
One partial exception to that trend was the Dodge Dart. Unlike its Plymouth Valiant sibling, the redesigned 1967 Dart kept its hardtop and convertible, and offered high-performance models. Not surprisingly, for 1967 the Dart was the top-selling compact, with output hitting 155,000 units — and steadily rising to almost 198,000 in 1969. Presumably Dodge was less inclined to cut back its compact lineup because the brand didn’t offer a pony car until 1970.
Another data point worth considering is that in 1968 AMC’s smaller cars began to consistently outproduce its larger cars. Just three years later, mid-sized platform production had sunk so low — to roughly 85,000 units — that it made up less than half of the automaker’s total passenger-car output.
The second weakness with Severson’s narrative is that it doesn’t acknowledge the importance of AMC pioneering new niches rather than competing directly against the Big Three. Since the automaker was being outgunned in the mid-sized field, why not depart it and focus elsewhere, much like AMC did in the mid-50s when competition got too intense in the premium-priced field?
For example, what about a family car that was positioned in size and price between the intermediates and larger compacts such as the Dodge Dart? That may sound suspiciously like a mid-70s Plymouth Volare, but it would have merely been a more modern interpretation of the 1962-64 Classic/Ambassador.
A well-designed platform could have allowed AMC to field a range of cars such as a luxury compact, a pony car, a personal coupe and an entry-level compact. If you are having trouble visualizing what that might have looked like, consider how in the early-70s Chrysler of Australia modified the compact A-body used in the U.S. to offer a broader range of models. Yet they maintained a level of interchangeability that was more AMC-like that AMC (go here for further discussion).
AMC can help us better understand why Detroit failed
Curbside Classic Publisher Paul Niedermeyer (2023) commented that one challenge in analyzing AMC’s situation is “placing oneself back then” rather than “from today’s vantage point. Because with hindsight, it’s easy to say just stick with smaller cars as the energy crisis will change everything.”
Niedermeyer’s caution is a laudable quality for an automotive historian. But in this case, “today’s vantage point” lines up well with Romney’s perspective. He had advocated that AMC stay the course with his early-60s strategy of producing a narrow line of relatively compact cars that emphasized practicality and superior build quality over rapid-fire restylings.
We can only speculate as to how successful Romney’s approach would have been if he had stayed at AMC longer or his successors had built upon his strategy (go here for further discussion). Even so, I would argue that we would be remiss if we didn’t consider how Romney’s approach had striking similarities to that of the imports, which saw their car and truck market share soar from 5 percent in 1965 to 14 percent in 1970.
AMC was like the proverbial canary in the mine shaft. If we can better understand why it lost viability as an independent maker of passenger cars, that can help us gain a deeper sense of why Detroit failed to adequately respond to the imports in the 1960s and 1970s.
As I mentioned at the outset, I think that Severson is one of the best automotive historians currently writing on the web. It is possible that he and I may always reflect different schools of thought about AMC’s fate, but my hope is that this post helps move the debate to a more granular level.
NOTES:
Production and market share figures were calculated from data by the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Flammang (1992), Gunnell (2002) and Wards Auto (2017). Data were often mixed and matched from multiple sources because of incomplete, conflicting and obviously incorrect figures. Calendar-year AMC production from Hyde (2009). Prices and specifications came from above sources as well as Automobile Catalog (2023).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Automobile Catalog; 2023. “Full detailed specifications listing and photo gallery.” Accessed April 6.
- Beckenbaugh, Greg; 2014. “Curbside Classic: 1968 Ambassador SST — Borrowing Is A Deadly Sin.” Curbside Classic. Posted April 30.
- Business Week; 1970. “American Motors’ crucial year.” Oct. 3: p. 17.
- Cavanaugh, J P; 2023. Commentator in “Vintage Car Life Road Test: Two 1967 Rambler Rebels; 770 Six And 343 V8 SST – Styling Good; Performance Disappointing.” Curbside Classic. Posted 9:51 a.m., March 31.
- Flammang, James M.; 1992. Standard Catalog of Imported Cars, 1946-1990. First Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Foster, Patrick R.; 1993. American Motors: The Last Independent. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- ——; 2021. “1971-74 AMC Javelin Aiming at a Smaller Target.” Collectible Automobile. Dec. issue: pp. 62-73.
- Geeber; 2023. Commentator in “Vintage Car Life Road Test: Two 1967 Rambler Rebels; 770 Six And 343 V8 SST – Styling Good; Performance Disappointing.” Curbside Classic. Posted 7:43 a.m., April 1.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Hyde, Charles K; 2009. Storied Independent Automakers: Nash, Hudson, and American Motors. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI.
- Lamm, Michael; 1973. “PM Owners Report: AMC Matador: It’s a strong and agile, but thirsty, Matador!” Popular Mechanics. May issue: pp. 132-135.
- Margeit, Rob; 2020. “A cultural icon that captured the heart of a nation.” Car Advice. Posted Aug. 18.
