1968-70 AMC AMX

The AMX was hardly a car for conformists

by Dave Kinney

For three years, AMC got it right.

In 1968 American Motors finally had a winner. Maybe it’s just a law of averages type of thing, but the AMX was in many ways the right car for the right time. American Motors dumped the funky four-seat Marlin in ’68 and replaced it with a car made in the true pony-car formula (long hood, short trunk, six- or eight-cylinder motor, 2+2 seating), called the Javelin. It was late to the party, with Mustang and Camaro already eating up the sales charts. But the Javelin was a real car, and it was an exciting change from a company known for selling transportation aimed at the practical side of the ledger. In the middle of the 1968 sales year, AMC introduced another car, one aimed squarely at image. In February 1968, the AMX (American Motors Experimental) was introduced. AMX was a Javelin-based car, with a 97-inch version of the Javelin’s 109-inch wheelbase. Gone was the back seat, replaced by a carpeted area. The seats themselves were thin shell buckets with an...