What Happened To American Motors?

Hello and welcome to The Gas, or perhaps we should call it the break this week, because

we have breaking news.

I'm Gary Gastelew, and this is the official podcast of American Cars and Racing.

Well, the NASCAR Antitrust lawsuit trial was expected to take two weeks, and it has,

but that's because it has ended early with a settlement.

NASCAR 2311 Racing and Front Row Motorsports announcing on Thursday that they'd reached

an agreement that's satisfied everyone.

Financial terms are being kept confidential, but the big news is that NASCAR has agreed to

make the 36 charters held by the teams permanent.

Evergreen is out, put it.

This was a key point in the trial, and something even the teams that signed the most recent

agreement had been lobbying hard for.

For those not familiar with them, the charters are similar to sports franchises that guarantee

entries at every race and a share of NASCAR's revenue.

It's not clear what pushed the two sides to come to a deal at this point in the trial

after the plaintiffs had rested their case, and a lot of dirty laundry had already been

hung out for everyone to see, including previously private financial information from the teams

and many comments made by NASCAR officials about their concerns about competition and

not wanting to make the charters permanent.

2311 Racing owner Michael Jordan said outside the courtroom afterwards that level heads

prevailed.

When you get to the finish line, sometimes you have to think not just for yourself, but

you've got to think about the sport as a whole, and I think both parties got to that

point, and we realized that we could have an opportunity to settle this, and we dove

in and we actually did it.

Unfortunately, it took us that long, but we got here.

All of the details that will affect the other charter teams have yet to be officially

released, but according to the Associated Press, they'll now be able to share in the

international revenue.

That wasn't the case before.

They'll also get a third of the revenue from IP, and while the charters are permanent,

they will be renegotiating terms of the revenue share with each meteorite's deal.

Now probably a few days before this all shakes out, so we'll be getting into it

in more detail on the next show, so check back for that.

But for now, this is the Gary and Alex show, so let me bring in my co-host Alex

Nunez, who looks like he just left the barber.

I wish we had video because he is freshly short.

That is a tight cut, sir.

I am freshly short, like a sheep, you know, in from the field.

You know, I don't know about you.

I don't have nearly as much hair as I used to.

But I was thinking about this when it comes to age.

You and I are both old enough to remember in person America's bicentennial in 1976,

aren't we?

I remember it very well.

I went to the sort of the parade of tall ships when when they came through New York

Harbor, my parents had a friend who had an office down in lower Manhattan.

So we went and had one of those like really good views of as all those things

went by. And even though the printed photos in the photo album

somewhere in my parents' house seems like a long time ago,

also seems just like yesterday.

One thing I didn't remember, though, and I'm not sure you did was

that in 1974, two years before the Bicentennial,

Chevrolet introduced a line of spirit of America models, special edition models

of the Impala, Nova and the Vega to celebrate the Bicentennial.

Not sure why they felt like they needed two years lead time on that.

But they have kind of collectibles.

One of them was just on Bring a Trailer.

One of the Impalas sold for $16,000.

And now next year, of course, 2026 is the Sesquicentennial,

which I think is going to be the word of the year next year,

because nobody's ever heard that word before, the 250th anniversary of America.

And to celebrate that, Chevrolet has just revealed a new line of special edition cars.

This time, it's called the Stars and Steel Collection.

And it's actually the Corvette, the Colorado and the Silverado Light Duty,

Heavy Duty and EV, you know, they've got flag motif decals, red brake calipers.

They're actually not very red, white and blue.

There's not much blue in these cars.

I'm a little disappointed in that, but they do celebrate the 250th anniversary

and every purchase of these cars is going to send $250 in donations to veteran charities.

Do you think these sorts of things are a good marketing hook?

It seems real cheap and easy for me.

And you've got to jump on this bandwagon, don't you?

It's low hanging fruit.

You do have to jump on the bandwagon.

The thing is, when you do it, you do have to market it.

I'll be interested to see, you know, if there's any push behind these

beyond this initial sort of news release and the earn media pickup.

But listen, who doesn't love a good tape stripe package?

That stuff only gets cooler as it ages.

