The 2010 AMC Ambassador?

HOT ROD's website recently offered up some wild futuristic artist renderings of what the 2010 AMC Ambassador might have looked like if little carmaker AMC had survived and not been acquired by Chrysler in 1987. The Ambassador became the top of the line full size car for little AMC, something like their own Cadillac, but for the price of a full size Chevrolet. In fact, my first car nearly became a beautiful 1969 white Ambassador, but the guys selling the car were too drunk to complete the sale, so I left in disgust.

The Ambassador cars were always a terrific deal, because they were a top quality full size car for a very reasonable price tag with a great array of luxury car options, yet they just were never considered by many to be in the same league with Cadillacs, Lincolns and Imperials, despite their overall quality by many car buyers.

Ambassadors came standard with a V8 engine, automatic transmission, power steering, power brakes, and many other great items that were options on comparable full size cars in the same price range. Compared to the cost of many full size cars like the Chevrolet Impala, Ambassadors seemed like a lot of car for the money. Strangely, the full size AMC cars like the Ambassador and the lower priced Rebel were actually light in weight for their size, while AMCs small cars such as the Gremlin Hornet and especially Pacer were very heavy in weight for their size.

Well, AMC is long gone as a company. However this artist's concept is a pretty decent image of what these underrated full size Ambassador cars might have been like if the company survived. Ambassadors were a great American full size car of very high quality and durability that too few Americans considered back in the 60's to mid 70's when buying a car. 1974 was the last year for the big Ambassador, and the last year that AMC was a full line carmaker as well. Both the Ambassador and Javelin bowed out after the 1974 car year, leaving the controversial styled 1975 Matador as AMC's last remaining large car. Strangely, the 1975 two door coupe Matador and the 1975 four door sedan appeared to be entirely different cars, which is another very strange quirk.