During his tenure as head AMC’s design, Richard Teague had the opportunity to develop quite a few sporty coupes, from the original Marlin to the Spirit hatchback. Out of all those efforts, I would propose the 1973-77 Hornet hatchback as his best overall design.
Before proceeding I should explain my selection criteria. The focus is on production cars rather than concepts such as the mid-engined AMXs. I also balance the quality of a sporty coupe’s aesthetics with its commercial success, so the Matador coupe is considered a flop despite Richard Langworth calling it “probably” Teague’s “purest work: an elegant car with smooth, gently flowing lines” (2014, p. 82).
Another consideration is whether a given sporty coupe built upon AMC’s “design DNA” or diluted it with trendy but derivative styling cues.
My sense is that many people may consider the 1968-70 Javelin to be Teague’s best work. While it was an exceptionally attractive car, I would argue that it borrowed too heavily from the Big Three to be truly distinctive. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Javelin didn’t sell all that well, with only 238,000 units produced over seven years. That averaged a paltry 34,000 cars per year.
The Hornet hatchback fixed key Javelin weaknesses
The Hornet hatchback carried over some of the Javelin’s best qualities but fixed two key weaknesses. You can quickly see a family resemblance between the two cars because of the hatchback’s coke-bottle shape, but the Hornet drew more heavily on traditional AMC styling cues.
This was a significant achievement. The hatchback managed to look like an AMC yet was modern and sporty. This was evidence that the automaker didn’t need to run away from its past in order to avoid looking dowdy.
The Hornet hatchback sold about as well as the Javelin in its first two years but then dropped to less than half of its output after that. So if you go purely by total sales, you could argue that the Javelin was more commercially successful. However, the Javelin benefitted from constant updates, including a partial reskinning after three years. In contrast, the hatchback was kept remarkably unchanged through its five-year production run. That was particularly problematic given the introduction of fresh designs from the Big Three.
Also see ‘Richard Teague’s styling helped to kill American Motors’
That said, the hatchback had one huge advantage over the Javelin from a commercial standpoint — it shared major sheetmetal with the rest of the Hornet lineup. The hatchback was thus more likely to have generated a profit for AMC than either the Javelin or Matador coupe, both of which had unique bodies. And if AMC had used the hatchback’s greenhouse for a more traditional coupe, I suspect that it could have generated higher volume given the popularity of other compact sporty coupes such as the Ford Maverick and Plymouth Duster.
The hatchback showed Teague’s design maturity
The Hornet hatchback represented the maturation of Teague’s design sensibility after a number of hits and misses. He was barking up the wrong tree with his first two efforts, the 1965 and 1967 Marlin, whose Nash Airflyte-style fastback didn’t work on a modern sporty coupe with a short hood and long wheelbase.
The 1968 Javelin was a huge improvement over the Marlin, but it ran away from AMC design cues in favor of borrowing slavishly from the competition. This included the Mustang’s U-shaped rear bumper and the second-generation Corvair’s side crease. The reskinned 1971-74 Javelins made things worse with a Camaro-style fascia and the Corvette’s exaggerated fender arches.
The Hornet hatchback dispensed with all that nonsense in favor of a clean design that was sporty while still looking like an AMC. Although the hatchback did not benefit from unique sheetmetal like the Matador coupe, it also lacked its stylistic mistakes such as Chevrolet-style twin-pod taillights and a bug-eyed fascia.
Also see ‘Should AMC have given the 1974 Matador coupe a luxury spin-off?’
The Hornet hatchback’s embrace of AMC styling cues also stood in stark contrast to the automaker’s last sporty coupe — the 1979 Spirit hatchback. That car was most noteworthy for its generic, squared-off styling. While it was pleasant enough, the design lacked self confidence.
I am ranking the Hornet hatchback as Teague’s best sporty coupe partly because it had AMC’s most modern architecture except for the Pacer (which was too tall, wide and weird to be sporty).