I saw an old car the other day with nice classic pinstripe.

I mean, not even that old of a car that was from the 80s.

And it's funny how that's gone away.

These are a little more bolder, the graphics you get on this.

But they are going to be limiting the Corvettes to 250 units

and you can get on any Corvette, but the other ones are all open.

You can order as many of these Chevrolet, Colorado's and Silverado's as you like to.

Jeep also is getting into this game.

They are an official sponsor of the America 250 organization.

They're going to be supplying cars to that and help them promote that.

That's the group that's actually organizing all of the national events next year.

And at some point, it is going to be releasing some special edition models,

although we haven't seen them yet.

Not exactly sure when they're coming out.

You know, one thing missing from this anniversary that we had back in 1976

was a company called American Motors, Alex,

which, of course, went out of business in 1987 when it was purchased by Chrysler for,

I think, one point five billion dollars.

Can you imagine buying anything today for one point five billion dollars?

Not something that big.

That's for sure.

But for those of you nostalgic for the American Motors days,

there is now a six part documentary series

that you can watch on PBS or YouTube called The Last Independent Automaker,

which chronicles the rise and fall of American Motors.

And joining us now to talk about it is the producer of this series

and longtime automotive journalist, also probably America's biggest AMC fanatic.

You're certainly king of the AMC fanatics.

Now, Joe Ligo, thanks for joining us, Joe.

Hey, thanks for having me, Gary.

And I have to have to be careful.

There's a lot of AMC enthusiasts bigger than me out there.

You should see some of the collections these guys have.

I only own one.

If you're not at least in the teens or 20s,

I don't think you can be considered the biggest AMC enthusiasts.

The people tend to collect these cars.

And once you get one, you can't stop.

But I'm very grateful to be part of the community.

Yeah, the AMC world is a great place to be.

And it's just been awesome to see the response

to The Last Independent Automaker.

People were really excited to see this story told.

Are you a longtime AMC fan or something recent?

And then that sparked you to make this documentary series.

I guess you could say long time.

Yeah, I mean, it's probably been about, you know, half my life.

I got into cars right around the time

I was getting my driver's license.

And there was just something about AMC.

The underdog story appealed to me, right?

It's, you know, things that aren't here anymore.

You know, the company was long gone by the time

I got my driver's license.

But there was something about the story of AMC,

the fact that they weren't around anymore.

I wanted I wanted to figure it out.

Why? What happened to them?

And so I've spent a good part of my life

figuring out what happened to AMC

and putting it into this series.

And let me ask you, as far as the what happened part,

I don't want you to give away the whole series.

Obviously, people want to watch this thing.

But when it comes down to that moment in 1987,

when Chrysler wrote the check and bought the company,

was there a moment where it finally went wrong for AMC?

Was there a left turn they could have made

instead of a right and stayed an independent automaker?

Or were there just so many wrong turns

that there was no way to change things at that point?

I actually wrote an article for the Autopian

because that's a really good question.

I mean, an AMC guys still argue about this today.

But I wrote an article that was about, you know,

different forks in the road, you know,

multiple periods where major decisions were made in,

you know, in the 60s and the 70s and the 80s,

where, you know, you had lots of little decisions,

but some really key big decisions

that kind of set them down a path of no return, you know.

And the film talks about these some, but, you know,

in the 60s, George Romney leaving the company

to go into politics, you know,

and certainly the world would have been different

if he'd stayed in the automotive business in the 70s,

investing tons of money in the design

that would become the AMC Pacer and then having that not pan out,

getting to the point where they invested so much

that the car would have had to sell so many copies

that it fiscally wouldn't have made sense.

I mean, they needed the Pacer to be a vehicle

that sold, you know, 300,000 cars a year.

And, you know, I think AMC's total sales

were like 400,000 cars a year,

and so it just wasn't going to happen.

And then even in the 80s, yeah, I mean,

I think one of their biggest mistakes

and it's something you're seeing automakers wrestle with now

is AMC, when they merged with Renault

in the late 70s, invested a lot of money

into building a new subcompact

because that was the hottest segment in the market,

except subcompacts aren't very profitable.

