American Motors

Richard A. Teague has always been a “two-seater kind of guy,” and the production American Motors AMX was his car. It originated in late 1965 when the American Motors styling director worked up four non-running show cars at the behest of company chairman Roy D. Chapin, Jr., who wanted to show the public that AMC was a going concern capable of more exciting stuff than the workaday economy sedans for which it was noted.

Included in this quartet, which toured the nation as “Project IV,” was a slick fastback coupe that Teague named AMX (logically, for “American Motors Experimental”). Its most novel feature was the “Ramble Seat,” an updated version of the old rumble-seat idea, with a rear windscreen and a pair of auxiliary bucket seats that could be flipped up to accommodate two extra passengers al fresco. There was also a small, conventional back seat, leading Teague to call the AMX package a “2 + 2 + 2.” With its taut, eager styling, the AMX met with such overwhelming response that AMC contracted Vignale of Italy to build a running model.

Meanwhile, Teague was working on the Javelin, AMC’s reply to the Ford Mustang, giving it much of the AMX show car’s styling flavor. Being at AMC, and Packard before that, Teague was used to doing big things on small budgets, and he hatched a brilliant idea: take 12 vertical inches out of the new 109-inch-wheelbase Javelin to create a two-seater that could be tooled for very little money, thus providing the AMX with even more of the image-boosting excitement Chapin was seeking.

Spin” they did, streaking 24 straight hours to 106 new national and international speed records while averaging 140.7 mph. The Breedloves later hit 189 mph in a USAC-sponsored run at Bonneville. Soon, AMXs were cleaning up on the dragstrips (thanks to Lou Downy, Shirley Shahan, and others) and in amateur sports-car competition (though one was nosed out by a Corvette for the 1969 SCCA national championship