1974 AMC Matador - Killer

 

From my old man's Rambler  to the Pacer, all AMC's were weird. To some extent their odd designs,  and smaller size, of course, were intentional to set them apart from anything "The Big Three" were doing. After all, if you can't beat 'em, make an attempt at being a mass appeal "niche". On the other hand, their off beat designs, through my eyes, indicated a lack of talent in their design studios. How else to explain the 1957 Rambler, all Ramblers up through 1963 for the matter, and what was up with the Marlin, Gremlin and to a degree the Javelin? Many an AMC made Chrysler's far out designs in the early '60's look out right inspired. Problem with AMC, though, was that when they tried to go "mainstream", they couldn't win for trying. Take their 1974 Matador coupe for instance.

Around 1967 or so, American Motors made the conscious decision to start producing automobiles that were more in line with what consumers wanted. That being larger, more sensibly styled automobiles. Problem with that was that meant they would be competing head-on with GM at a time when GM could do no wrong design wise. Ford and Chrysler were already mopping up whatever was left of the market with their wares that could be construed as being GM knockoffs. Ford more guilty of that than Chrysler of course but still, there's many a similarity in Chrysler's '60's design ethos and GM's. Anyway, in an attempt to go "mainstream", AMC's were still awkward looking but worse than that, they became bland and anonymous. Their 1971 Matador looking more like some sort of Chrysler design than anything original. In fact, AMC had an ad campaign out in 1973 with the actors asking the question, "what's a Matador".
 

 

In an attempt to be distinctive or less anonymous, AMC "rebodied" the Matador coupe for 1974 with this amorphous blob. The sedan and wagon remained the same but AMC did have plans to do "blob jobs" on them too. In an age when in spite of being as subtle as an Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile, the swoopy, retro-themed 1973 Chevrolet Monte Carlo was a monster of a sales success because only GM could design something as outrageous as that and make it work, AMC's version of it came out all wrong. Don't just take my word for it; AMC sold just 110,00 of these in five model years. That's an incredibly long time to soldier on with something that wasn't working. Then again, it's not like AMC had anything else lined up to replace it or had any resources to retool it to make it more mainstream looking. At least the wheels are nice on the car in this commercial.

Powered by AMC's slate of big, thirsty engines, the Matador did no buyer any favors at the gas pump either in a time when AMC surely could have used a penny pinching larger automobile. AMC tacked on atypical mid-1970's luxury car baubles and bits onto subsequent Matador coupes but nothing caught on. Rather than replace the Matador in 1979, AMC just stopped making it. 

AMC died a long, painful death by a thousand lashes and the 1974 Matador coupe was certainly one big whip. Matador, incidentally, in Spanish, doesn't mean "bullfighter". It means, "killer".