And so by the mid 80s, when gas prices went down

and, you know, inflation went down,

everybody started buying big cars.

And here was AMC left holding the bag

after investing 200 million to build a subcompact in America.

You know, and that's the thing

we're seeing automakers struggle with right now.

I mean, literally in the news,

the president's talking about

we want to have small cars back in America

and, you know, and the automakers

have all abandoned small cars

because they're not profitable.

And so it's the same industry,

the same problems just a different decade, you know.

And it did have Jeep.

That was the golden apple,

the thing that Chrysler wanted to get its hands on.

It was cool back then.

It did well, but it certainly wasn't the big mega brand it is today.

Yeah. Was the market just not ready yet?

Or did AMC just not know how to play Jeep at that point?

That was it. Well, you know, I think we have to figure.

AMC was figuring it out as they went,

as were all the automakers,

that they were consistently being surprised

that SUVs and trucks saw increased volume every year

from basically the seventies onward.

And so I think AMC made the mistake

a lot of automakers made during that time,

which was underestimating demand for SUVs.

And so, I mean, you had every year, Jeep was, you know,

the Toledo plant that built 90 percent of the Jeeps

was at capacity every year.

You know, extra shifts, extra hours, whatever.

And so I think every year, AMC was like,

wow, we keep selling more and more and more and more Jeeps.

But then as we talk about in the documentary in 1979,

the second energy crisis hits and Jeep sales fall by half.

I mean, I mean, like you can imagine

the the fiscal brutality of that happening to any company

if they had a brand fall by half in under 12 months.

And I mean, that's really what kind of put AMC on the ropes.

And eventually Jeep sales rebounded in the 80s.

But yeah, it wasn't until Chrysler came along

and bought American motors.

AMC did great with Jeep, but Chrysler understood

how to turn Jeep into just a massive cash generator.

And it still is.

Yeah, I don't think AMC necessarily did anything wrong with Jeep.

I just think that like a lot of automakers in the seventies,

they could not predict how big SUVs would become.

And so I think they were always a good place to be,

which was running the factory at maximum capacity.

But yeah, the SUV thing, that's a that's a tricky one.

Jeep was definitely a big reason why

Iacoco wanted to buy American motors.

I mean, some internal analysis at Chrysler said that

for Chrysler to develop its own SUV line in the 1980s

would have cost at least a billion dollars.

And for one and a half billion,

Iacoco got the best known SUV brand in the world,

which included four or five models.

So I mean, you know, and he got all of American motors on top of that,

which included some other pretty good assets

as far as a brand new factory in Canada

and the brand new design of several other vehicles and stuff.

So yeah, I mean, he he made out like a bandit.

You mentioned George Romney.

He was the one that really pushed AMC

toward the small cars in the in the fifties and sixties.

He, of course, is the father of Mitt Romney,

who you feature in the show.

You actually got him to talk to you about this.

This is one of my favorite parts of the series.

And I think what's great about it is even though he was just a kid at the time,

he seems to remember what was going on well.

And he has a lot of interesting things to say

about those years when his dad was running AMC.

Yeah, Mitt was great.

I think, you know, first off, he and his staff

were incredibly gracious and accommodating.

You know, it was kind of a bizarre request.

It's like, hey, can we come

to interview you about your dad's time in the auto industry?

And at the time he was still a senator,

we went down to D.C. to interview him.

But yes, his staff was incredibly gracious.

Mitt was super polite and great to talk to.

And it was really nice to talk to him

about something other than politics.

I think it was kind of nice for him to get a break

from politics and just kind of reminisce about his dad.

And yeah, he was a great interview.

And yeah, we really talk about an episode one

how George Romney really Volkswagen gets a lot of credit

for popularizing small cars in America and they deserve it.

But even before Volkswagen was selling

six figure sales, you know, American motors

was selling six figures worth of ramblers in the United States.

And so I think VW and American motors

should get shared credit for popularizing,

you know, compact cars in America.

And if you zoom out, I think the two big innovations

AMC did in the times when the company was most successful

was in the 1950s when they pioneered small cars.

