May 8, 2022

1968 AMC AMX-R Prototype

You've all felt that frustration. You go to a new car show, and amid all of a manufacturer's ho-hum products for next model year, you see the one car you must have, up on the podium, twirling around like a pearlescent fiberglass figure skater, grabbing your eyeballs like they were love handles.It's like nothing you've ever seen before, this concept car. Powered by nuclear fusion or jets or some wacky technology, it looks like a spaceship or fighter plane or race car or all of those at the same time. All curves and chrome and big wheels, it looks so much sexier than anything else on the road now--or five years from now.And then, after you ask the smiling, vapid booth babe when you can buy the concept car, you're informed that it's just a styling study, something to gauge interest in some tidbit of miscellany, like the hubcaps. The company has no plans to put it into production, now or ever. Goodbye, gorgeous.

Makes no sense, right? Build up the hopes and dreams of the enthusiast and then undermine that excitement with crushing disappointment. Sure, there's a difference between fantasy and reality, but why not actually build one of those concept cars once in awhile? What's so impossible about putting one into production? Everybody would buy it, right?

That was pretty much Jim Jeffords's thinking. Only he decided to follow through.The concept car that wowed him, as it did much of the automotive press, debuted on June 20, 1966, at the New York Auto Show. Now referred to as the Vignale AMX, AMC created it as part of Project IV, a group of four concept cars conceived to showcase AMC's innovative qualities. The Vignale AMX had already been seen in fiberglass pushmobile form--that is, sans drivetrain and interior--but AMC decided to commission Vignale, the coachbuilding firm in Torino, Italy, to create a fully operational steel-bodied car to really wow the crowds.The Vignale AMX displayed the general ideas behind what later became the production AMX: two-seat fastback, deeply recessed grille, trapezoidal side windows, prominent sail panels. Yet, of course, the details differed from front to rear: the rectangular headlamps, the ¾-framed door glass, and the Rambleseat.Just like the rumble seats in cars from decades prior, the Vignale AMX reversed the decklid so it opened from the rear to reveal an extra bench seat. The rear glass flipped up to form a second windshield for Rambleseat passengers, and a couple steps flipped out from underneath the rear bumper to assist passenger entry and exit.

Besides the obvious issues (where would you put your luggage?), safety concerns doomed the Rambleseat idea as AMC's designers revamped the Vignale AMX into the production AMX. In September of 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which required all new vehicles sold in the United States to have, among other safety items, seat belts, shatter-resistant windshields and energy-absorbing steering columns. If the Act didn't ban rumble seats in letter, it certainly did so in spirit.

Jim Jeffords, meanwhile, arrived at AMC as manager and president of the Javelin Racing Team, Inc., the entity formed to take the Javelin Trans-Am racing. In the late 1950s and into the 1960s, he had raced Corvettes, including the famed Purple People Eater 1958 Corvette, and took SCCA's B Production championship in 1958 and 1959.

How much behind-the-scenes access Jeffords had at AMC via his position on the racing team is unknown, though he likely had some. After all, Jim Alexander, who took credit for pushing AMC into Trans-Am racing in the first place, hinted that Jeffords got that position partially because of his friendship with fellow Milwaukeean Brooks Stevens, who in turn was close to Roy Chapin, then the CEO of AMC (see HMM#36, September 2006).Whatever the case, when Jeffords saw the production AMX sans Rambleseat prior to the AMX's introduction in March 1968, he seemed to feel it missed the very qualities that made the Vignale AMX so special. Stevens apparently felt the same way, and between the two of them, they hatched a plan. They would obtain a number of AMXs directly from the AMC factory, modify them to incorporate the Rambleseat, then market them as the AMX-R through AMC dealerships.However, which of the two men originated the plan remains in doubt. Glenn Adamson, who wrote the biography of Stevens, Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World, claims the idea for the AMX-R came from Stevens, who AMC retained as a design consultant from 1966-'69. According to Adamson, Stevens simply enlisted Jeffords to accompany the AMX-R prototype to events around the country.But according to Edrie Marquez, who wrote, Amazing AMC Muscle, Jeffords penned the agreement with AMC to allow him to produce the AMX-R, while Stevens simply penned the design. An article announcing the AMX-R in the January 1969 issue of Car Life magazine also attributed the car to Jeffords.What we do know is that Jeffords convinced AMC to provide him with a pre-production Caravelle Blue 1968 AMX--its 390-cu.in. V-8 carries a December 1967 build date--sometime in December 1967 or January 1968. Jeffords then swiftly shuffled that AMX over to Dave Puhl, the customizer whose name graced Puhl's House of Kustoms in Palatine, Illinois.Puhl had already garnered some magazine coverage of his customized 1968 Javelin by the time Jeffords showed up. According to the writeup in the December 1967 issue of Rod & Custom, that Javelin came about as the result of a collaboration between Puhl, Rod & Custom Editor Spence Murray and Dick Teague, AMC's longtime vice president of design. Teague then provided Puhl with a pre-production '68 Javelin with just enough time to modify it for display alongside the production Javelin at the Javelin's introduction in Los Angeles in September 1967.Knowing that, Teague very possibly could have given his unofficial blessing to the AMX-R as well. He once told John Conde, AMC's longtime PR man, "We knew the Rambleseat would be dropped, but our concept still was a sound one."Jeffords might have asked Puhl to finish the AMX-R in time for the AMX's press introduction on February 15, 1968, at the Daytona International Speedway or, more likely, for the AMX's public unveiling in March. According to an October 1968 Rod & Custom article on the AMX-R, Puhl was whisked away from the Grand National Roadster Show--traditionally held in late January--to begin work on the AMX-R, and then given six weeks to translate Stevens's designs into steel.

