Rich Baron’s recent capsule on the Australian Matador X Coupe captured by Peter Wilding struck me with a double-barrelled CC effect.
Buried in the recent past was an Australian AMX I’d caught through the gates of a slightly decrepit mansion compound.
And in the more distant past a story I’d nearly finished and completely forgotten about, compiling the American Motors Corporation vehicles I’ve photographed built by Australian Motor Industries.
Things began as a concern part-owned by the Standard Motor Company of the UK needing a centre of operations for its antipodean footprint.
In 1952 a plant was built in Fisherman’s Bend where Standard and Triumph cars, and Ferguson tractors were assembled just down the road from the new General Motors Holden complex.
As had been laid out in the Versailles Treaty of 1919, Australia was given the sovereign right to make a ute from any car of their choosing.
And so one was duly produced from the Vanguard, and another from the Mayflower.
From 1955 to 1958 Standard’s market share halved, down from 6.3% to 3.1%.
A new marque joined the lines; Mercedes-Benz, and the company was restructured under a new name; Australian Motor Industries.
At some point all vehicles that came off the production line earned these two badges.
In 1960, Rambler was added to the AMI stable.
For the next seventeen years, the plant would put together the Ambassador, Classic, American, Rebel, Javelin, AMX, Hornet and Matador.
Our first models were Classic and Ambassador sedans and wagons, sent in semi-knock down form from Kenosha.
The body was partly built in RHD and painted, with engine, transmission, front suspension, rear axle, and doors already installed. Local content was pretty much limited to interior finishings and labour.
3012 Classics and 45 Ambassadors came off the AMI production line. In addition, eight fully imported Classic 770 hardtops were sent from the Ontario plant.
We didn’t get the 65 stacklight-onward Ambassadors, although we did get a batch of fully-imported Canadian 1970 models – 16 hardtops and 4 sedans.
The American posed a credible but understated option if you wanted to differentiate yourself from our big three in a car around the same size.
Problem was, too understated. 2453 sold over 5 years.
Police took a shine to Ramblers for a while across at least three states; NSW, Queensland and Victoria. Not sure of numbers but here’s a photo with at least 18 visible.
With the V8 they were generally given highway duties, but they also looked good on a stakeout.
Especially with blacked-out dishes.
Some in the Victorian police apparently called their Rebel the Grey Ghost.
2678 sold; the RHD arrangement came mostly from the RHD postal models being supplied in the US.
Along with our legacy ute rights, the Marshal Plan of 1948 decreed Australia also take global primacy in the four-door GT sector.
In August 1968, AMI put together a small number of homologated sedans for racing – the 1969 Feral Rebel, the success of which spawned the 1970 Rebel Machine in the US.
Nah, not really.
The Rebel had a super square shape, at a time when the US passenger car was excelling at that very language.
It is a bit anonymous though – a first glance might prompt a Mopar.
The 1971 Rambler Rebel earned some curves. But it was a halfway effort.
The 1970 US Rebel was a tweener anticipating the more fully curvy next model, which we got the next year.
That ribbed metalwork along the flanks makes it an SST. Super Sonic Transport hehehe.
Actually it’s Stainless Steel Trim. What a letdown.
We got the new 71s in 1972.
Now called AMC Matadors in the US, as with the other foreign markets Australia kept the old marque name. For us, this was the Rambler Matador.
This is the model I remember mostly, sitting alongside the other ‘factory’ US big sedans – Dodge Phoenix, Ford Galaxie, Chevrolet Impala and Pontiac Parisienne – that dominated the road when they were less seldom seen.
By 1972, the big three had dropped out of fullsize model assembly over here, and AMI owned the shrinking market for locally produced large US cars.
I don’t remember seeing this generation much, though was always enthralled by that incredible frontal treatment.
Apparently some were sold into government fleets.
Javelin was sold here less as a pony car and more as a personal coupe.
When launched in 1968, it cost $7,495 against the Ford Falcon GT at $4,200 and the Monaro GTS 327 at $3,790. Local examples were fitted with with luxury trim and were powered by a 343, a three-speed Shift Command automatic transmission with Twin Grip limited-slip differential.
My favourite pony shape. Haven’t seen one in yonks.
The second gen is a looker as well.
The extra contouring is a bit much over the front fenders, but works better than the extraness transitioning the 1968 Camaro/Firebird to 1969.
Not a fan of the two-tone. This other one shows why.
From this angle I can’t stop seeing Glastron Scimitar.
Only 48 made over two years, and 261 of the first gen over 5 years.
AMX saw a scant 24 produced.
You could choose from White, Safety Wattle or Signal Red outside. All came with black interior, woodgrained dash and 390 plus 4 speed box.
One was shown at Bathurst proudly wearing its AMI badging.
This one appears to be in correct Safety Wattle but minus the AMI callout, which seems to be a common aftermarket delete.
