Pour lutter contre la vague croissante de voitures importées, AMC lance une nouvelle citadine originale : la Gremlin. Malgré les protestations de son collègue, le PDG Roy Chapin Jr., la Jeep Corporation, AMC se lance sur le marché des 4x4.
The Last Independent Automaker est une série documentaire en six parties, produite par Joe Ligo, Jimm Needle et Patrick Foster. Elle retrace l'ascension et le déclin spectaculaires d'American Motors Corporation, à travers plus de 35 interviews exclusives, des centaines de photographies rares et des heures de vidéos automobiles historiques et récentes.
The Last Independent Automaker est une série documentaire en six parties, produite par Joe Ligo, Jimm Needle et Patrick Foster. Elle retrace l'ascension et le déclin spectaculaires d'American Motors Corporation, à travers plus de 35 interviews exclusives, des centaines de photographies rares et des heures de vidéos automobiles historiques et récentes.
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00:00Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada
00:07By 1968, the slow, plain Volkswagen Beetle
00:11had managed to outsell the entire lineup of American Motors Corporation.
00:16Now, Japanese cars were also gaining ground in the U.S. market.
00:21On a flight to Detroit that June, AMC's head of manufacturing,
00:26Gerald Myers, discussed the need for an economical import fighter
00:30with Vice President of Styling, Richard Teague.
00:34Dick Teague was an open-minded, upbeat, highly talented person.
00:38He could sketch vehicles that you could look at and say,
00:42that's wonderful, that's exciting, and yet it could be built.
00:46He was so desperate for a piece of paper that he saw this fur fig on the airplane,
00:51and he, of course, had a pen with him.
00:54Grabbing an empty motion sickness bag, Teague sketched the front half
00:58of the upcoming AMC Hornet sedan, combined with the chopped rear end
01:03of a concept car called the AMX GT.
01:07The shape was practical but unique.
01:10Hoping the little car would cause lots of trouble for the imports,
01:14Teague named it the Gremlin.
01:17The last independent automaker was sponsored in part by Visit Detroit.
01:34The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Motor City's National Heritage Area,
01:40and by the following car clubs,
01:43as well as the over 375 individuals and organizations who donated to this project.
01:51Thank you.
01:53Despite building a military icon, by the late 60s, the Kaiser Jeep Corporation was struggling.
02:06But Roy Chapin Jr., the chairman and CEO of American Motors,
02:10had seen Jeep's popularity around the world and its potential at home.
02:16Holy Toledo, what a car!
02:19He knew they could be selling more because if you've got 1,700 Jeep dealers
02:24and then you add 3,000 Rambler dealers selling Jeep,
02:28your Jeep sales in the United States are going to skyrocket.
02:31He realized all that.
02:33Had a hard time convincing anybody else.
02:35After Henry Kaiser's death, his family was eager to sell the stagnant Jeep operation.
02:42Chapin sent Jerry Myers to investigate its Toledo headquarters in 1969.
02:48The first thing that struck me when I walked in was how many people there were.
02:51The assembly lines were just crowded with people.
02:54A three-man job had ten men on it.
02:56A two-man job had four men on it.
02:58There were parts all over the place that were very inefficient.
03:02And I went back to American Motors.
03:04I said, Roy, I think it's a disaster.
03:07You don't want anything to do with it.
03:08It's inefficient.
03:09It's archaic.
03:10It's absurd.
03:12My recommendation is forget it.
03:15Then they had a board meeting.
03:16Roy came out and he said, Jerry, come into my office.
03:19We're going to buy a Jeep.
03:20I said, Roy, you've got to be crazy.
03:22He said, I've got something else to tell you.
03:23We're going to put you in charge of it.
03:25And you're going to make it work.
03:27The two companies reached a deal that October.
03:36Already on strike, union workers at AMC's two Kenosha, Wisconsin plants were livid that
03:43management had asked for concessions, then spent $70 million buying Jeep.
03:49American Motors had a lot of eggs in one basket.
03:52We built the engines.
03:53We made the stampings.
03:55We had two final assembly lines.
