American Motors Company
Brief History
In 14, January 1954 American Motors Company (AMC) was formed after the merge of Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson Motors. Actually Nash acquired Hudson, however this was the largest merger in US history back then which worth $197,793,366. The president of Nash—George Mason had hoped that the new company will soon became the Detroit’s “Big Fourth”.
Rambler was the first best selling model of AMC, however in first years the cars were selling under both Nash and Hudson labels that continued until 1958 when both brands were dropped and replaced by Rambler.
The Rambler name was dropped from the Marlin and Ambassador model lines in 1966 and they were marked as AMC products. The Rambler brand was discontinued after 1969.
In 1968 Marlin was replaced by new model—Javelin, which was competitor to successful Ford Mustang. The newly introduced model got exciting looks and was equipped with powerful engines. Over 56,000 Javelin cars were built and sold like hotcakes.
That same year was introduced another famous model—AMX which got two-seat body based on the same platform like Javelin. The wheelbase of AMX was 97 inches—12 inch shorter than Javelin.
In 1970 American Motors purchased Kaiser-Jeep Corporation and the well-known name Jeep became part of the company as well as profitable government contracts for production of military machines. The competition of the “Big tree” and all the “Japs” cause huge drop in sales of AMC in late 70s. The company needed investor to survive in auto business. This investor was Renault, which purchased 5% of company in return American Motors became importer and distributor of the Renault for North America.
American Renaults had mechanical problems and they never became hot sellers. Soon the French company found it self in financial trouble due to bad management. This caused Chrysler to purchase American Motors in March 1987 for $1,1 billion. Chrysler continued to produce Renault models few years after that under the newly created make Eagle, which was part of Jeep-Eagle division.
