We had an 83 eagle wagon for a few years when I was a kid. Had the 258 and a 5 speed, but amc had problems with the clutch slave cylinder leaking. They never figured it out either. Car guys have it figured out now though, but willwood stuff isn’t cheap. In the late 90’s I was looking at the lines on our wagon and looking at the neighbors blue celebrity wagon, and a lot of it was about the same. Ours had velour seats, and the bucket seats up front were huge. The rod e was very firm, but never really rough. The thing I liked, in regular driving, it didn’t lean like all the old full-size cars did. Stayed very flat. All the plastic Flairs, new grill and tail lights went a long way to make the 1970 body it was based on look a little more up to date. I *THINK* it was the only 4X4 on the market that you didn’t have to get out of to put in 4 wheel drive. As far as why would you want one… in 82… and saying with American cars because, back then people were still proud to do that… all the enclosed body 4X4s where HUGE… the jeep was the smallest, but that wasn’t much of a family vehicle at all, no carpet, plastic windows… that was a toy. The K5 was probably the next smallest, and it was huge, then the bronco and the Ram were even bigger. Then the most car like one would have been the suburban, and it had a 131 inch wheel base. Only thing small on that was the MPG numbers. The eagle was a family car first. (Maybe not the Sx4, but they didn’t sell many of those anyways) It had ALL the comforts of a car, it fit in the garage, it rode remarkably well when compared to those others… and as a *family rig* it was LIGHT YEARS ahead. Now after the bronco 2 and the S-10 blazer came out… then you have a very good argument. Put your mind in a baby boomer mentality here… it was an off road vehicle that ‘your wife could handle’. It was a rather remarkable vehicle. That Fx4 was the lamest one ever built with a 90 horse iron duke and hubcaps and solid pains in the worst old man color ever sprayed. Google them and look at the red and black one… those were sharp.
I remember when these cars came out..There were several versions of this platform available. I was young, but I was fascinated by them. I thought it was such a great idea at the time. You’ve got to hand it to AMC for doing what they could with limited resources.
@@AllCarswithJon I was thinking the same thing after I posted that. Seems like the Concord would roughly be the same size as the Legacy. I wonder if Subaru is still having their transmissions made by Jatco.
Well the reason he didn't go into super great detail is notice how he started out saying "the interior is standard AMC"! To most people was already familiar with what standard AMC was it was slightly pizazzed up no frills all you need basics!
Okay so the breaking might have been a little long in the tooth however you must consider that it's pretty much right around average for that time you have to understand there was actually still cars on the road and some being made that didn't have power brakes!
Interestingly enough the mechanical sound of the gear shift is a sound that's actually sought after by many car enthusiasts and to get that sound as in to change out your shift setup today is big business for aftermarket companies. I currently own an 87 Chevy Camaro and though it's a bit quieter than what they shown on camera it still has a mechanical sound to it it's distinctive of that era!
I tend to agree with you that this was not an exciting car. However, I have respect for what this was - AMC doing the best they could using 1970s technology and a shoestring budget. To their credit, AMC helped pioneer what is now the very popular crossover segment.
Jon did they use two different cars? He said the vehicle was delivered with less than 20 miles. But when they showed the inside the odometer showed over 6000 miles. Just found that funny. I wish AMC was still around.
There were two different versions of the AMC Eagle. There was the version based on the AMC Concord (coupe, sedan, wagon). There was also a version based off of the AMC Spirit (SX4 hatchback, Kammback). The Concord-based version is what I would prefer.
Had an 83 AMC Spirit with a 258 I6 was great car. This is a stripped down 4cyl SX4 so heavier, slower, taller so not nearly as good of a car performance wise as the 2wd version Spirit . Also putting a Spirit on a Jeep platform just don't look as good either. Will say though these things are awesome off road. To answer why not a SUV. First SUV's were bigger then and also this will out off road most SUV's even to nowadays .
Do a video on the motorweek episode of the AMC Concord DL.. The Cherokee did exist in 1982 however it wasn't the shrunk down model so what you had available in 1982 in terms of jeeps was real Jeeps not miniature Jeeps!