Puhl accomplished quite a bit in those six weeks. He removed the rear window of the AMX and cut away nearly all the sheetmetal in between the sail panels from the trailing edge of the roof to the top of the tailpanel. Then, with half-inch round tubing, Puhl outlined the Rambleseat and its hinge system.Unlike the Vignale AMX, the AMX-R's Rambleseat would only replace the trunklid; the rear window would remain fixed in the AMX-R. Puhl then skinned the Rambleseat in sheet steel, incorporating a few minor changes, including a small ducktail spoiler integrated into the trailing edge of the roof (presumably to direct wind away from Rambleseat passengers' heads) and steps cut into the quarter panels, just forward of the rear bumper ends. Puhl fashioned a magnetic latch for the Rambleseat that left the area with a smooth appearance when the seat was closed.Up front, Les Kertcher created a custom fiberglass hood with two extended and molded-in scoops that mimicked the stock AMX's closed-off hood bumps. Meanwhile, Puhl slightly modified the grille, replacing the AMX badge with a 390 badge, and added a number of handmade stainless steel AMX-R badges on the hood, sail panels and Rambleseat lid, accompanied by J-E-F-F-O-R-D-S badges on the hoodscoops and tailpanel.Puhl sprayed the entire car in candy apple red over gold, but painted the hood, fender tops and the area inside the character line around the windows flat black. He handed the interior off to Gene McCoughla, who covered the seats in black Naugahyde. The original 390, four-speed and Twin-Grip Model 20 rear axle remained stock.Jeffords at some point handed the AMX-R off to longtime racing associate and Javelin Racing Team vice president Ronnie Kaplan, who lowered the car two inches.The six-week deadline forced Puhl to take a number of shortcuts, according to Darryl Salisbury, who currently owns the AMX-R. To begin with, Puhl didn't strip the original Caravelle Blue paint or even prepare it for a topcoat, and simply painted around some items in the engine bay instead of behind them. Darryl told us that the Puhl-applied red paint had started to shrink away from the sail panel badges when he first got the car. Oh, and flipping up the Rambleseat necessitated unplugging the wiring harness from the reverse lamps.While neither Puhl's Javelin nor the AMX-R carried AMC's official blessing, the AMX-R does appear in a set of photos taken at AMC's styling studio in Detroit, wearing two sets of wheels: 15-inch Motor Wheel Spyders on the right side, 14-inch Magnum 500s on the left.After Puhl finished it, Jeffords took the AMX-R on the road, mostly to Trans-Am races, and apparently used it as a pace car for a few of those races--at one point, the AMX-R carried the lettering "Official Car" just below the driver's and passenger's windows. About the same time, Jeffords also issued a press release stating that he intended to produce 500 AMX-Rs for the 1969 model year and retail them through AMC dealerships.

That plan went nowhere fast. Possibly spooked by the still-fresh ink on the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, possibly due to a rumored visit by Ralph Nader, or possibly as a result of internal politics, AMC refused to provide Jeffords with any more cars.Jeffords and Kaplan finished out the 1969 Trans-Am racing season, after which Bill McNealy, then AMC's vice president of marketing, replaced them with Roger Penske. Ostensibly, AMC brought in Penske due to AMC's poor showing in 1969, but some have since speculated that the AMX-R episode figured into the decision as well. Or, more likely, the poor showing in Trans-Am figured into AMC's decision not to supply Jeffords with AMXs.Interestingly, the AMX-R previewed a few design features of later AMCs. The ducktail spoiler made it on to the 1971-'74 Javelins and AMXs, while the flat black masked-off area became an option on 1970 AMXs as the Shadow Mask.So where does current owner Darryl factor in? He had just been discharged from a five-year stint in the Air Force in 1968, and as soon as he got home, his father showed him the October 1968 issue of Rod & Custom, which featured the AMX-R on the cover. Salisbury dreamt briefly of buying one of the planned production versions, a fantasy that led him to become a devoted AMC fan.Not until 1984, though, did he again give thought to the AMX-R, when it showed up on the back of a trailer at the American Motors Owners Association national meet in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The Brooks Stevens Museum, to which Jeffords donated the AMX-R in 1969, had it on display and asked Darryl, then and now the president of the American Motors Owners Association, to see if anybody wanted to buy it.Darryl briefly considered the request, then contacted the museum after the meet to tell them he wanted to buy it. Though it required selling off a couple of other AMCs and some valuable parts, he brought the car home in 1985. A full restoration didn't commence until 2002, when Salisbury handed the AMX-R off to his brother-in-law (and world's leading Gremlin expert), Brian Moyer, who took the next three years to finish it better than Puhl had the time to when he first created it.So though Jeffords' dream of owning a concept car came to naught, Salisbury's did. Too bad 499 other dreamers couldn't have been equally as happy.

