Follies of the Madmen #236

Ah, American Motors. At one time it made some autos with innovation - IIRC they sliced that Rebel in half to make the Gremlin and what American of a certain age can forget the Pacer?. And above all, they owned the Jeep nameplate. When AMC went belly up and was purchased by Chrysler, it was obvious why - when was the last time you saw a Dodge Pacer on the road?

American Motors was run by George Romney, sometime presidential candidate and father of Mitt. Interestingly, George was born in Mexico, but I don't remember that being an issue when he was seeking the Republican nomination for president.

At one time AMC built some great cars! The AMX was REAL fast! The Gremlin was the first American made sub-compact and you could get it with a big V-8 engine! And the Pacer, The wide wonderful Pacer! You could get it with a 390 c.i. V-8! But that wasn't a great thing after 1974 mpg was king and they had spent heavy on the pacers development,(Did you know it was supposed to have a wankel rotary engine built by GM that got cancelled at the last minute?) never sold enough to recover and tried a merger with Renault, Remember the Alliance. The jeep brand lives on, But AMC bought that from Kaiser so yeah, AMC is Kaput! :down: :coolsmile:

The family bought a few AMCs for the store but when Pop pulled around a corner and had an axle break they gave them back.

From what the jeep started out as to what it is today... well...

I remember Gremlins and Pacers. Not the top of my dream car list.