I have one huge beef with the classic American car scene, and it’s that you tend to just see the same stuff over and over and over again. Mustang, Camaro, GTO, Bel-Air. There’s so much great vintage American iron that goes unloved, like this 1969 AMC AMX.
Yeah, I get parts are rare and expensive for these things compared to the stuff from Ford, Chrysler and GM. But what kind of price tag can you put on being different?
AMCs in general are some of my favorite American cars just because they’re kind of weird and quirky and atypical. The AMX was among American Motors’ more interesting offerings. Only around for three model years, it was powered by a range of V8s and notable for the fact that it only had two seats, making it more of a sports car than a lot of other muscle cars.
This (free!) episode of /DRIVEN highlights a green and white-striped 1969 AMX with a 390 V8, and its owner Hobie says hearing “Nice car, what is it?” is just one of the many joys of owning it.
“When you’re into AMCs, you want something different, rather than having something the same as everybody else has,” he says.
Amen, sir.
Contact the author at patrick@jalopnik.com.