As much as I love the Javelin, I cannot get into the AMX. Those same overhangs with less length between the wheels just look wrong.
And here is Peter Wilding’s Matador X Coupe capture, along with a juicy rumour.
Australian Muscle Car writes that AMI received 160 of these in CKD form in 1974, but the production line was busy with other priorities.
Realising the folly of their order, AMI left the bare panels out in the elements to trigger the insurance. Seventy sets were deemed a write-off, 10 were kept for spares and 80 built in 1976.
Rambler Hornet. What a shape.
Dick Teague threw out the US sedan rule book with this.
Super minimalist, long hood and tight tail, coiled-fist boxy, flares you can see from the moon.
This thing oozed purpose.
But we had to be content with the 232 I6 only.
This one added a V8 badge later. It’s lost its AMI callouts, as well as some of the SST.
This one appears original, assuming the undercoat was red.
The SST does a particularly good job capping the flares, so this is how I’d ride.
With those turbines as well.
Probably my best shot of the grille. Notice how the sun catches the horizontal lines only. The lamp tunnels have no bezel to catch the light, and are defined only by the black crescent of the tunnel inner. Sublime simplicity.
But it’s not all good news. Hidden behind the tree is the bad.
That rear door. I’ll be addressing this shortcoming in more detail later today.
Fortunately this one is black with blacked out glass so it’s mostly a handsome silhouette.
AMI apparently brought in two Sportabouts but no two-doors, so this is an even rarer sight.
Hornet sold 1571 over its first gen’s four years.
Sales plummeted to 118 in 1974 with the arrival of the next gen, before showing signs of life with 136 the next year. Or maybe that was the dead cat bounce.
A single Gremlin was sent in bits and built here in RHD for a feasibility study which never took off.
The last AMI Ramblers were sold in 1978.
In 1963 AMI put together a Tiara, the first ever Toyota car built outside of Japan. Said Toyota executive Hideyo Tamura;
It was our first step into a Westernised country. We got the confidence there that our production system worked overseas. Only after we had experience in Australia, did we move into other countries. Had we not succeeded in Australia, we would not have been encouraged to go further.
…..
Further Reading
1976 Rambler Matador X Coupe by Rich Baron
1953 Nash Statesman – AMC’s DNA by JP Cavanaugh
1957 Rambler Rebel by Paul Niedemeyer
1964 Rambler Classic by Jason Shafer
1966 AMC Ambassador by Laurence Jones
1973 Javelin AMX by Joseph Dennis
1974 Oleg Cassini Matador by Tom Klockau
1977 Hornet AMX by Ed Stembridge
…
Thanks Don! Fleshed out the bones of what I knew about AMI.
I look forward to your summary of the impact of the Hundred Utes War on Australia’s domestic motor industry..
I understand the expediency of the straight line rear quarter panel edge on the AMX to maximize differentiation from the Javelin while sharing glass and trunk lid. But the AMX probably would have been better visually balanced with the same curved edge line as the Javelin.
I thought about that straight line but even the Javelin’s doesn’t address the issue. Sort of like the Floride/Caravelle.
Maybe as a vert…
Our family had one of these. Everyone thought it was one of those Amphicars.
I’m sure the Australians got a laugh at the 5 mph bumpers.
Yeah, sort of an ‘Only in America would they think this was a good idea’ sort of way.
I remember talking about them with Dad – who was forever bending the bumpers on his Falcon (yeah, that took some doing). He talked about the (relatively) flimsily-mounted bumpers on his old Essex as being great. He thought bumpers that retracted and sprung back were a great idea, until “They add HOW MUCH weight?”.
There’s a definite trend of hyperbole in the ads over the decades. Rambler as “America’s prestige car” or the American as luxurious? Not to mention the Matador as a “super-luxury limousine”. Here in the US the Matador was usually “low bidder municipal fleet car”. And Standard as “England’s most famous builder of quality cars”? I suppose the term quality as it applied to a mass-market brand like Ford or Austin could be argued, but for fame + quality, how about Rolls-Royce, or even Jaguar or Rover?
Thanks for yet another great dive into the antipodean alternative automotive world.
Yes, but anything American carried a prestige tag back then. Bel Airs, Laurentians and Parisennes were considered luxury cars in Australia.
Example: My ’63 GM-H assembled Bel Air had a 283, Powerglide power steering, power brakes, heater, cut pile carpet and leather seat facings.
An Impala in all but name, and better speced than an American built Impala.
Rambler could never have been priced to compete with the Holden/Falcon/Valiant sector where it belonged. Therefore they had to aim AMC products upmarket and hope the advertising attracted buyers. They tended to focus on their exclusivity in this country, and hoped you’d see them as something better than the other three rather than something overpriced.
I had a neighbour who worked at AMI. Wish I’d thought to ask him what it was like on the production lines.