And then, you know, in the 1970s,

when they pioneered four wheel drive vehicles through Jeep.

And I think the two times AMC did the best

is when they were in market niches

that the rest of the big three hadn't found yet.

And so if you look, I mean, our automotive world today

is still influenced by American motors.

I mean, two entire categories of vehicle

in the United States, compact cars and SUVs

are thanks to, in large part, the work of American motors.

Jeep, interestingly enough,

has been using the American motors logo

on some new merchandise, not with the name AMC,

but the triangle rectangle thing.

Is that a name that logo? Is there that known as anything?

Some people call it the A mark.

There's some there's some corporate reports,

you know, some stock order reports around the turn of

I think it was like into 69 into 70

that AMC came out with that logo.

And so people tend to refer to it as the A mark logo.

You'd mentioned you're a younger fan of AMC.

Do you find there are many people born after 1987

who are into the brand and might connect with that?

Or is that really more a nostalgia

hit for people who were in the AMC back in the 70s and 80s?

Certainly the the club, the American Motors Owners Association,

I think, you know, the mature, well, maybe not the majority,

but certainly the largest percentage,

the biggest group within that club

is people who are into 70s cars,

you know, baby boomers that have Javelins,

AMXs and gremlins.

Those are kind of the hot ones to have.

But I think that there's a lot of people my age

who maybe weren't around when AMC was in business,

but they grew up in a world where AMCs

were still showing up on used car lots.

They were, you know, cheap cars that you could buy.

And I don't know, I think there's a cool factor.

It's the fact that they're not around anymore.

And I think, you know, the rise of Radwood

and other types of automotive culture

that celebrates things beyond muscle cars

have made it so that AMCs kind of have a place in the conversation

because they're cool, right?

I mean, people like Eagles, spirits are interesting, gremlins are cool.

And so I think you do see people who were born

after 1987, who are into American motors.

It's not a huge group,

but I think the Internet makes it easy

for these fandoms to connect and to grow.

Alex, are you more of a javelin AMX guy,

a gremlin-pacer guy or an AMC Jeep guy?

Oh, God, I would love to have a javelin.

Maybe it'd be so much fun to have a javelin.

But I also, I love the styling of the gremlin.

I mean, it's so much fun when you see like a gremlin anywhere

because like many of these cars that were from the 70s,

most of them are just dust now.

So if you see a gremlin or a pacer

in any form in any state of just basic assembly,

it's like seeing an ancient civilization, you know, almost.

But when you see a nice one, it's like,

it really is a testament to like the person

who either restored it or like somehow managed to keep it,

you know, that way.

You're more likely to see like a rebel machine

or a javelin or an AMX, you know, in really good shape

just because those are the more collectible cars.

But like when you were just saying,

like if you see an eagle or a gremlin or a spirit

or something like that, that's in good shape.

Those are, those draw crowds

like at your local like cruise night thing.

In some ways it's like it's more exotic than like a LaFerrari,

you know, in real world terms, you know,

out there at the local cruising.

Yeah, definitely.

And you're totally right, Alex, that, you know,

I've talked to guys in the club, they say, you know,

I took my gremlin to the cruise in

and I parked it next to a Corvette

and the guy got mad at me

because people would come over to look at my gremlin

and not notice his Corvette.

And I think part of it, there's a couple of factors

talking to the collector community.

Part of it is that AMCs were for a long time

on the collector market a lot cheaper.

I mean, a javelin was a lot cheaper

than a Mustang or a Camaro.

I mean, that started to change, prices have gone up,

but they were more affordable as collector vehicles.

And I think that was one thing

that drove interest in the brand was that like,

and then I think also people, you know,

there's Camaros and Mustangs everywhere

and they're great cars,

but I think people want to be different.

And so javelins, AMX's are cool.

And then even, you know, gremlins,

I think gremlins are easy to make go fast.

And I think people like that, you know,

you can easy to drop a V8 in,

it's easy to, you know, hot rod them and make them fast.

So I think there's an appeal there.