Owner's View When I wrote to the Brooks Stevens Museum to thank them for bringing the AMX-R to our show, I told them I wanted to buy the car, but didn't have much money. The museum officials spoke with Dick Teague, Duane Mackie and Bob Stevens, all of whom said I was the guy who would take care of it, so they decided I should be able to buy it.

I don't honestly know the whole story about this car: I don't know who really came up with the idea, or where it debuted, or where it was showed when new. I did try to talk with Jim Jeffords once, but he didn't want to talk about it then. I'm hoping he's since changed his mind.

As it is, though, it's always been a privilege to own this car, more so now that it's restored.--Darryl SalisburyClub Scene

American Motors Owners Association 1615 Purvis Avenue Janesville, Wisconsin 53548 608-752-8247 www.amonational.com Dues: $35/year • Membership: 2,000

PROS + Unique history + Desirable 390/four-speed/Twin-Grip + Better than new

CONS - History needs fleshing out - One-off parts are difficult to replace - Rambleseat probably not very safe

1968 AMC AMX-R Specifications

Engine Type: American Motors OHV V-8, cast-iron block and cylinder heads Displacement: 390 cubic inches Bore x Stroke: 4.165 x 3.574 inches Compression ratio: 10.2:1 Horsepower @ RPM: 315 @ 4,600 Torque @ RPM: 425-lbs.ft. @ 3,200 Valvetrain: Hydraulic valve lifters Main bearings: 5 Fuel system: Holley four-barrel carburetor, mechanical pump Lubrication system: Pressure, gear-type pump Electrical system: 12-volt Exhaust system: Dual exhaust
Transmission Type: Borg-Warner T-10 four-speed manual with Hurst shifter Ratios 1st: 2.23:1 2nd: 1.77:1 3rd: 1.35:1 4th: 1.00:1 Reverse: 2.16:1
Differential Type: AMC Model 20 with Twin-Grip limited-slip Ratio: 3.54:1
Steering Type: Saginaw recirculating ball with power assist Ratio: 18:1 Turns, lock-to-lock: 5.1 Turning circle: 33.5 feet
Brakes Type: Hydraulic, four-wheel manual Front: 11.2-inch disc Rear: 10-inch drum
Chassis & Body Construction: All-welded single unit-body and frame Body style: Two-door, two-passenger coupe (four-passenger with Rambleseat) Layout: Front engine, rear-wheel drive
Suspension Front: Independent, upper and lower control arms; trunnions; coil springs; 7/8-inch anti-roll bar; telescoping shocks Rear: Torque links; parallel semi-elliptic leaf springs; telescoping shocks
Wheels & Tires Wheels: Motor Wheel Spyder Front: 15 x 6 inches Rear: 15 x 6 inches Tires: Goodyear Polyglas Redline Front: F70-15 Rear: F70-15
Weights & Measures Wheelbase: 97.0 inches Overall length: 177.2 inches Overall width: 71.6 inches Overall height: 50 inches (est.) Front track: 58.8 inches Rear track: 57.0 inches Shipping weight: 3,200 pounds (est.)
Capacities Crankcase: 5 quarts w/filter Cooling system: 13 quarts w/heater Fuel tank: 19 gallons Transmission: 3.5 pints Rear axle: 4 pints
Calculated Data BHP per cu.in.: 0.81 Weight per BHP: 10.16 pounds Weight per cu.in.: 8.21 pounds
Production AMC built 6,725 AMXs in 1968. Jim Jeffords had Dave Puhl customize just one as an AMX-R.
Performance* Acceleration: 0-60 MPH: 7.2 seconds 0-100 MPH: 18.9 seconds 1/4 mile ET: 15.2 seconds @ 90 MPH Top speed: 104 MPH Mileage: 11-15 MPG