The AMC Matador was the intermediate car in American Motors line in the 1970s. When introduced in 1971, it essentially was 1970 Rebel (which had a boxy nose) restyled with a longer and restyled horizontally split nose. Later on, the sytle would diverge again into two separate Matadors, the sedan/wagon and the coupe.
   Marketed as a "midsize" car in its premier year of 1971, the Matador actually weighed over 5,000 pounds, the weight range of a modern SUV. The orignal Matador came with the buyer's choice of an automatic or manual transmission, in sedan or station wagon, and later, coupe. According to Consumer Reports, the originals got 18 miles to the gallon.
   Advertising at the time said it wasn't just renaming an old car, but this is questionable. The Matador was pretty much identical to the AMC Ambassador from the hood back. In fact, the entire AMC line at the time was based on three intertwining platforms: Gremlin / Hornet, Javelin, which was based on compact cars, and Matador / Ambassador.
   
   Backstory
   
   If Rebel was politically incorrect, Matador didn't save the nameplate from obscurity as an advertising campaign featured "What's a Matador". An embarrassing problem also arose (and was noted in Consumer Reports) in regards to the car's name - 'matador' translates out of Spanish as 'killer'.
   The boxy 4-wheel-drive was adopted by the Los Angeles police department and made later Adam-12 TV shows. This design, which was killed off after 1973, was probably the last 'normal' looking AMC car. After that, it was cars like the Gremlin and Pacer that would define the company even after its attempted redemption and return to normalcy in the 1980s.
   A Penske prepared, factory backed red-white and blue 2 door was driven in NASCAR by Mark Donahue and Donny Allison, and actually won a few races, despite flying brick aerodynamics.
   In the last of a series of spectacularly overstyled cars, AMC created a very un-boxy coupe with bug-eye headlights and fastback. One sporting attached wings made a James Bond movie. The Matador, which was huge even by today's standards, was unfortunately introduced shortly before the first oil crisis of the 1970s. Sales, while initially strong dropped along with demand for the "big" intermediate cars when the downsized Caprice and LTDs were introduced. When the Matador / Ambassador was dropped, AMC was left with the Concord and Spirit, and Renault and Jeep.
   
   Variations
   
   The Matador name was applied to three more or less distinct styles in the course of its run.
   The first, universal, design was used from 1971 through 1973 on all versions of the car. Starting in 1974, the Matador coupe was distinctly different from its sedan and station wagon versions.
   
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