I don't think brands like Studebaker and AMC can really be chalked up to lack of ideas/buying demographics, but rather more to just not being able to compete of a cost-effective per car basis with the larger companies. From there it became a slowly downward and irreversible spiral as each new car has a little smaller development budget than the one before, which in turns causes a few less sales, which in turn reduced available development funds, etc. etc.
On the contrary, I think companies like AMC were the most innovate of any of the companies if for no other reason than they
had to be! For example, from the time the Hornet first came out in 1970, AMC got over a dozen (16, to be exact)
different vehicles across 4 nameplates derived from that one platform. Pretty damn ingenious if you ask me!👍 Of course they probably woudl've liked to do something else, but they stretched what they had way better than anybody else - it lasted from 1970 until they died in 1987 - things like that are just one of the reasons I like AMC so much!
But, just for GTP's general knowledge base, the 16 vehicles I mentioned above can be broken down as follows:
AMC Hornet 2-Dr Sedan - 1970-1977
AMC Hornet 4-Dr Sedan - 1970-1977
AMC Hornet Sportabout (station wagon) - 1972-1977
AMC Hornet Hatchback - 1974-1977
AMC Gremlin - 1970-1978
AMC Concord 4-Dr Sedan - 1978-1983
AMC Concord 2-Dr Sedan - 1978-1982
AMC Concord Sportabout - 1978-1983
AMC Concord Hatchback - 1978-1979
AMC Spirit 'Kammback' - 1979-1981
AMC Spirit 'Liftback' - 1979-1983
AMC Eagle 4-Dr Sedan - 1980-1987
AMC Eagle 2-Dr Sedan - 1980-1982
AMC Eagle Wagon - 1980-1988*
AMC Eagle SX/4 - 1982-1984
AMC Eagle 'Kammback' - 1982-1983
* AMC was bought and killed off by Chrysler in 1987. The wagon version of the Eagle continued to be marketed as the 'Eagle Wagon' in the 1988 model year under the new standalone Eagle brand that Chrysler created, complete with AMC-style VIN numbers and some badging. These are often considered to be the last AMCs ever made.
Also, the AMC AMX returned as a trim package from 1977-1979 based off of the Hornet, Concord, and Spirit respectively. Although they were marketed as a separate model line, I don't tend to count them as so... I guess it's up to individual preference (that would make it 19 cars!
)
So... what started out as the Hornet morphed into the Concord in an attempt to go upmarket in the cheapest manner possible (but it worked!), and the Eagle in turn was basically a lifted Concord with a Jeep power-train. The Gremlin was based off of a shorted Hornet platform, and became the Spirit Kammback, which became the Eagle Kammback... the Spirit Liftback/Eagle SX/4 was also based off of the Gremlin platform. Slightly confusing I guess... I hope I did a good job of explaining it! So clearly, AMC got good mileage out of a car that was developed in the late 60's... that platform even outlasted AMC itself!
Imagine if all companies could be this clever? Lecture over!