03:58So a strike by Local 72 could basically bankrupt American Motors.
04:05And by the same token, bankrupting American Motors was not going to be such a great thing
04:09for us either.
04:10So there was a little bit of mutually assured destruction.
04:14The strike dragged on for a record 26 days.
04:18But Roy Chapin had already bagged his prize.
04:23Thank God, Mr. Chapin, that you prevailed.
04:26Because that one decision, I say, is one of the most significant decisions in the automotive
04:31business.
04:36Quiet and patrician, the Yale-educated CEO stood in stark contrast to the company's
04:42gruff, profane president, William Lunaberg.
04:47It couldn't have been more different, I don't think, because Chapin was very sophisticated
04:53and more of a sales and marketing guy.
04:56And Lunaberg was just a tough, hard-nosed manufacturing guy who didn't take any crap from anybody.
05:03My stepmother called them the odd couple because Lunaberg could go walk into a car plant and knock
05:09heads and dad could go to the banks and say, we need another million bucks tonight.
05:16And it worked.
05:19Promoted together in 1967, they had overhauled AMC's finances and image.
05:26I think a lot of the credit for that goes to Chapin for realizing that they needed to capture
05:31the baby boom market.
05:32And the way to do that was with performance.
05:351970 brought a deal with Penske Racing and legendary driver Mark Donahue.
05:42While new muscle cars lured buyers into showrooms, prototypes were even made for a radical supercar
05:53called the AMX3 before management pulled the plug.
05:57They had these grandiose plans and it just couldn't get the wheels off the ground.
06:02By the time the car would have been manufactured and made, it was just too expensive.
06:07So they scrapped the project.
06:09Performance cars weren't practical for everyone.
06:12Thankfully, new economy models were on the way.
06:18It seems like anything that happens in the United States, a trend is set by California.
06:23And the thing was, it was cool to have a foreign car.
06:26A little Toyota or Datsun.
06:29So California is a trendsetter and it moved this way.
06:32Since 1950, foreign brands had snowballed from almost nothing to over 10% of the market, primarily with small cars.
06:42Imports became more popular because they became better cars.
06:46Gradually, the Japanese and Volkswagen stood out.
06:48And it was because the quality was just much better.
06:51And the Japanese cars were just nicer.
06:54They were smaller, but all of a sudden the Americans didn't care.
06:57AMC's share of the compact car market had slipped, but the attractive new 1970 Hornet would hopefully turn the tide.
07:09And by sharing parts with future models, it would save American Motors millions in tooling costs.
07:16Tooling is a broad term for the machines that build the parts of a car.
07:21And all of them are very expensive for different reasons.
07:24The body dyes have to be hand carved out of extremely tough steel and the machinery.
07:30I mean, these are huge presses that can exert a million pounds of pressure on a piece of steel.
07:35That's expensive.
07:36American Motors got around that with the Hornet because they were experts at cutting tooling costs and sharing parts better than anybody else.
07:44The next variation launched on April Fool's Day, 1970.
07:51American Motors introduces the Gremlin.
07:55What is that?
07:56The Gremlin?
07:57Oh, move over.
07:58What are you doing?
07:59When was war?
08:00It's smaller than any other car made in America, which makes it easier to park and handle.
08:05You like it?
08:06Hey!
08:07Wow!
08:08What's that?
08:09It's a Gremlin!
08:10Yeah, give it a private.
08:11Give it a try.
08:12My car!
08:13Wait!
08:14The Gremlin is priced with the imports, and it gets better gas mileage than any other
08:19car made in America.
08:21What is this?
08:22It's a Gremlin!
08:23I told you.
08:24What?
08:25And it just could be more fun to drive than any other car made in America.
08:30So whose car is this?
08:31It used to be mine!
08:33Hooray!
08:35By sharing the Hornet platform, the Gremlin not only became the first American subcompact
08:42car, but it cost just $6 million to develop, versus the $200 million General Motors spent
08:49on the upcoming Chevy Vega.
08:51I think America Motors did extremely well.