Basically with Subaru did was pretty much weight around on the patents to give out on AMC technology basically Subaru pretty much owes its reputation to AMC / Jeep! Yes the eagle line does have a higher stance however the four-wheel drive is not exactly an add-on the car is actually still built around it this is why you have the huge hump in the floor! Basically that's what the big deal about Jeeps back then was you had the big hump in the floor and that was simply because it was built around the four-wheel drive system whereas Ford Chevy or Dodge and later of course Toyota and the gang if they wanted to put four wheel drive on a vehicle it was literally an add-on they had to jack up the frame to shoehorn the transfer case in there and yet they still didn't have proper ground clearance... The Jeep at that time and even of course back in the '70s and through the '90s had the highest ground clearance of any four wheel drive on the market simply because they didn't get into jacking up the frame the frame and her body is not what you measure ground clearance from what you measure ground clearance from is from what's known as the pumpkin which is essentially your rear differential and or both differentials that clearance is what matters so yes the body had a higher stance but it wasn't necessarily because they jacked up the body and added on four-wheel drive! The eagle line took roughly five to six years to actually develop.. I mean there was some actual thought and a lot of work that went into making that it was not something that they just came up with over a couple of beers! So basically what you had was a big four-wheel drive system in a car built around it it's going to have a higher stance but there again it's not because it was purposely shoe-horned in it's simply how big the technology was at the time!
Well the eagle was not meant to be fast, furthermore it's not rough riding. I will say that the four cylinder that was available in their review was a bit of a dog but it's still got the job done the best to have would be the 258 in line 6!
Well where you actually are supposed to check ground clearance is you measure from the bottom of the pumpkin via the differential to the ground 16 in particularly on an AMC with four-wheel drive given that they basically borrowed the Jeep setup that explains the hump in the floor the vehicle is constructed around the four-wheel drive unlike a Ford Chevy or Chrysler product of the day the four-wheel drives on those vehicles were merely an add-on thus they jacked up the body to stuff the transfer case in there but not on an AMC.. This is why Jeep had the highest ground clearance of any four-wheel drive on the market from the days of Kaiser all the way through AMC and well up through the 90s.. The eagle and it's mini eagle variants you can argue is slightly different than the Jeep however I would say that there's still virtually no compromise on the ground clearance thus 16 inches is not unfathomable!
Well the term sportiness can be a bit fluid especially back in those days, I mean all of the GM cards want to talk about the trans am and make a big deal about the trans am because of the 1970s movie Smokey and the bandit... But if you look at a children's manual you'll find that the lousy 350 that that car came with had 185 horsepower I mean everything was down on horsepower back in the seventies and even through most of the eighties! So you could say that they marketed the SX4 as sporty but the idea was is it was off-road sports with great handling for on-road bad weather driving so basically yes it blew the typical sports car out of the water when it came to everywhere you could go with it you could say it was basically a hot hatch with four-wheel drive was the concept so it wasn't like a true sports car but it did have a hot hatch feel!
16 inches of ground clearance? That would make it as high as a Hummer H1. Highly unlikely. That would have made it very hard to get in the Eagle SX4. I still would prefer the AMC Eagle sedan or wagon for the practicality.
Well you have to understand that in order for Subaru to have become what they did and they all-wheel drive market behind the scenes they basically waited for a lot of the patents to expire on what was then AMC technology which was basically Jeep technology. Now it's time passes you can perhaps argue that though Subaru may had borrowed the technology it's possible that yes they made some improvements however by the time that happened AMC was no more so get more so become industry standard the way in which they set up there all-wheel drive systems in their cars certain amounts of mechanical or electronical functionality is a bit different that way they don't get sued by BMW Mercedes or Audi or any other manufacturer but overall the basic purpose and the basics of how they all work are pretty much the same and it came from this era of AMC's existence! And yes I am acknowledging the Audi that was entered into European rally races in the very late seventies that was also equipped with all-wheel drive because that system is completely different it was a dumb all wheel drive system there was no electronic assist really certainly not in the way in which AMC conducted it that's Subaru later bragged and acted as if they invented which was the quadrats system that was basically developed by the Jeep division of AMC and what it did is famously transfer power from the wheels that are slipping to the wheels that are gripping while at the same time as you're driving down the road it is adjusting power to each wheel in nanoseconds Subaru did not invent that technology that was AMC technology that actually dated back to the 70s.
