The Rise and Fall of American Motors, The Underdog That Humiliated GM With a Car Nobody Wanted

In 1954, two failing carmakers — Nash and Hudson — merged into American Motors Corporation. 32,000 employees. One compact car Detroit refused to take seriously. And a president named George Romney who called the Big Three's products "gas-guzzling dinosaurs." Six years later, the Rambler outsold Chrysler. This is the story of how George Romney built the most precise act of competitive destruction in American auto history — forcing GM, Ford, and Chrysler to chase him into a segment he defined, on terms he established, with a car they had spent a decade insisting Americans didn't want. Then in 1962, he left AMC for politics. And the company spent the next 25 years dismantling everything he proved — drifting from the Rambler to the Gremlin to the Pacer, all the way to Chrysler's 1987 acquisition. The rise and fall of American Motors, the underdog that humiliated GM with a car nobody wanted.