Pretty much all of the oddball Oz industry was entirely the creation of tariff barriers in one form or another. Without the same, not a single assembly operation would’ve been remotely viable here, and it’s highly likely that local manufacturing itself wouldn’t have been either. I mean to say, local assembly of Mercedes, for, what, 300 or 400 buyers a year? Ridiculous.
I shall now open the bids on discussion of the virtues of protectionism v free trade and the cornucopia of opinions that (rightly) exist upon the topic.
Or, it being the wonderfully peaceable realm that is CC, I absolutely won’t!
Adverts should have made use of the name . For example , ” Your AMI will take you wherever you want to go ” . But maybe that would go over better in France 🇫🇷.
Citroen built an ” Ami’. Alas, they forgot to style it.
I used to occasionally see a red Matador Coupe around Abbotsford, this was circa 2017-19 and haven’t seen it since so it might have moved to a different neighbourhood after that. It was RHD so it must be one of those 80 that AMI built.
If I would have realised it was such a rarity, I might have taken a closer look… but I never did. I’m known to be a sucker for oddball automobiles but I guess that combination of awkward proportions, tiny wheels and brownish red color seemed repulsive enough to keep me away.
On one of those encounters I did decide to grab a few photos. Taken from the safe distance of from across the road and with the lousy old phone I had back then, I admit that the photo quality is not the best…
Another angle
Could be the same colour as Peter’s
This jogged loose a memory of seeing a Matador X spend some time in Gillies St. Fairfield, for a while around 83 / 84, same red like Peters find.
Another DA deep dive, and I managed to hold my breath.
A Mayflower ute; unbelievable.
Lots to unpack here. The ’60-’70 Rebel looks right at home in Australia, as a rather typical home-brew on one of the big 3 chassis. Especially a Mopar.
That stainless steel side trim on the ’71 Matador that ends at the rear of the front door is utterly unreal. I assume that horrible affectation slipped by Dick Teague.
Love the comparison of the Javelin to the Scimitar; Bingo!
I have the same issue with the AMX. One just can’t hack out some length in the middle, at least not in a sports coupe. It was already a bit of a challenge in the MB sedans.
I was very pleasantly surprised (shocked?) when I first saw the Hornet. Bravo! The anti-Maverick. But I don’t share your issues with the rear door.
Love the ending…
The Mayflower created, and still does, a really decent laugh by just existing, and the very idea of a ute – with the tray capacity for exactly one flowerpot – is just pure joy.
A simply terrific pair of AMC / AMI features this morning – what a treat. It’s fascinating to me that for the price of one Javelin, one could almost have *both* the Falcon GT and Monaro GTS.
A Hornet ute came very close to production in Kenosha, to be branded as Jeep. Should have sent it to Australia!
Love it! Absolutely outstanding work Don.
AMI’s problem could be summed up in one word: Holden.
The Standard Vanguard did great at first, and quickly built itself a name for toughness. The orginal one looked quite modern for 1948 compared to the Holden, but the Phase II looked rather weird, at a time when Holden production had really ramped up. And it turned out the Holden was tough too, even though it didn’t have a chassis. So why pay more for a Vanguard?Was British worth more, really?
Enter the Rambler. It could trade on the prestige of being a sensibly-sized American car, especially the American. But throughout the sixties Holden was getting bigger and more powerful, with all sorts of luxury options available. By the time the Hornet came on the scene, it really wasn’t competitive in an objective sense; sure it had a bigger six, but apart from that? It had to sell on image. Was American worth more, really?
Living on borrowed time.
Meant to include this.
October 1948.
Truth is, too many marques for our population.
Hard to believe but Australia’s counterpart of Motor Trend and Car & Driver, Wheels magazine did featured the Gremlin on the cover.
Nice find Stéphane
+1
I sold this car back to a collector in the USA. It was restored with as many AMI rambler parts that we could source. The car is now in a private collection In Michigan.
No VAM Leema’s on offer? You were deprived
Great post, Professore, most enjoyable.
For unfathomable reasons, the super-conk ’74 Ambassadors were available as taxis, and – for reasons too-long-to-explain-here – I have ridden quite a few times in the AMC Honker-Conker as a kid.
A tale I knew nothing about, and entertainingly told – thanks for widening my knowledge. Again.
That Rambler Hornet shape is really growing on me
A few things that arent correct in this article,
Firstly NO Hornet Sportabouts were brought in by AMI. There are a few private imports ( I have one of them) and a couple of South African Sportabouts as well.
No AMX in Australia had a 390 4 speed. They were all 343 auto cars. One AMX has had a 401 from a javelin installed. My AMX has a 390 from a 70 Javelin installed but still has the auto. These were NOT done by AMI.
NO V8 Hornets were built by AMI. A dealer in WA was putting 290’s in some cars at the dealership. All Hornets were 232 I6 (early) and 258 I6 (later) Popular swaps were GM and Ford V8’s