Well there again you have to understand that this vehicle is from the early 80s this particular episode of the show is from the early eighties thus 41 ft of braking distance is not exactly that bad when you consider the majority of brake system setups on most standard vehicles at the time. I mean quite honestly a lot of vehicles in the 90s were still using at least rear drum brakes four wheel disc brake systems I wouldn't say became super standard till maybe somewhere in the early to mid 2000s and then of course that just depends on what kind of car you was buying it what trim package you wanted. I mean the entire industry when it came to drum brakes particularly in the rear the industry clinged to that for as long as they possibly could because it was the basic of the basic and so they knew that if somebody wanted to go cheap on a car that would be one way to make it cheaper. When you consider the weight of the vehicle the vehicles stands now I myself don't really think 41 ft is really that terrible I mean you have to drive the vehicle accordingly so I guess it's one of those vehicles that if your garage did it for 15 years and your kids somewhere in the late '90s is getting their driver's license they've never driven an '80s car yeah you wouldn't really want to throw them in the s6 for immediately and talk about how you can go drive anywhere you would like because they're not maybe going to understand that handling on the breaking that they really would get in trouble with it potentially... But for those of us who have driven 80s cars technically we grew up around 80s cars I know that I did I was born in 85 but good God we were still driving 80s cars in the 90s in fact my first two cars were '80s models currently I own an 87 Camaro as I had stated in an earlier comment I mean they're just common to a lot of since us we understand the mechanical capabilities of the time but I'm certain that if you where to put a new driver of today in one of these cars since they take it for a spin they would probably come back slightly shocked especially if they've managed to drive anything that's newer before they would drive that particular vehicle it's a heavy car it's going to take a lot to stop it that's part of the reason why there's been weight requirements on vehicles safety people have ruined everything you can't drive a tank anymore;
@@Project_Low_ExpectationsActually, this AMC Eagle was based on the AMC Spirit which replaced the Gremlin. The other Eagles were based on the Concord.
How easy one critiques when one has never drove one ! I had an eagle wagon and it was comfortable. It had a straight 6 automatic and had plenty of power . Also it could go anywhere !!!! The other option back then were horrible harsh riding suvs . I love how all you professors of the automotive world talk about these vehicles like you owened and drove them when in fact you weren't born yet or couldn't reach the pedals . Do us a favor and stick to vehicles in your generation !!!!!!
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We had an 83 eagle wagon for a few years when I was a kid. Had the 258 and a 5 speed, but amc had problems with the clutch slave cylinder leaking. They never figured it out either. Car guys have it figured out now though, but willwood stuff isn’t cheap.
In the late 90’s I was looking at the lines on our wagon and looking at the neighbors blue celebrity wagon, and a lot of it was about the same.
Ours had velour seats, and the bucket seats up front were huge. The rod e was very firm, but never really rough. The thing I liked, in regular driving, it didn’t lean like all the old full-size cars did. Stayed very flat.
All the plastic
Flairs, new grill and tail lights went a long way to make the 1970 body it was based on look a little more up to date.
I *THINK* it was the only 4X4 on the market that you didn’t have to get out of to put in 4 wheel drive.
As far as why would you want one… in 82… and saying with American cars because, back then people were still proud to do that… all the enclosed body 4X4s where HUGE… the jeep was the smallest, but that wasn’t much of a family vehicle at all, no carpet, plastic windows… that was a toy. The K5 was probably the next smallest, and it was huge, then the bronco and the Ram were even bigger. Then the most car like one would have been the suburban, and it had a 131 inch wheel base. Only thing small on that was the MPG numbers.
The eagle was a family car first. (Maybe not the Sx4, but they didn’t sell many of those anyways) It had ALL the comforts of a car, it fit in the garage, it rode remarkably well when compared to those others… and as a *family rig* it was LIGHT YEARS ahead.
Now after the bronco 2 and the S-10 blazer came out… then you have a very good argument.
Put your mind in a baby boomer mentality here… it was an off road vehicle that ‘your wife could handle’.
It was a rather remarkable vehicle.
That Fx4 was the lamest one ever built with a 90 horse iron duke and hubcaps and solid pains in the worst old man color ever sprayed. Google them and look at the red and black one… those were sharp.
Sorry for the epic novel.
Not a problem, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. :)
I remember when these cars came out..There were several versions of this platform available.
I was young, but I was fascinated by them. I thought it was such a great idea at the time.
You’ve got to hand it to AMC for doing what they could with limited resources.
Truth be told, I wish there was a modern day version of the AMC Concord
Honest question: wouldn't that be the Subaru Legacy or Impreza? Sedan form with AWD?
@@AllCarswithJon I was thinking the same thing after I posted that. Seems like the Concord would roughly be the same size as the Legacy. I wonder if Subaru is still having their transmissions made by Jatco.
Well the reason he didn't go into super great detail is notice how he started out saying "the interior is standard AMC"!
To most people was already familiar with what standard AMC was it was slightly pizazzed up no frills all you need basics!
The AMC Eagle was a unique idea to say the least...
I agree the Eagles had an odd look about them...