08:54Teague and the group were magicians in taking that design and modifying them and coming up
09:00with a completely different look.
09:03Who'd ever dreamed you'd build a car like the Gremlin?
09:06I mean, that was very, very unique.
09:08You parked it in the parking lot, it stood out.
09:11It's low price and quirky styling attracted thousands of new buyers.
09:17Unfortunately, the cost of the Gremlin, Hornet, Jeep, and last year's strike landed American
09:23Motors in the red for 1970.
09:28And trouble was brewing on the assembly line.
09:32People would say, never buy an American Motors car that was built on a Friday.
09:35Because of absenteeism.
09:37And drinking.
09:39Across the street was Freddy's Tavern.
09:41They knew us all, we knew them.
09:43They knew how many beers were set up.
09:44You'd go down and drink your drinks and they would bring your food to you and you'd go back.
09:48They had the police out there a lot of times holding traffic up so the herd of people would
09:54go into these bars.
09:55And I'm not one of those guys.
09:56I'm not a drinker.
09:57I'm not one of those guys.
09:58I was.
09:59Even when they had topless women.
10:01Drinking, and more recently drug abuse, were affecting the quality of AMC cars.
10:07You're building a consumer product.
10:09Some guy out there is working his butt off to buy this thing and, you know, you're doing
10:14a sloppy job of it.
10:15Not to mention the number of workers that were hurt.
10:18Because they were drunk and they did something stupid.
10:21And the problem didn't stop at the plant gate.
10:24You go into the bathroom, it'd be 10 o'clock in the morning.
10:27In there, there'd be like a little fifth.
10:29There might be beer cans.
10:31I thought, holy cow, they're putting that stuff down.
10:34In the summertime, one guy would bring a cooler in.
10:37He had pop lined up on the top, beer on the layer below.
10:43I ended up setting up a bar.
10:45It was a parts table.
10:47Okay.
10:48And under the table, there was a shelf.
10:50And I was a floater.
10:51So if they didn't need me, I was making drinks.
10:53And I know there was a lot of drinking, but I never knew somebody had an open bar.
10:56Well, it wasn't open.
10:57I had a curtain around it.
10:59I had a curtain.
11:02The vast majority did their job sober and without fuss.
11:07But they were growing frustrated with those who didn't.
11:10I came across a lot of it because I was a steward for a while.
11:14But I finally got tired of trying to cover up for somebody else's screw-ups and whatnot.
11:20I wish I had a nickel for every guy's job I did.
11:23I came in drunk.
11:24The boss would say, put him to bed, do his job.
11:26In a rare moment of teamwork, Local 72 and AMC established the industry's first joint drug and alcohol recovery program in 1970.
11:37We really worked closely with management so that if somebody had an underlying alcohol and drug problem and they were willing to admit to that and enter into a treatment program, we were able to save their jobs.
11:52Still, many argued the union was too protective of bad employees.
11:58Well, they got to the point where there was just too many.
12:01That's right.
12:02They cut you a lot of slack and once you went through that program, you come back and you got into it again, you had your chance, but you're gone.
12:10With more high-quality imports on the market, customers who found shoddy workmanship or even empty beer cans in their new AMCs were unlikely to buy another one.
12:23Back in Toledo, Jerry Myers brought in Ford Racing Engineer Roy Lunn to modernize Jeep.
12:32He was just appalled.
12:33He said, yeah, this is archaic stuff.
12:36This is ancient.
12:37And they had to really redo the entire Jeep line.
12:40Both the factory and the vehicles were updated with scores of new AMC parts, but the styling stayed.
12:50They considered making it look differently.
12:52Then they realized, you know, this is a legend.
12:54We're not going to make it look different.
12:55We're going to make it look the same, but easier to build and a better vehicle, too.
12:59This year, nine million of you Americans will buy a car, probably from one of the three big car companies, without even considering American Motors.
13:11Now that's a shame.
13:13Meanwhile, the ad firm Wells Rich Green helped American Motors launch a direct attack on GM, Ford and Chrysler for 1971.
13:24If you had to compete with the three biggest car companies in America, what would you do?
