Eh? A car from AMC? Well, since Chrysler bought AMC in the late '80s so I thought I'd place them under the umbrella. AMC vehicles are openly adopted into Mopar car shows, hopefully you guys are OK with that.
This 1970 AMC Rebel Machine from the Hot Wheels Boulevard Series is too cool not be showcased; it even comes with the red, white and blue colors from the factory. I'm sucker for outrageous, over-the-top factory graphics packages when I had the luck of finding them on the pegs, I didn't hesitate on getting it.
The wheels are pretty vanilla which leads your focus onto the patriotic paint scheme, which HWs have done a sloppy job. Perhaps I'd have minded less if it had the magnum wheels. I took the liberty of adding details to the inlet of the hoodscoop, a tiny but important detail.
The Rebel Machine reappeared in the Cool Classics series in Spectrafrost green, which unfortunately never appeared in my hunts. It's a piece I'd like to have but not to the point that I'll resort to buying it online.
American Motors. the Kenosha, Wisconsin-based company got little respect from most performance fans. Truth be told, AMC was a little late getting into the musclecar marketplace, but they made real inroads when they finally did.
In 1970, the company moved into road racing and picked up Roger Penske, Mark Donahue, George Follmer, and a couple of world titles in the early half of the decade. While Penske was handling that and the new NASCAR program, Wally Booth was flogging the deal for AMC in the Pro Stock ranks and eventually came close to winning a world championship with his efforts. So, yes, AMC may have been late to the party, but they made a splash once they got going.
The year 1970 is still considered the benchmark for boulevard beasts, and that was the year AMC dropped the performance SC/Rambler and introduced a new Rebel SST. Bold and brash was the order of the day in the early '70s, so they called it "The Machine." The Machine was, in most aspects, a true Detroit musclecar, even though it gave up 50 ci to some of its Detroit competitors. For Mopar fans who are a bit open minded, this car bore some solid similarities to the '66-'67 B-bodies. And despite the anti-war/anti-nationalistic feelings among the youth, AMC had no problems painting it up in a special red-white-and-blue scheme that had originated with the Scrambler the previous year.
Under the hood went the hottest street engine the company ever offered: a 340-horse 390; the later 401s were not as performance oriented. Super Stock & Drag Illustrated got one late in 1969 for testing, and Jim McCraw wrote the article that appeared in the January 1970 issue. According to him, this model debuted just after AMC had purchased the Jeep line from what remained of Kaiser, and it was the second of six new vehicles AMC had promised to deliver (the Hornet was already in planning). The four cars available ran solid mid-14s in bone-stock trim during a press day at the now-defunct Dallas International Motor Speedway.
It has the Mopar look of muscle from its crisp lines, big tires, and scoop (the 390 logos on the scoop are add-ons). The paint is original; the early Rebels got this scheme, while later examples came with standard colors and a flat-black hood. Like all Machines, the interior is black and an additional tachometer on the steering column is used in place of the factory version. A few minor underhood changes have occurred, and the air cleaner seal has, unfortunately, disappeared into time.
Source: Mopar Muscle Magazine