Okay so the breaking might have been a little long in the tooth however you must consider that it's pretty much right around average for that time you have to understand there was actually still cars on the road and some being made that didn't have power brakes!
Interestingly enough the mechanical sound of the gear shift is a sound that's actually sought after by many car enthusiasts and to get that sound as in to change out your shift setup today is big business for aftermarket companies.
I currently own an 87 Chevy Camaro and though it's a bit quieter than what they shown on camera it still has a mechanical sound to it it's distinctive of that era!
I tend to agree with you that this was not an exciting car. However, I have respect for what this was - AMC doing the best they could using 1970s technology and a shoestring budget. To their credit, AMC helped pioneer what is now the very popular crossover segment.
Jon did they use two different cars? He said the vehicle was delivered with less than 20 miles. But when they showed the inside the odometer showed over 6000 miles. Just found that funny. I wish AMC was still around.
There were two different versions of the AMC Eagle. There was the version based on the AMC Concord (coupe, sedan, wagon). There was also a version based off of the AMC Spirit (SX4 hatchback, Kammback). The Concord-based version is what I would prefer.
love that car !!!
It surprised me that they were putting a Pontiac engine in it
I have owned three wagons
Had an 83 AMC Spirit with a 258 I6 was great car. This is a stripped down 4cyl SX4 so heavier, slower, taller so not nearly as good of a car performance wise as the 2wd version Spirit . Also putting a Spirit on a Jeep platform just don't look as good either. Will say though these things are awesome off road. To answer why not a SUV. First SUV's were bigger then and also this will out off road most SUV's even to nowadays .
The Cherokee totally was out at that time. Of course you're probably referring to the shrunk down models of Cherokee!
There were fullsize Jeep Cherokees in 1982. The XJ Cherokees and Wagoneers came out in 1984.
remember seen them at the time
Do a video on the motorweek episode of the AMC Concord DL..
The Cherokee did exist in 1982 however it wasn't the shrunk down model so what you had available in 1982 in terms of jeeps was real Jeeps not miniature Jeeps!
Basically with Subaru did was pretty much weight around on the patents to give out on AMC technology basically Subaru pretty much owes its reputation to AMC / Jeep!
Yes the eagle line does have a higher stance however the four-wheel drive is not exactly an add-on the car is actually still built around it this is why you have the huge hump in the floor!
Basically that's what the big deal about Jeeps back then was you had the big hump in the floor and that was simply because it was built around the four-wheel drive system whereas Ford Chevy or Dodge and later of course Toyota and the gang if they wanted to put four wheel drive on a vehicle it was literally an add-on they had to jack up the frame to shoehorn the transfer case in there and yet they still didn't have proper ground clearance...
The Jeep at that time and even of course back in the '70s and through the '90s had the highest ground clearance of any four wheel drive on the market simply because they didn't get into jacking up the frame the frame and her body is not what you measure ground clearance from what you measure ground clearance from is from what's known as the pumpkin which is essentially your rear differential and or both differentials that clearance is what matters so yes the body had a higher stance but it wasn't necessarily because they jacked up the body and added on four-wheel drive!
The eagle line took roughly five to six years to actually develop..
I mean there was some actual thought and a lot of work that went into making that it was not something that they just came up with over a couple of beers!
So basically what you had was a big four-wheel drive system in a car built around it it's going to have a higher stance but there again it's not because it was purposely shoe-horned in it's simply how big the technology was at the time!
Well the eagle was not meant to be fast, furthermore it's not rough riding.
I will say that the four cylinder that was available in their review was a bit of a dog but it's still got the job done the best to have would be the 258 in line 6!
Well where you actually are supposed to check ground clearance is you measure from the bottom of the pumpkin via the differential to the ground 16 in particularly on an AMC with four-wheel drive given that they basically borrowed the Jeep setup that explains the hump in the floor the vehicle is constructed around the four-wheel drive unlike a Ford Chevy or Chrysler product of the day the four-wheel drives on those vehicles were merely an add-on thus they jacked up the body to stuff the transfer case in there but not on an AMC..
This is why Jeep had the highest ground clearance of any four-wheel drive on the market from the days of Kaiser all the way through AMC and well up through the 90s..
The eagle and it's mini eagle variants you can argue is slightly different than the Jeep however I would say that there's still virtually no compromise on the ground clearance thus 16 inches is not unfathomable!
Well the term sportiness can be a bit fluid especially back in those days,
I mean all of the GM cards want to talk about the trans am and make a big deal about the trans am because of the 1970s movie Smokey and the bandit...