13:29To answer that question, AMC replaced the old Rebel with the new Matador, combined the Javelin and AMX into one line with wild styling, and launched a new Hornet station wagon, the Sportabout.
13:46Marketed heavily to women, it proved an instant hit, outselling the Javelin and Matador combined.
13:54All this helped put AMC back in the black for 1971.
13:59The big news for 1972, however, wasn't a car.
14:03It was a warranty.
14:06The buyer protection plan was the most clearly written automobile warranty there ever was.
14:12Instead of having a big booklet with all legal jargon in there that nobody understood, it told everybody, we're going to take care of it, period.
14:21Covering every part except tires for 12 months or 12,000 miles, it did wonders for AMC's reputation.
14:30It wasn't just a warranty that was in the glove box. It was a whole reason to buy the car.
14:35A salesman could immediately go into the buyer protection plan and close the deal in a lot of cases.
14:42To back it up, Jerry Myers oversaw hundreds of little quality improvements across AMC products.
14:49It paid off when Popular Mechanics magazine declared,
14:53The best put-together cars out of Detroit this year may come out of Wisconsin.
14:58That's where American Motors makes them.
15:02Things were on a roll, which left Wells Rich Green blindsided when Chapin and Lunenberg fired them for a larger ad firm.
15:11But AMC was growing, and they wanted more.
15:16To keep buyers interested, Marketing VP Bill McNeely spearheaded a series of designer interiors, including a Gucci Sportabout and Pierre Cardin Javelin.
15:29For Gremlin, he chose the hottest in youth fashion, Levi's jeans.
15:36My father was saying to me, what is it about these Levi's? Why are they so popular?
15:41And I was telling him, oh, Dad, we gotta have Levi's. It was like a big deal.
15:46They gave us the cuttings of materials that they use for trousers and all the jackets and everything.
15:52Naturally, you can't put them in the vehicles because of flame retardants and wear and all the rest.
15:57But we wanted to capture the feel, the coloration, and the details associated with Levi itself.
16:05And there was Loa Zolliker, who was the manager at the time of the interior studio.
16:11She took a bunch home. We washed them and washed them to get that look that we liked.
16:18A little bit of wear, but nothing of any significance, so it gives that nice, soft, you know, feel.
16:25Geraci then found an automotive fabric supplier that could mimic the look.
16:31And the 1973 Levi's Gremlin became a sensation.
16:37Gremlin's all-new Levi's blue denim interior trim option. A youthful new look and feel.
16:43And it can't be bought at any other dealership. Only Gremlin has it.
16:47When I ultimately went to Chrysler, they said, you know, we really wanted to do the Levi interior also.
16:54But sales didn't know if they could sell as many, and the dealers didn't know if it was going to be popular enough.
17:01And we didn't know about the pricing, and we didn't know about this, and we didn't know.
17:04That's the difference between American Motors and the rest of the industry.
17:10American Motors had become a lovable underdog.
17:15Thanks to what Roy Chapin called its philosophy of difference.
17:20AMC did more with less. More people had more responsibility.
17:24There was no pigeonholing going on.
17:26If you could do it, and you had the capacity to do it, you did it.
17:30And I didn't see that level of commitment and exchange of information and ideas
17:34when I got little peeks into Chrysler or Ford or General Motors.
17:38We had that a lot, because we had to.
17:40To meet the rising demand for AMC cars, the factory went on a hiring spree.
17:49People came from all over to work at American Motors.
17:53It's an opportunity that people don't get a lot in this country to work side by side, to connect as equals,
17:59and realize that they're here for the same reason.
18:03They've got the same hopes, the same dreams that I've got.
18:06We're all getting paid the same.
18:08Life in the plant forged friendships over the pride and sometimes disdain for the often grueling work.
18:18My first job was pretty hard.
18:22I had to put the brake line on the front of the firewall.
18:25When the car was coming down the line, you had to lean over and put two screws in while this thing's going this way.
18:31Oh, my legs were killing me for a month.
18:33You think you're in good shape? Yeah.
