Background
In the late 1970s, AMC was in a difficult position. The company was cash-poor and all of its models were aging except one, the disastrously unpopular Pacer. One of the company's best-selling models was the Spirit, which was a modified version of the old Gremlin, which had been engineered beginning in 1969 and first sold on April Fools' Day, 1970. Though the late '70s was a dark period for automotive performance in the United States, certain elements at AMC surmised that if they marketed a subcompact car with a small V8 engine, they might be able to make a splash in this depressed segment of the market. The engineering for a V8 powered Spirit (suspension, crossmember, etc.) already existed, having been engineered originally for the earlier Hornet, and in fact the V8 engine was available as an option on the Spirit, so it was decided that AMC would reintroduce their dormant muscle car marque, the AMX.
Although it was widely dismissed as a case of "paint-on performance," the new AMX actually featured quite a few performance-oriented upgrades.
Read more about this topic: AMC Spirit AMX
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