But if you look at a children's manual you'll find that the lousy 350 that that car came with had 185 horsepower I mean everything was down on horsepower back in the seventies and even through most of the eighties!
So you could say that they marketed the SX4 as sporty but the idea was is it was off-road sports with great handling for on-road bad weather driving so basically yes it blew the typical sports car out of the water when it came to everywhere you could go with it you could say it was basically a hot hatch with four-wheel drive was the concept so it wasn't like a true sports car but it did have a hot hatch feel!
16 inches of ground clearance? That would make it as high as a Hummer H1. Highly unlikely. That would have made it very hard to get in the Eagle SX4. I still would prefer the AMC Eagle sedan or wagon for the practicality.
Well you have to understand that in order for Subaru to have become what they did and they all-wheel drive market behind the scenes they basically waited for a lot of the patents to expire on what was then AMC technology which was basically Jeep technology.
Now it's time passes you can perhaps argue that though Subaru may had borrowed the technology it's possible that yes they made some improvements however by the time that happened AMC was no more so get more so become industry standard the way in which they set up there all-wheel drive systems in their cars certain amounts of mechanical or electronical functionality is a bit different that way they don't get sued by BMW Mercedes or Audi or any other manufacturer but overall the basic purpose and the basics of how they all work are pretty much the same and it came from this era of AMC's existence!
And yes I am acknowledging the Audi that was entered into European rally races in the very late seventies that was also equipped with all-wheel drive because that system is completely different it was a dumb all wheel drive system there was no electronic assist really certainly not in the way in which AMC conducted it that's Subaru later bragged and acted as if they invented which was the quadrats system that was basically developed by the Jeep division of AMC and what it did is famously transfer power from the wheels that are slipping to the wheels that are gripping while at the same time as you're driving down the road it is adjusting power to each wheel in nanoseconds Subaru did not invent that technology that was AMC technology that actually dated back to the 70s.
It looks like a oversized crx
That goes to show how far ahead of the curve they were
cherokee was out since 74
Well there again you have to understand that this vehicle is from the early 80s this particular episode of the show is from the early eighties thus 41 ft of braking distance is not exactly that bad when you consider the majority of brake system setups on most standard vehicles at the time.
I mean quite honestly a lot of vehicles in the 90s were still using at least rear drum brakes four wheel disc brake systems I wouldn't say became super standard till maybe somewhere in the early to mid 2000s and then of course that just depends on what kind of car you was buying it what trim package you wanted.
I mean the entire industry when it came to drum brakes particularly in the rear the industry clinged to that for as long as they possibly could because it was the basic of the basic and so they knew that if somebody wanted to go cheap on a car that would be one way to make it cheaper.
When you consider the weight of the vehicle the vehicles stands now I myself don't really think 41 ft is really that terrible I mean you have to drive the vehicle accordingly so I guess it's one of those vehicles that if your garage did it for 15 years and your kids somewhere in the late '90s is getting their driver's license they've never driven an '80s car yeah you wouldn't really want to throw them in the s6 for immediately and talk about how you can go drive anywhere you would like because they're not maybe going to understand that handling on the breaking that they really would get in trouble with it potentially...
But for those of us who have driven 80s cars technically we grew up around 80s cars I know that I did I was born in 85 but good God we were still driving 80s cars in the 90s in fact my first two cars were '80s models currently I own an 87 Camaro as I had stated in an earlier comment I mean they're just common to a lot of since us we understand the mechanical capabilities of the time but I'm certain that if you where to put a new driver of today in one of these cars since they take it for a spin they would probably come back slightly shocked especially if they've managed to drive anything that's newer before they would drive that particular vehicle it's a heavy car it's going to take a lot to stop it that's part of the reason why there's been weight requirements on vehicles safety people have ruined everything you can't drive a tank anymore;
That seems cheap now price wise?
If I remember correctly that car was a re skinned gremlin that's why it's so stubby
The gremlin was much smaller. They made a small gremlin sized eagle for one year I think
@@Project_Low_ExpectationsActually, this AMC Eagle was based on the AMC Spirit which replaced the Gremlin. The other Eagles were based on the Concord.
@@johnnymason2460 exactly
How easy one critiques when one has never drove one ! I had an eagle wagon and it was comfortable. It had a straight 6 automatic and had plenty of power . Also it could go anywhere !!!!
The other option back then were horrible harsh riding suvs . I love how all you professors of the automotive world talk about these vehicles like you owened and drove them when in fact you weren't born yet or couldn't reach the pedals . Do us a favor and stick to vehicles in your generation !!!!!!