18:35That place will wear you out real quick.
18:37I started out in the motor division, and I was pushing and pulling pistons.
18:43You come out with them on a tray, and you put them inside the engine.
18:48It was hard work, heavy work, and your hands hurt really bad.
18:53I wanted to quit.
18:55Then I got moved to a different department.
18:58It was hot.
19:00I was welding.
19:02It's the middle of summer, and you're bundled up because of those sparks,
19:05and I'd be working like crazy just to get maybe a foot, a foot and a half ahead,
19:10so that I could go run, take a drink of water.
19:12So I finally, after about a half hour of working, I finally got the last weld,
19:16ducked underneath the welder, ran to the bubbler, got a drink of water,
19:20came back, started because now I'm behind, and I'm thirsty again.
19:25There was one job I did.
19:27It was an open door with no rubber around it, and that's very sharp.
19:32So I put pads on the back of my legs, and then I'd sit on the edge of the car,
19:38and I had to lean in and put in the dome light.
19:43Everybody else that relieved me for ten minutes on my brakes had to climb in the car,
19:49and they were trying to figure out how did she get all this done and keep up with the line.
19:54We all had our own little tricks how to do our jobs.
19:57But for those who could endure, the money was worth it.
20:03And there was quite a few that had gone to college and came back because, you know, the pay and the benefits.
20:10You had guys with masters and associate degrees, and I'm working side by side with them, you know,
20:15and I'm going like, man, you guys got all this education in you, and you're working here.
20:19When I started in 1973, it was only making about three and a half bucks an hour.
20:24Coming from a job I was making $1.10, I thought I was making all kinds of money.
20:28And then in 74, I bought a brand new car, brand new Javelin AMX, paid cash, $3,900 bucks.
20:35Once again, AMC's products had struck a chord with the market.
20:40My mother had ordered a Hornet. Me and my father were able to follow it along the line as it was being assembled.
20:45Whatever went into that vehicle, you know, I got to see.
20:48My dad was a stickler for things being done right.
20:51So, yeah, when that car came through for mom, yeah, he was on top of everything there.
20:56However, as sales climbed, pressure at the factory increased.
21:02One of the kind of continuing fights that the union had with the company was to make sure that the line was adequately manned,
21:08because it was not unheard of for the company in order to, you know, try to get a few extra cars out to jack the line speed up a little bit.
21:15But we had access to a stopwatch to see how long it was taking the car to go from point A to point B.
21:22Despite the conflict, not having enough cars to sell was a far better problem than not being able to sell them.
21:31By the early 70s, drivers like Mark Donahue, George Fulmer, Shirley Shahan, Wally Booth, and Amos Johnson were racking up wins for American Motors.
21:48And thousands more were racing AMCs, though not always legally.
21:54My dad had that Javelin with the 401, and my buddy had a Z28 Camaro.
22:00And every time I took my dad's car out, I whooped that Camaro's keister every night.
22:05He was never a happy camper every time I beat him.
22:08It was too funny.
22:10But America's muscle car obsession had growing consequences.
22:16A lot of them were sold to a lot of young people.
22:20And there were a lot of accidents and a lot of deaths and a lot of injuries.
22:24And insurance companies had to pay on all that stuff.
22:27And the insurance company began to jack up rates on muscle cars.
22:31And all of a sudden, teenagers and people in their young 20s couldn't afford the insurance.
22:36They could afford the car. They couldn't afford the insurance.
22:38This, combined with rising air pollution, led the government to intervene with new automotive safety and emissions laws.
22:48I don't think most of us really recognized that there was anything wrong.
22:53It was only when you saw these pictures looking down on L.A. where you could barely see the city
22:58through all the smog that you realized that this really wasn't the way it was supposed to be.
23:03Everything from bumpers and lights to seatbelts and steering wheels were redesigned.
23:10Engines were detuned to reduce toxic emissions, making muscle cars a lot less muscular.
23:18But the real death blow came in 1973, when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC,
23:27hit the United States with an oil embargo in retaliation for its support of Israel.
23:33One day everything is normal, and the next day I can't get gas for my car.