When the Hornet body was introduced in 1970 it was fairly advanced for an American car due to its steeply raked windshield and a “fuselage” shape with more body side curvature than either the Matador coupe or the Javelin. This is because those cars were based on older platforms (1963 and 1964, respectively) whereas the Hornet was more of a clean-sheet design.
Let’s nitpick some of the hatchback’s design details
The hatchback’s biggest weakness was that it didn’t quite fit the long-hood, short-deck formula popular at the time. Cutting the wheelbase around four inches behind the B-pillar would have solved that problem. This would also have reduced rear legroom, but that may not have mattered so much given how the fastback’s slope already limited headroom.
Also see ‘Car Life called the redesigned 1970 AMC Hornet stylish but not fun to drive’
If you look past the car’s proportions, I see only two problems with the design — and both were fixable. First, the grille on the 1973-74 models looked too plasticky. Fortunately, Teague replaced it in 1975 with a somewhat-better-looking design that featured Nash-style vertical bars and inset headlight pods that evoked the just-discontinued Javelin.
The hatchback’s second problem was that the rear-end styling didn’t work nearly as well once a 5-mph bumper was added in 1974. AMC took the cheap way out by not smoothing out the W-shaped deck or redesigning the taillights. The result was awkward and dated. It wasn’t until 1978 — four years later — that the rear was given a somewhat better design when the Concord replaced the Hornet. That did not revive the hatchback’s sagging sales.
The tragedy of the Hornet hatchback is that AMC treated it as parenthetical to the Javelin and Matador coupe when it had more sales potential than either one — particularly if the automaker had added a non-hatchback coupe variant.
Fifty years later the Hornet hatchback is not typically singled out as one of AMC’s most iconic designs . . . except for history nerds like me.
NOTES:
Production and market share figures were calculated from data published by the auto editors of Consumer Guide (1993, 2006), Flammang and Kowalke (1999) and Gunnell (2002). Product specifications are from the same sources.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 1993, 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
- Flammang, James M. and Ron Kowalke; 1999. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999. Third Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised Fourth Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Langworth, Richard M.; 2014. “Richard A. Teague: Life in the Bunker.” Collectible Automobile. Published December: pp. 76-83.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: AMC Hornet (1973); AMC Matador (1974)
- oldcarbrochures.org: AMC Concord (1978); AMC Hornet (1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977); AMC Javelin (1969, 1972)
I always liked the Hornet Hatch as I thought it was quite sporty looking. I agree with you that it was one of Teague’s better efforts. I didn’t realize it sold poorly but perhaps this was due to a couple things. First, the Sportabout which was half wagon/half hatch; secondly, the Gremlin. If AMC had built the Hornet Hatch on a shorter wheelbase, as you posit, they could have dropped the Gremlin. This would have made a lot of sense because a junior Hornet might have been a much better small car solution for AMC going deeper into the 70s.
Another option could have been to keep the original wheelbase while starting the slope of the hatch roof further back, thus increasing headroom. With a deft designer’s hand, I can see that evoking the long hood, short deck look still in vogue at the time. The only downside to this is again, why buy the hatch when you can get the Sportabout, with comparable cargo volume. Maybe the best solution would have been to offer it, as you suggested, without the hatch.
Regarding the interior quality of the Hornet, all I can say is those instrument panels were horrible. Even the lowly Maverick & Comet were (slightly) better, in my opinion. I especially enjoyed reading this story as you concisely illustrated how once again, AMC failed to have a clear picture of where to spend money to improve both products and sales potential.
The Hornet hatchback coupe was the Rambler Tarpon that should have happened in 1965. I don’t know if the 1964 American body could have done this, but the original Tarpon concept seems to confirm that it could have happened if Roy Abernathy had wanted it. A Tarpon-size car with an up-market interior package and bucket seats could have been as big a kick as the 1963-1/2 Falcon Sprint.
Just answering the question in the headline, my answer is: No, it was the ’56 Packard Executive. Second place was the first gen Javelin.
l agree with CJ about the Hornet “dashboards”. A horrible cheap plastic mess.