- Niedermeyer, Paul; 2023. Commentator in “Vintage Car Life Road Test: Two 1967 Rambler Rebels; 770 Six And 343 V8 SST – Styling Good; Performance Disappointing.” Curbside Classic. Posted 9:18 a.m., March 31.
- Severson, Aaron; 2023a. Commentator in “Vintage Car Life Road Test: Two 1967 Rambler Rebels; 770 Six And 343 V8 SST – Styling Good; Performance Disappointing.” Curbside Classic. Posted 8:59 a.m., March 31.
- ——; 2023b. Commentator in “Vintage Car Life Road Test: Two 1967 Rambler Rebels; 770 Six And 343 V8 SST – Styling Good; Performance Disappointing.” Curbside Classic. Posted 9:30 a.m., March 31.
- ——; 2023c. Commentator in “Vintage Car Life Road Test: Two 1967 Rambler Rebels; 770 Six And 343 V8 SST – Styling Good; Performance Disappointing.” Curbside Classic. Posted 10:34 a.m., March 31.
- ——; 2023d. Commentator in “Vintage Car Life Road Test: Two 1967 Rambler Rebels; 770 Six And 343 V8 SST – Styling Good; Performance Disappointing.” Curbside Classic. Posted 11:29 a.m., March 31.
- ——; 2023e. Commentator in “Vintage Car Life Road Test: Two 1967 Rambler Rebels; 770 Six And 343 V8 SST – Styling Good; Performance Disappointing.” Curbside Classic. Posted 11:42 a.m., March 31.
- ——; 2023f. Commentator in “Vintage Car Life Road Test: Two 1967 Rambler Rebels; 770 Six And 343 V8 SST – Styling Good; Performance Disappointing.” Curbside Classic. Posted 11:52 a.m., March 31.
- Stern, Daniel; 2023. Commentator in “Vintage Car Life Road Test: Two 1967 Rambler Rebels; 770 Six And 343 V8 SST – Styling Good; Performance Disappointing.” Curbside Classic. Posted 11:29 a.m., March 31.
- VanillaDude; 2023. Commentator in “Vintage Car Life Road Test: Two 1967 Rambler Rebels; 770 Six And 343 V8 SST – Styling Good; Performance Disappointing.” Curbside Classic. Posted 9:59 a.m., March 31.
- Wards Auto; 2017. “U.S. Total Vehicle Sales Market Share by Company.”
- Wikipedia; 2023. “IKA-Renault Torino.” Page last modified March 20.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- autohistorypreservationsociety.org: Mercedes-Benz (1979); Rambler (1961)
- oldcaradvertising.com: AMC (1972); Plymouth Duster (1970); Rambler (1963)
- oldcarbrochures.org: AMC (1967, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1973); Buick Skylark (1967); Chrysler of Australia (1971); Mercury Cougar (1968); Plymouth VIP (1967, 1968); Rambler (1962, 1963, 1967, 1969)
A.M.C. blew it by not focusing on two platforms: The American compact which became the Hornet after its redesign and the intermediate, which was the 1963 Classic / Ambassador, which was restyled, but I do not know if the platform was ever completely revamped. When one realizes that the evolution of the U.S. automobile market, with the Oldsmobile Cutlass becoming the top-selling car in 1986, a savvy A.M.C. management could have developed a rear-drive, front-engine intermediate with contemporary styling and with a station wagon variant, might have kept A.M.C. as a niche automaker, as its sixes and V-8s were relatively modern and fuel-efficient. I wonder why this path was not the one chosen by management and its board of directors ?
Seems like AMC’s mistake was developing the Ambassador/Rebel platform in 1967. Wasn’t the 1964 Rambler American just a shrink of the 1963 Classic/Ambassador platform? AMC just needed one platform, with a stretch and a shrink. I think Chrysler was wise with all its K car derivatives in the 80’s, though the Fifth Avenue/Imperial was a stretch too far.
Troy, the platform used by the 1963 Classic/Ambassador was around four inches wider than the one used by the 1964 American. Until 1965 the two platforms shared outer-door sheetmetal and until 1967 inner-door structure.
In theory, the American could have been redesigned to once again share the 1967 mid-sized car’s inner-door structure but the outer-door sheetmetal — whose width was increased around three inches to make the cars look bigger — would have arguably been too wide for an entry-level compact.
One of Patrick Foster’s AMC books (2013) has a photo of a mockup of a redesigned Matador coupe that looks like it might have been designed in such a way that the door sheetmetal could have been shared with a future Javelin.
The first-generation Javelin was essentially an updated compact version of the 1967 redesign of the mid-sized platform (so it is possible that the Javelin shared the inner-door panels with the big AMCs). The proposed 1972-73 redesign was rejected in favor of the 1974 Matador coupe, which didn’t share sheetmetal even with the mid-sized sedans and wagons. I suppose that might have been a plausible gamble if the car had been a luxury coupe along the lines of the hot-selling Monte Carlo, but the market for sporty mid-sized coupes had been shrinking since 1970 (go here, here and here for further discussion).
It’s difficult to overstate the recklessness of AMC management in the 1970s.