1969 AMC AMX 390 Vintage Road Test
Watch this vintage video of a road test of the 1969 AMC AMX 390 by Bud Lindemann
1969 AMC AMX 390
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Video Transcript of 1969 AMC AMX 390 Road Test
00:10
One just to climb into an AMX, probably because it’s more than just another supercar.
00:15
It kind of represents a whole new way of life. Not just for the owner,
00:20
but the company that builds it as well. You see, in the past year, American Motors has thrown itself lock, stock, and
00:26
Differential into the world of racing, and performance cars. And they’ve done surprisingly
00:32
Well. When they first introduced his car at Daytona Speedway,
00:34
We wondered; Just how far their company policy would Bend in this direction.
00:40
Well happily,
00:33
We can say they’ve gone all the way and with this little swinger plus the javelin
00:44
It looks like the blue sky
00:46
For American. In an era when the jet-set dominated the highway scene and supercars of a popular mode of transportation for the in-crowd
00:54
American Motors has pounded out a one-way ticket to jolly land with the AMX
00:59
Undoubtedly, some swingers must have crept into the upper echelon of AMC because until a couple of years ago the red bricks on Plymouth Road
01:07
echoed only of economy cars
01:09
Compacts and trite little cliches like the only race we want to win is the human race
01:05
and now it’s sock um time with two backbone twisters in a row the javelin and the
01:21
AMX and with them they brought a tidal wave of enthusiasm to the main office
01:25
happiness to the dealer’s customers in the showroom and cars on the road
02:06
From the taillights to the grill the car has a clean honest look and in the time that we had it it drew more
02:12
“Oohs, and ahhs” than a Playboy bunny on Saturday night.
02:16
Part of the great handling capabilities was due to these Goodyear wide oval e7014 tires mounted on a pretty jazzy set of spokes.
02:28
Our tester came from Dick Teague in the styling department and was a prototype
02:34
This is the eight fisted V that breathed fire into the AMEX with 390 cubic inches of wallop and
02:39
315 horses at 4600 RPMs
02:44
That’s not bad for openers. But our little missile had the special optional headers a compression ratio of 10.2 to one
02:51
425 foot-pounds of torque and on top of all this a four-barrel atomizer this made it a real asphalt eater
03:09
When we warmed up all eight holes and left the line we had 30 miles an hour and 2.7 seconds
03:14
we didn’t have to coax it off the line that zinger under the foot handled our little three thousand pound bomb with no trouble at
03:19
all
03:22
We nailed 45 and 4.1
03:42
By this time I was wide ovals were hot we pushed a pretty good 0 to 60 run
03:47
6.3 seconds our best quarter-mile run for the day was
03:51
14.5 with quite a bit of wheelspin
03:59
Now watch this little sweetheart snake through the pylons handling is the name of the game for this AMX
04:06
Our driver was able to run through the cones at 50 miles an hour and stated that she felt strong and solid all the way
04:12
Rebound and recovery as you can see were excellent this 97-inch wheelbase is a full 12 inches shorter than the javelin
04:35
Through the pylons, lateral support was pretty good. The bucket seats were not too soft loungy type
04:40
However, they did give good back support in ample legroom for even the tallest drivers
04:51
With no seat in the rear, it gives quite a bit of room for luggage and boxes and things like that
04:56
However, you might have a little trouble with your Irish Wolfhound
05:01
All the gauges were round and would have been much easier to read had they not been recessed
05:06
so deeply in the foam rubber dash.
05:08
It was for this reason that we had some difficulty reading the tachometer during hard fast cornering as well as during the acceleration
05:14
runs and these high-performance go-for-broke supercars
05:17
We’ve often wondered why some manufacturers insist on hiding important gauges such as the tack.
05:24
Disc brakes up front with 10-inch drums in the rear
05:27
We worked it out on the braking course for about an hour pedal fade was at a minimum from 30 miles an hour
05:33
we stopped in the 37 feet stopping was fast with very little sway if any
05:40
45 it took 55 feet. It’s a very comforting feeling to know that the binders are there, especially in high speed cornering
05:46
From sixty miles an hour we groundout a good straight line stopping on
05:50
134 feet
05:55
Look on our features other goodies like a flow-through ventilation system air conditioning
06:01
tilt steering wheel rear bumper guides engine block heater
06:04
heavy-duty engine cooling system and a performance go package consisting of a heavy-duty suspension set up hours by the way was standard
06:12
Also powered disc brakes and a quick ratio manual steering assembly. Truly. The AMX is a blueprint for fun
06:19
It’s the kind of a car that lets you blow off the cobwebs of a humdrum work a day world
06:24
And packs a whole garage full of zest and sparkle into your daily
06:26
Transportation. It’s docile enough for your favorite girl to take on shopping trips
06:30
But underneath breathe is the fire of a checkered flag grabber. So ring the bell Casa moto
06:38
American Motors has a winner.