I used to own a Hornet – which which leads me to ask the question: Have you ever tried to open the door of a Gremlin or Hornet in the winter after certain overnight conditions caused the doors freeze shut? That little “tab” of a door handle was next to useless to get the door open if there was resistance (usually happened on a work day morning)!I don’t know how AMC did their winter testing, but they “forgot” about that eventuality! It happened a couple of times during my ownership.
Kenosha, Wisconsin has lots of snow and ice, as does Detroit ! You pose a great question…WHY did they design those door handles ! Form should follow function !
Stewdi, the headline asked about the “best sporty coupe.” The Packard Executive had many charms, but sporty?
On AMC door handles, it always struck me as curious that when they switched to the “Kelvinator” design in 1968 the keyway mechanism was placed inside the handle. However, when the Hornet was introduced in 1970, the keyway was moved below the door handle. Why was that? Your comment made me wonder whether ice build up within the handle could have made unlocking the door more difficult.
In defense of the Packard Executive: A flashy hardtop was very popular in the early and mid ’50s and bought by many young and young-at-heart people. It was not uncommon for many manufacturers to characterize the convertible model of the same car as a sports, or sporty car.
The ’56 Executive had the 122 inch wheelbase of a Clipper (more senior Packards measured 127). It was 200 pounds lighter than the bigger Packards.
In contrast to the Hornet Hatchback, the ’56 Packard Executive had a standard 352 cu. in. 275 horsepower V8 that took it to 60mph in just over 10 seconds. Its 4-gauges-plus speedometer on beautiful “mesh” aluminum dash overlay (then think of what the Hornet had!) and a standard self-leveling torsion bar suspension (which gave it “roadability” and notably flat cornering according to road tests) that was superior to most – if not all other – North American cars of the time.
Just try to postulate (Wow. A higher-brow word that just popped into my low-brow brain) that GM did NOT think of its ’56 Buick Century Riviera (a direct competitor) as sporty!
Welp, the only reason I didn’t say “AMC sporty coupe” was because the headline was getting long. I figured that people would get the focus of the story from the opening paragraph . . . and the rest of the story.
As we’ve discussed here, the Executive was a last-ditched effort to plug a hole in Packard’s lineup.
I categorized the above story as a “Design Notes” feature because the focus is on styling. If you’d like to discuss the Packard’s roadability, why not switch over to the Executive story?
Sometimes I’m a teenager.
Well, there is Mr. Teague’s mid-engine AMX/3, but you likely mean to discuss production models here.
My second choice was the first generation Javelin and l’ll stick to that. It was not trying to be anything else but a pony car, with that group’s sporty implications. l think it had several unique features that set it aside from others like the generic Camaro. The sides of the rear roofline carried into the top of the rea fenders, and facilitated a wonderful vinyl roof contour as shown in you illustration. All Javelins were fastbacks, whereas all the others, except early Barracudas, needed extra fastback models (or not even offered, like the GM twins).
The front grills were attractive and different without being too aggressive or too generic (like the “lesser” Camaros). The rear was especially taut and elegantly done. The heftier rear fender haunches also looked good and was done to the right degree.
l think the first Javelin design deserves much praise and ranks higher (especially comparing base models) than most other big three pony cars. Well done.
The Hornet Hatchback had a good rear roofline that lent it elegance and some sportiness, but it kept too many other elements such as fenderlines, grills, tail lights, dashboards, etc., from the Hornet that it did not differentiate itself enough from a that bread-and-butter model.
A new rear roofline and hatch does not a sports car make! So, sorry, Steve, l cannot agree with you.
“Before proceeding I should explain my selection criteria. The focus is on production cars rather than concepts such as the mid-engined AMXs….”
Yup, right there at the top of the second paragraph. See, I was thinking about you when I wrote this article.
The 1981 S-X 4 hatchback was the first all wheel drive passenger car. The first half of 1981 they were carbureted. They didn’t switch over to efi until August.