In 1974 AMC (American Motors Corporation) introduced the aerodynamically styled fastback Matador coupé. The car was designed under the direction of AMC's vice president of styling, Dick Teague, with input from Mark Donohue, the famous race car driver. The Matador coupé stands out as one of the more distinctive and controversial designs of the 1970s after the AMC Pacer and was named "Best Styled Car of 1974" by the editors of Car and Driver magazine.
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| AMC Matador Coupé 1974 |
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| AMC Matador X Coupé 1974 |
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| AMC Matador Coupé Cassini 1975 |
The 1974 coupé had a 3.8 Litre inline six-cylinder engine with a three-speed manual transmission. The Matador X coupé had a 5.0 Litre V8 engine. In 1976 a new grille was introduced, two rectangular panels with horizontal grille bars met in the center, and rectangular park and turn signal lamps replaced the previous round ones. For 1977 and 1978, the "Barcelona II" coupé featured a padded Landau roof with opera windows and pillow-top seats with velour upholstery. Nearly 100,000 Matador coupés were produced from 1974 through 1978.
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| AMC Matador Coupé 1976 |
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| AMC Matador Coupé Barcelona II 1978 |
Trivia
- A special Oleg Cassini edition of the Matador coupe was available for the 1974 and 1975 model years. It was positioned in the mid-sized personal luxury car market segment that was highly popular during the mid-1970s.
- An AMC Matador coupé played a starring role in “The Man with the Golden Gun” (1974) as the flying car of Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) along with Nick Nack (Hervé Villechaize).
Commercial 1974 (1)