23:38And when I can, it's like five times the price it used to be.
23:42There were long lines at gas stations.
23:44Sometimes somebody else would try to cut in.
23:47There would be fist fights, real fist fights in gas lines.
23:50And in a few cases, guns were brought out and people were killed over a gallon of gas.
23:54Sales of big cars and powerful engines tumbled.
24:00The average American car probably got somewhere around 12 or 13 miles per gallon of gas,
24:06which was pathetic when you think about it, but there was no need to do better than that
24:10because nobody ever asked for it.
24:12Gas is 30 cents a gallon, who cares?
24:14When all of a sudden you couldn't get gas?
24:17Then it mattered.
24:21I can remember we got a 74 Javelin AMX come in off the transport.
24:29I checked it in.
24:30401, 4-speed Mellow Yellow.
24:32Pretty well equipped car.
24:33Really cool car.
24:34And I prepped it and put it right out in front of the dealership.
24:36And the general manager came out and says,
24:38Oh, that's a special order.
24:40And I said to him, I says,
24:41Well, why don't we ever order anything like this?
24:43Oh, no one wants these anymore.
24:4574 would be the final year for the Javelin, which couldn't pass the new bumper standards
24:51without a costly redesign.
24:53The oil crisis only reinforced the decision.
24:57It would also be the last year for the big ambassador, a name dating back to 1927.
25:04On the other hand, small cars were selling like crazy.
25:13The general public always had the impression that, you know, AMC had good fuel-efficient cars.
25:18That goes back to the days of Rambler and even before that, Nash.
25:21And that actually helped AMC sell a lot of Gremlins and Hornets.
25:25Ironically, American Motors no longer had the most efficient cars.
25:31You know, the Gremlins can get 20 miles per gallon.
25:34You know, people were, wow, that's really impressive, you know.
25:38Nowadays, it wouldn't be, but back then, yeah.
25:42When the embargo ended in March, AMC found itself with record sales,
25:47while the big three were facing layoffs.
25:50It seemed Roy Chapin's philosophy of difference had been right.
25:58But with success came risks.
26:01By 1974, American Motors executives were cocky.
26:06They thought they were geniuses and that everything they touched returned to gold.
26:10And all of a sudden, they had almost unlimited money that they could do whatever they wanted.
26:15The company went on a spending spree, building a new headquarters and diversifying the business.
26:24And while the Hornet and Gremlin were a success, import sales had also grown stronger than ever.
26:32But AMC had a radical new design in the works, unlike anything Japan, Germany, or Detroit had to offer.
26:41For better or worse.
26:44Thank you for watching Episode 3 of The Last Independent Automaker.
26:52Be sure to stay tuned for Episode 4 when we go into the history of one of AMC's most famous, or infamous, cars ever.
27:01The Pacer.
27:02And speaking of the Pacer, that's just one of dozens of vehicles in The Complete Book of AMC Cars.
27:09With 240 pages of facts, figures, and color photographs, The Complete Book of AMC Cars makes the perfect companion to our documentary.
27:19You can order a copy from the link in this video's description, or just visit our website.
27:25Again, we'd like to thank all the sponsors who made this documentary possible.
27:30Visit Detroit connects curious travelers with the region's iconic heritage and culture, including its notable art, food, festival, music, and museum experiences, and of course, the auto industry.
27:44Learn more about what the Detroit Metro Area has in store for you at VisitDetroit.com.
27:50The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation aims to increase public understanding and engagement with science.
27:57Motor City's National Heritage Area preserves, interprets, and promotes the automotive and labor heritage of the Detroit region.
28:06And of course, thanks to all the car clubs around the country who supported our work.
28:13As well as the over 375 individuals and organizations who donated to our documentary.
28:21If you enjoyed this program and would still like to support us, you can still make a donation.
28:27Just leave us a tip on our website.
28:30And lastly, I'd like to thank all the people who donated their time, talent, expertise, and even their cars to be a part of the last independent automaker.
28:40And of course, thank you very much for watching.
28:44Thank you very much for watching.