Why AMC's Popular Rebel Machine Was Discontinued After Only Three Years In Production
The Rebel Machine by American Motor Corp. was a muscle car for someone who did not want to blow their entire savings on a vehicle, but still wanted bang-for-your-buck muscle. Despite the Rebel Machine being impressive on paper and on the streets, the model was met with a terrible fate. AMC had difficulty managing the increasing labor strikes, financial crunches, and having strong upper management; that, among other things, led to the Rebel Machine being discontinued.
Upon its launch at the 1969 NHRA World Championship, the car was fairly well received by the masses and was the successor of AMC's underappreciated Javelin and the AMX. To build this ambitious muscle car, AMC partnered with Hurst Performance Inc., and it came with a price tag just shy of $3,500. Although the car was mostly seen in the classic red-white-blue color scheme of the American flag, it was offered in a few other shades, too.
Despite only 2,362 units of the vehicle rolling out of production, it's popularity grew through the '70s, and has risen ever since among muscle car enthusiasts. It also had a lot of other noteworthy stats that could have made it the next big thing in muscle cars.
[Featured image by CZmarlin via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 3.0]
A peek at what the Rebel Machine packed under the hood
The Rebel Machine by AMC was a fresh new addition to the muscle circuit that was primarily dominated by cars from the Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Stellantis (previously known as Fiat-Chrysler) in the '60s and '70s. Although AMC's creation was not precisely head-on with some of the biggies of the time like the Mustang or the Camaro, what it packed under the hood was nothing short of purely impressive, especially considering its limited resources.
It had an AMC 390 V8 powertrain, which was the automaker's most powerful engine up to that point, and was capable of churning out 340 horsepower at 5,100 rpm, with a compression ratio of 10:1. The Motorcraft four-barrel carburetor jacked up its torque to 430 lb-ft at 3,600 rpm. Plus some tweaks and modifications in the intake and exhaust manifolds added some extra numbers to its overall power rating. The boxy blue hood scoop ensured optimal fresh air flow into the carburetor.
The Rebel Machine came equipped with a Borg-Warner 4-speed manual transmission and hit the quarter-mile mark in a sweet 14 seconds. It had 5x7-inch wheels at the heart of E60/15 Polyglass Goodyear tires. On top of this, AMC's $500 service kit package — mostly popular in the racing circuit — pushed the Rebel Machine's performance figures further by about 60 horsepower, and trimmed the quarter mile time by at least 2 seconds.
While AMC went a little overboard with the Rebel Machine's exterior look, its interior was far from fancy or lavish and was rather lackluster. The plain black leather bucket seats and generous use of plastic in the overall interior made it fall a tad short on comfort and aesthetic appeal.
[Featured image by CZmarlin via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 3.0]
Why was the Rebel Machine discontinued so soon
Even before launching the Rebel Machine, AMC faced more than a handful of problems. Difficulty dealing with the increasing demands of labor, the financial crunches in the company, and the constant changes in the upper management were some of the reasons why the Rebel Machine could never live up to its full potential. Besides, the muscle car wave that took America by storm in the late '50s and through the '60s had started to settle upon the arrival of the '70s, and the craze for owning a muscle was nowhere close to what it used to be.
As a result, the insurance prices for muscle cars soared year after year, making it all the heavier on buyers' pockets. The stooping muscle car sales were another reason why AMC halted the production of the Rebel Machine to just under 2,400 vehicles. However, if the Rebel Machine had come to the scene a few years earlier, things could have looked different for it, since it checked most boxes to be the next legendary muscle car.
[Featured image by CZmarlin via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 3.0]