American Motors Corporation

American Motors is a redirect to this article. For other automakers by that name, see American Motors (disambiguation) .

AMC company logo

The American Motors Corporation ( AMC ) was an American automobile manufacturers , in 1954 through the merger of Nash Motors and the Hudson Motor Car Co. emerged. The seat was in Kenosha , Wisconsin . In 1970, AMC took over the Kaiser-Jeep company (and with it the Jeep brand ).

In the spring of 1987 AMC was taken over by the Chrysler Corporation .

history

The company's history began in 1897 when Thomas B. Jeffery built his first prototype car. In 1900 he acquired the Sterlin Bicycle Factory in Kenosha (Wisconsin) , which he renamed the Thomas B. Jeffery Company , in order to manufacture cars there under the name Rambler (German Wanderer ). The first of a total of over 1500 copies left the factory in March 1902. The Rambler was the second mass-produced car in the USA. Oldsmobile had introduced this manufacturing method a year earlier ; The Ford Motor Company followed a year later .

In 1914 the model was named Jeffery in honor of the company's founder, who died in 1910. His son Charles T. Jeffery then headed the company. When he survived the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 , he opted for a quieter life and sold his company in August 1916 to Charles W. Nash , who renamed it Nash Motors . The company existed until 1954 when it merged with Hudson Motor Car Co. to form American Motors Corporation (AMC) . With a volume of around 198 million US dollars , this was the largest company merger in the USA to date. The Nash and Hudson brands were initially retained; from 1957 to 1969 AMC sold its cars under the Rambler brand .

In 1969, Jaguar importer Peter Lindner took over AMC's exclusive distribution for the Federal Republic of Germany in Frankfurt-Rödelheim. The program included the AMX , Rebel , Ambassador , Jeep and Javelin models . The latter was built from sets of parts at the Karmann plant in Rheine.

In the early 1970s, AMC built the heavily motorized sports coupe Javelin and the AMX , a shorter two-seater version of the Javelin. The company was thus represented in the class of pony cars (also muscle cars ), which was named after the style-defining Ford Mustang . At the same time, the Gremlin, another small American car, came onto the market. In 1970 AMC bought the Kaiser-Jeep company . AMC was thus able to gain a foothold in markets outside North America for the first time .

In the late 1970s, AMC ran into financial difficulties; This was also due to the fact that General Motors could not deliver the rotary engines intended for the new Pacer model . As a result, in 1979 AMC entered into a cooperation with the French company Renault , which wanted to sell its models in the USA. Renault models were now also built in AMC factories. In the early 1980s, AMC was able to achieve success with the four-wheel-drive Eagle and especially the Jeep models, but the problems persisted. Renault ran into financial difficulties and the company's exposure to North America was controversial in France. After the assassination of the Renault President Georges Besse on November 17, 1986, the new boss Raymond H. Lévy decided to concentrate on the European market and to give up the North American business.

In March 1987 the American Motors Corporation was bought by the Chrysler Corporation . Chrysler turned the most successful AMC model, the Eagle, into a brand and merged it with Jeep to form the Jeep Eagle Divisio . In 1998 the now unprofitable brand Eagle was canceled. The Jeep brand came to DaimlerChrysler after the merger with Daimler-Benz and has belonged to Fiat Chrysler since the merger with FIAT .

Models

Rambler Classic 770 (1963)

AMC Javelin (1969)

AMC Pacer (1975)

AMC Eagle Wagon (1983)

• 1958–1962 *: Metropolitan **
• 1958–1962: Rambler (including Rambler, Rambler Rebel, Rambler Classic)
• 1958-1969: Rambler American
• 1958–1965: Rambler Ambassador (1958–1962 also as "Ambassador by Rambler")
• 1960-1963: M422 Mighty Mite
• 1963-1966: Rambler Classic
• 1965-1966: Rambler Marlin , AMC Marlin
• 1965-1967: AMC Marlin
• 1966-1974: AMC Ambassador
• 1967-1970: AMC Rebel
• 1967-1974: AMC Javelin
• 1968-1970: AMC AMX
• 1969-1977: AMC Hornet
• 1970-1978: AMC Gremlin
• 1971-1978: AMC Matador
• 1975-1979: AMC Pacer
• 1977-1983: AMC Concord
• 1978-1983: AMC Spirit
• 1979–1987: AMC Eagle (incl. SX / 4 and Kammback )
• 1983–1987: AMC Alliance - (based on the Renault 9 )
• 1984–1987: AMC Encore - (based on the Renault 11 )
• 1987–1992: Eagle Premier - (based on the Renault 25 )
• 1987–1994: Eagle Medallion - (based on the Renault 21 )

* - from 1958 to 1962 as American Motors, previously as Nash or Hudson

AMC models in film and television

• The figure Wayne Campbell from the movie Wayne's World drives a AMC Pacer.
• Jennifer Parker's father in Back to the Future drives an AMC Eagle.
• Coluche drives an AMC Pacer X in the chest or in the leg .
• The comic book seller and Hans Maulwurf in the series The Simpsons each drive an AMC Gremlin .
• In the film The Man with the Golden Gun, James Bond drives an AMC Hornet "on loan", while his opponent Scaramanga drives an AMC Matador Coupé.
• Ignatius Perrish, who starred in the film Horns , played by Daniel Radcliffe , drives an AMC Gremlin.

Web links

Commons : American Motors Corporation  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ George Nick Georgano (editor): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile , Volume 1: A-F . Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , pp. 51–53 (English)
2. ↑ http://www.fcagroup.com/en-US/group/brands/Pages/default.aspx