AMC

American Motors Corporation (AMC) was an American automobile company formed
by the merger of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company on 1
May 1954. At the time, it was the largest corporate merger in U.S. history.


AMC went on to compete with the U.S. Big Three—Ford, General Motors and
Chrysler—with its small cars including the Rambler American, Hornet, Gremlin and
Pacer; its intermediate and full-size cars including the AMC Ambassador, AMC
Rebel, and AMC Matador; muscle cars including the Marlin, AMX and Javelin; and
early four-wheel-drive variants of the Eagle, the U.S. market's first true
crossover.

The company was known as "a small company deft enough to
exploit special market segments left untended by the giants", and was widely
known for the design work of chief stylist, Dick Teague, who "had to make do
with a much tighter budget than his counterparts at Detroit's Big Three" but
"had a knack for making the most of his employer's investment".

After
periods of intermittent but unsustained success, Renault acquired a major
interest in AMC in 1979—and the company was ultimately acquired by Chrysler. At
its 1987 demise, The New York Times said AMC was "never a company with the power
or the cost structure to compete confidently at home or abroad."