And as far as the 80s cars, you know,

the Spirit and the Concorde and the Eagle, you know,

aside from the Eagles four wheel drive,

which is very state of the art,

the rest of the vehicle and the powertrain are very dated,

but in a way that turned out to be a blessing

because they outlasted a lot of other 80s cars.

You know, a Spirit, a Concorde and Eagle

is a lot more durable than, you know,

a Chevy Citation or something like that.

And so, you know, while Ford may have sold

way more Tauruses in the 80s,

I think a lot more of the Eagles have survived

because they were just a lot more durable.

You know, Taurus was a car he drove 150,000 miles and scrapped

and an Eagle, it's a car that can stand,

stand the test of time a little bit better.

And so now in the collector market, you know,

those kinds of things are pretty cool.

Stellana still owns all of the IP these names

and the American Motors brand.

Have you heard or do you think

there's anything more they could do with it?

Could they bring American Motors back

in some way other than merchandise?

We've seen the model names pop up again,

but do you think they can even go bigger than that?

Or is that just a pipe drink?

I mean, I think Stellantis has too many brands as it is

and, you know, too much, too many brands

and too low of volume as it is to introduce a new brand.

But I do think there's things they could do

to tap into it.

I think bringing back the logo on Jeeps and stuff

is a cool thing.

I think Nostalgia is kind of having a moment.

People are nostalgic about things from the 80s and stuff.

I think certainly if they made a model

called the Jeep Eagle that was like a more, you know,

kind of four-wheel drive cross-over-type wagon thing.

And I think people would be super excited about that.

You saw how popular the Challenger,

all-wheel drive Challenger was.

I think there's still a place for all-wheel drive cars,

especially when they're kind of

in the wagony crossover type area.

So I do think there are ideas they could pursue.

As far as bringing back AMC as a brand,

I think that's unlikely.

I know Gary, you and I joke that Stellantis

should just rename their corporate-brand American motors

because it would be way more recognizable than Stellantis.

Nobody knows what a Stellantis is.

Yeah, I think there's certainly some branding things,

some model things.

I mean, the Dodge Hornet sadly is nowhere near as cool

as an AMC Hornet.

But yeah, I think there's some branding things

they could do with Jeep.

There's some names they could bring back.

I mean, I don't really like the Gladiator.

I think they should have brought back, you know,

the Comanche or like the J-Series trucks or something.

I think that would have been way cooler

than the name Gladiator.

But I don't know, there's definitely things out there

I think Stellantis could do to lean into that heritage

as far as, you know, acknowledging that AMC existed.

But the thing is they don't even acknowledge

barely that Chrysler exists.

So it's kind of a tricky thing for them.

But as an AMC enthusiast,

I think that, yeah, more recognition

for the company is a good thing.

We want to see their story get told.

You did mention the small car talk here in the US.

They have to President Trump said he'd love

to see the Japanese style K cars come to the US.

Stellantis's Fiat brand just announcing

it's going to be bringing the electric topolino

to the US probably next year.

Unfortunately, this isn't actually a real car

or even a K car in Europe.

They're sold as a quadricycle,

has a top speed of 28 miles per hour.

And when it does go on sale in the US,

it'll probably be one of those neighborhood electric vehicles.

But here's something interesting I found.

The original Jeep CJ 2A, back when it was Willys

before AMC owned that, it was 130 inches long

and 59 inches wide and a 60 horsepower engine.

The K car regulations in Japan,

maximum 134 inches long, 58 inches wide,

58.3 to be precise,

and 63 horsepower maximum power.

Jeep can bring back the CJ 2A as a K car today.

And it would pretty much fit the bill

if we get these regulations passed.

What do you think about this idea?

You know, it's funny.

I have thought for a long time

that there needs to be a smaller Jeep,

especially because the Wrangler's gotten so big

and it's super popular as a big vehicle.

But I think there's room for a smaller Wrangler

underneath it.

And it's funny, AMC toyed with this, you know,

and then when Chrysler bought AMC Chrysler toyed with

this, they called it the JJ program.

And because, you know, the Wrangler was the YJ

and then they were going to have a JJ

which was the junior Jeep.

AMC had concept vehicles and they took it to auto shows

and said, oh, we're going to build a mini Jeep.

