1970 American Motors AMX
In the 1960s, American Motors was best known for building boxy and practical Ramblers like the American and the Classic. Performance matched the looks, with inline-sixes and under-stressed V-8s filling AMC engine bays. The AMC cars appealed more to great aunts than to great nephews. According to the late Jeff Teague, one of designer Dick Teague’s sons, when his dad drove him to school in a Rambler, he insisted on being dropped off a few blocks away.
As the decade progressed, Teague lead an effort to make the entire line-up more exciting to younger Americans. The results were seen in the fastback Marlin, the Javelin sports coupe and AMX two-seater introduced in 1968, the AMC SC/Rambler of 1969, and the Rebel Machine of 1970, all which offered the styling or performance to appeal to a younger set.
The handsome AMX shared the same taut styling, careful detailing, and most of the equipment and options — as the four-seat Javelin. The big differences were that the shorter, AMX seated just two, was never offered with a six, and wasn’t eligible for the SCCA’s Trans Am Series. Introduced late in the 1968 model year, there were few changes for 1969. But for 1970, the front grille was simplified, and the hood scoop revised. Even with the changes, sales volume was still low at 4.116 versus 8,496 for big brother Javelin.
Like its longer sibling, suspension consisted of coil springs and A-Arms up front and a live-rear axle with leaf springs and tubular shocks at the rear. Most 1970 AMXs were delivered with a 360cid pushrod V-8 producing 290bhp, although an optional 390cid engine was an option that yielded 325 horsepower. Standard equipment included four-wheel drum brakes, but the optional performance and dress-up “Go Pack” included power front disc brakes, posi-traction, handling package, heavy duty cooling-system, Ram Air Carburetion, and the appropriate hood blister.
Some of the greatest gifts of the 1970s were the wonderfully boisterous colors available for muscle cars and pony cars, which also boasted some great names, like the Big Bad Orange color that joins the flat black hood on this 1970 AMX. This fully-restored AMX is powered by the 360cid, 290 bhp engine that propelled so many of AMC’s terrific-looking alternative to the thousands of Mustangs and Camaros flooding the showroom and streets in the late-1960s and early 1970s.
