The AMC AMX-GT is a

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle, show vehicle or prototype) is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or ...

that was developed by American Motors Corporation (AMC) for the 1968

show car A show car, sometimes called a dream car, is a custom-made automobile created specifically for public display, rather than sale. They are shown at auto shows and other exhibitions. Show cars can either come from car companies or from private indivi ...

circuit. The design of the

grand touring A grand tourer (GT) is a type of car that is designed for high speed and long-distance driving, due to a combination of performance and luxury attributes. The most common format is a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive two-door coupé with either ...

-type

rear-wheel-drive Rear-wheel drive (RWD) is a form of engine and transmission layout used in motor vehicles, in which the engine drives the rear wheels only. Until the late 20th century, rear-wheel drive was the most common configuration for cars. Most rear-wheel ...

pillarless

coupe A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...

monocoque Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, ...

construction with two doors and a truncated rear end treatment was influenced by AMC stylist

Dick Teague Richard Arthur Teague (December 26, 1923 – May 5, 1991) was an American industrial designer in the North American automotive industry. He held automotive design positions at General Motors, Packard, and Chrysler before becoming Vice President o ...

Design development

The AMX GT was built by shortening the 4-seat Javelin coupé to a

wheelbase In both road and rail vehicles, the wheelbase is the horizontal distance between the centers of the front and rear wheels. For road vehicles with more than two axles (e.g. some trucks), the wheelbase is the distance between the steering (front ...

(the same as the production 2-seat AMXs), lowering, or "chopping", the roof and cutting off the tail. The one-off AMX-GT body used a

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass ( Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass clo ...

rear and featured side-mounted "macho external exhaust pipes." It appeared in two versions. At the

New York International Auto Show The New York International Auto Show is an annual auto show that is held in Manhattan in late March or early April. It is held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. It usually opens on or just before Easter weekend and closes on the first S ...

in April 1968 it was red with a white stripe on the sides that ran across the roof. It also had plain, flush wheel covers, generic all-black tires, a side-mounted exhaust, a

ram-air intake A ram-air intake is any intake design which uses the dynamic air pressure created by vehicle motion, or ram pressure, to increase the static air pressure inside of the intake manifold on an internal combustion engine, thus allowing a greater massf ...

hood, integrated roof

spoiler Spoiler is a security vulnerability on modern computer central processing units that use speculative execution. It exploits side-effects of speculative execution to improve the efficiency of Rowhammer and other related memory and cache attacks. Ac ...

and fixed rear side windows (

quarter glass Quarter glass (or quarter light) on automobiles and closed carriages may be a side window in the front door or located on each side of the car just forward of the rear-facing rear window of the vehicle. Only some cars have them. In some cases, ...

) with no support (or " B") pillar. The wheels were soon replaced by an alloy five-spoke design with Goodyear white-letter tires. The hood and roof were repainted a contrasting dark blue. This color scheme, which followed the major character lines of the car, was applied to some of the early factory-sponsored race cars before AMC changed to bands of red, white, and blue.

Legacy

The AMX GT provided several clues to future production models and options. The most immediately available were the optional side exhaust pipes for 1969 Javelins and AMXs. A slightly modified version of the show car's

hood scoop A hood scoop (North American English) or bonnet scoop (Commonwealth English), sometimes called bonnet airdam and air dam, is an upraised component on the hood of a motor vehicle that either allows a flow of air to directly enter the engine co ...

became part of the factory production "

Go package The Go package (or Go Pack) was a factory option that included various performance equipment that was available on several muscle cars manufactured by American Motors Corporation (AMC). Background During the late-1960s and early-1970s, domestic au ...

" option on Javelins and AMXs for the 1970 model year. The flat black "shadow mask" paint treatment also became available on the 1970 AMXs. 1968 AMC Board of Directors

The AMX GT's truncated tail treatment reappeared in 1970 on the

Gremlin A gremlin is a mischievous folkloric creature invented at the beginning of the 20th century to originally explain malfunctions in aircraft and later in other machinery and processes and their operators. Depictions of these creatures vary widel ...

subcompact. The show car provided the general shape for the small Gremlin. The design, an example of Teague's approach to maximizing AMC's limited resources, resulted in a new version from an existing

platform Platform may refer to: Technology * Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run * Platform game, a genre of video games * Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models * Weapons platform, a system or ...

Stage prop

In AMC's 1969 annual report to shareholders, various AMX GT design drawings and proposals served as the background for pictures of top AMC executives. For the official photograph of the board of directors, the members posed with the second version of the concept car, this time with its hood and roof painted black.

Notes

{{American Motors AMX GT Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Coupés 1960s cars Concept cars