We're going to build a mini Jeep,

a 30 mile per gallon Jeep.

And there was always some reason why it didn't work out.

And, you know, the AMC's case,

it was they didn't have the capital to tool

for a new body and a new vehicle and a new chassis.

But then in Chrysler's case,

what I had always heard was that, you know,

they were really serious about putting

the JJ into production,

but then so many executives saying,

well, it has to have this and it has to have that.

You know, we can't just have a soft topic.

I have a hard time.

And they added so many features to it

that financially it wouldn't have made sense.

It would have competed with the Wrangler too much.

And it's one of those things where it's like,

well, if we make it cheap enough

to make it different from the Wrangler,

nobody will buy it.

And if we make it nice enough,

then people will just buy a Wrangler.

I think it would be really cool to have,

maybe not a K-Card Jeep that's that small,

but I think certainly a junior Wrangler,

you know, that's just a four cylinder

and, you know, a four seat or two door type Wrangler.

I think, oh man, I think they would sell a ton of them.

I was talking to Mike Manley,

the former head of Jeep a decade ago

about the baby Jeep.

They were thinking about it then,

but just can't kind of pull the trigger on it.

I have one more story.

We were talking about the Spirit of 76 cars.

This, it's surprising to me

that AMC never made a Spirit of 76 deal.

I mean, of all the companies

who could have made a Spirit of 76 thing,

they never did.

They used it in some of their promotion

and some of their, you know, dealer advertising.

They had some signage and stuff.

The only like Spirit of 76 product I can find

that they built was,

there was a state farm insurance agency in Kenosha, Wisconsin

that special ordered like a dozen Pacers

that had, I think it was,

they were white with a red stripe and a blue vinyl top.

And so it was like a special package.

You couldn't normally get,

yeah, you couldn't normally get from the factory.

Stand up and salute that.

Right, they wouldn't let you combine those colors,

I think normally.

So, but you could order, it was like white,

I think it was white with a two-tone red and white

with a blue top.

And one of them still exists.

It is, it makes its appearances

at the Kenosha homecoming car show every three years.

And it's pretty cool.

It has the original state farm logo painted on the side

and you know, it's trimmed out

in pretty nice condition.

So that's a cool thing to see.

AMC never made an official, you know, Spirit of 76 product.

But I guess there's probably other insurance agencies

or other fleet sales that year

that they maybe offered that as like an off the books option.

So that's a pretty cool thing to have seen that at least.

It's the closest you get.

Joe Lago, the last independent automaker on PBS and YouTube.

Thanks again for joining us today.

Absolutely, it was a blast.

You know, Alex, November car sales just came out

but there was something you won't find on those lists.

Turns out the Chevrolet Camaro is outselling the Ford Mustang

even though it's been out of production for two years.

And how is that?

Not on the street, but in NASCAR

where surprisingly two teams are switching

from Ford to Camaro next year.

The Haas factory team and Rick Ware racing.

Camaro, they've got the new redesigned Camaro coming out

even though there is no new production Camaro.

And I guess it either looks really good

or Chevrolet's write them a little check under the table.

I'm not sure, but they're stealing sales.

I'm joking about sales,

but you know, we're talking seven, 14 cars, race cars

and then they're going to be racing them on the track.

And then they're going to be winning races.

And then people are going to be going to Chevy dealers

instead of Ford dealers,

but they're going to be buying trucks instead of Camaros

because there is no Camaro to buy at the Chevy did.

I'm begging Chevy to just come back

with another Camaro as quickly as possible.

I'm on record.

That's the best looking of the three cup car bodies.

Definitely.

Please, Chevy, do right by people.

Find a way.

Let's have another Camaro as soon as possible.

We'd love to see one before next NASCAR season,

but that's not going to happen.

Maybe 2027 when the new Cadillac CT5 comes out,

they might throw Chevy a new sports car then.

In any event, thanks again to Joe Lago for joining us today.

Good to see you, Alex.

Keep the hair as short as you can

and we'll be back next week.

Thanks, Gary.

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and American cars and recent.com.

What Happened To American Motors?

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