Once upon a time the Henry Ford museum sponsored an automotive design oral history project. Among the people interviewed was Roy D. Chapin Jr., who led American Motors from 1967-77.
The Automobile in American Life and Society (2025) lists around one hundred oral histories, but a goodly number of them aren’t actually available at that website. A while back Aaron Severson kindly suggested that I check the Henry Ford’s website. That’s where I found a transcript of the Chapin interview.
I was most curious about how Chapin described his tenure as CEO of American Motors. Unfortunately, he said surprisingly little about his experience despite being interviewed by David Crippen (1992) three times over a five-year period.
Even worse, Chapin displayed little self awareness. If he felt any regrets about major decisions — such as approving the ill-fated 1974 Matador coupe or 1976 Pacer — Chapin kept those thoughts to himself. Instead, he trotted out some bland talking points that painted his leadership in an entirely positive light.
Chapin paints AMX as a successful image enhancer
As a case in point, the closest that Crippen came to raising a sensitive topic was when he said, “The AMX really didn’t quite — it had a lot of potential?”
“We never had any big volume concepts,” Chapin responded, noting that the Corvette was the only other two-seater built in the US. “I couldn’t even remember what the volumes were. But more importantly, the AMX got an image. Hell, for what it cost us to adapt that from the Javelin, it was certainly worth it” (Crippen, 1992).
As we discuss further here, American Motors officials told the press that their sales target was 10,000 cars per year. Yet under 20,000 were built over a two-and-a-half year period. And in 1970 only 4,200 AMXs left the factory. The automaker likely lost money on this car at a time when they were only beginning to claw their way back from the brink of insolvency.
At least Chapin didn’t throw anyone under the bus. For example, he only offered high praise for Mary Wells even though her advertising agency was fired by American Motors in 1972 (go here for further discussion).
Nor did Chapin criticize the styling of AMC cars under Richard Teague, who he described as “one of my closest friends and a tremendously talented guy.” Instead, Chapin noted that Teague was able to design the Gremlin for only $6 million. “Dick was tremendously competent that way” (Crippen, 1992).
Chapin shows his p.r. skills in avoiding controversy
When Crippen quoted Teague as saying that he thought the Javelin needed a longer wheelbase ahead of the cowl like the Mustang, Chapin completely sidestepped the criticism by saying, “I know several people who still have [Javelins]” (Crippen, 1992).
Arguably the most important topic Chapin avoided was the collapse of AMC passenger-car sales in the second half of the 1970s. He explained the tie-up with French automaker Renault as necessary to downsizing its product line.
“To make a smaller, light-weight car, you can’t just start modifying a basic U.S. automobile. You have to pretty well start from scratch” (Crippen, 1992).
What Chapin didn’t say was that he assumed AMC should continue to focus on the bottom of the market rather than focusing on niches such as sport-utility vehicles similar in footprint to AMC’s compact Eagle.
Stated strategy didn’t align with many AMC actions
One of my biggest takeaways from the oral history was that Chapin did not espouse a very sophisticated strategy for managing American Motors. As a case in point, he talked about the goal of finding niches where the Big Three had “either a token entry or they really didn’t care about it. We figured that we could find enough of those to keep us in a pretty nice business” (Crippen, 1992).
What he didn’t explain was how that stated goal aligned with most of the product decisions made during his tenure. The Javelin was a fairly conventional entry into one of the most hotly contested market niches of the late-60s. The Ambassador vainly tried to compete in the full-sized class. The Hornet’s market niche was strikingly similar to the Ford Maverick’s. The 1971-73 Matador offered little to distinguish itself in the mid-sized class besides some of the oldest sheetmetal in the US auto industry.
It’s true that one could argue that the 1974 Matador coupe offered an unusually sporty take on mid-sized personal coupes. However, elsewhere in the oral history Chapin stated that the proposed AMX/2 mid-engined sports car was not approved for production because the “muscle car era was going to end” (Crippen, 1992). If that was the case, why did he think there was an adequate market for the Matador coupe? Chapin didn’t say.
Perhaps the biggest example of self-awareness that I found in the interview was Chapin’s discussion of how he and Bill Luneberg ran American Motors. “Operations, procurement, manufacturing and personnel reported to Luneberg. . . . Finance, public relations and international reported to me. It was typically the case in a company where you divide it up depending on the attributes of the people you’ve got running it.” Chapin added that “Bill didn’t want anything to do with the outside, and that was my problem. I didn’t want to try and run the plants; probably couldn’t — certainly not as well as he” (Crippen, 1992).
Some thoughts on why Chapin has avoided criticism
A goodly portion of the interview focused on Chapin growing up as the son of an early auto industry leader, Roy Chapin. For example, he talked about how the house they lived in “could entertain a hundred people. . . . In fact, the main hall as you came in had springs underneath the floor so it could be a dance floor. It had a lot of little things like that.” The Chapins would use this home to regularly entertain dignitaries, such as “His Royal Highness The Infante of Spain.”
I found the discussion about his youth to be revealing because it suggested that Chapin was considered automotive royalty. That arguably gave him more room to make mistakes than if he were some regular Joe. In that sense he was in the same ballpark as Henry Ford II, who was in Chapin’s social circle before either headed an automaker.
Another takeaway from this oral history is that Chapin was quite effective in developing friendships that supported his career ambitions. It is thus not surprising that after he died Patrick Foster wrote an essay headlined, “My friend Roy” (Foster, 2007). As we have previously discussed, Foster has been overly ginger in criticizing Chapin compared to his predecessor, Roy Abernethy.
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RE:SOURCES
- Automotive in American Life and Society; 2025. “Automotive Oral Histories.” Accessed Feb. 17.
- Crippen, David; 1992. “Roy D. Chapin Jr. Interviews Transcript.” the Henry Ford.
- Foster, Patrick; 2007. “My Friend Roy.” Hemmings. Posted May; accessed July 16, 2020.
ADVERTISEMENTS & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: AMC (1974); AMC Eagle (1983)
PHOTOGRAPHY:
- Roy D. Chapin Jr.: Official AMC portrait posted in Wikipedia. Photo edited for tone and colors added.
As a case in point, he talked about the goal of finding niches where the Big Three had “either a token entry or they really didn’t care about it. We figured that we could find enough of those to keep us in a pretty nice business” (Crippen, 1992). Makes sense in the broad sense. However, how many different niche vehicles can you fit on one or two platforms? However-If a carmaker has a “token” entry in a niche it means they are offering it to the customer. If you build it, and they come you can build a lot more than you planned. See first Mustangs. If they don’t care about a certain niche, it’s probably for a good reason. See Pacer, Matador coupe. Heads they win, tails you lose. But hey, the past is inevitable.