It’s about time American Motors Corporation got its due here on Autofiends. The company had a lasting impact on our automotive landscape – keeping Jeep afloat for many a year and cranking out a wide selection of genuinely awesome cars. Cars like the Javelin. Built to contend with other ponies like the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro, the Javelin worked off of a very basic recipe: potent, V8 engine up front, rear-wheel drive and baddie styling all around. Hop the jump to hear the Javelin’s tale.

Ford had made waves with its Mustang in 65 and every American carmaker took note. AMC was no different, and within a few short months had managed to crank out the Marlin – a car with more heft than sports car buyers were after that borrowed heavily from the Charger of the day. But by 1966 AMC’s head designer was already hard at work righting the wrongs of the Marlin. Richard Teague was working lumps of clay into the sexy shape of the Javelin and its two-seat brother, the AMX, and by the end of the year, the AMX concept was making its way around the show-car circuit.

The Javelin was envisioned as the somewhat more reserved version of the sprite AMX – rocking a full 12 extra inches tip to tail and seating for more than just the misses. Early on, Teague blessed the Javelin with no-nonsense looks that hinted toward tire-smoking glory without drawing too much attention from teenagers and the five-oh alike. Up front, a comely split grille led into reserved headlight buckets over a front bumper that could be called anything but proud. The relatively uncomplicated sides were dominated by the fast-back roofline – a look that meant business almost in spite of itself.

By 1970, buyers could get anything from a miserly 232 straight-six to a mighty 390 V8 under the hood. Slap the optional Go Package on that beefy mill, and you had a car with a gas-swilling four barrel carb, disc brakes up front and throaty dual exhaust – all good for a healthy 315 horsepower and 425 lb-ft of torque. That was more than enough to keep up with the rest of what the Big Three had to offer at the time.

Though the smaller AMX enjoyed some serious racing success, big brother Javelin had its time on the podium, too. In ’68, AMC took the car to the Trans-Am 12 Hours of Sebring, where despite relatively low preparation time, the car managed a 12th place overall, 5th in class finish. The cars finished third overall for the season and took a Trans-Am record as the only manufacturer-backed ride to finish every race of the season.

A few legendary names got tangled up with AMC’s Javelin. Kaplan Engineering prepped the cars for their Trans-Am battles, and guys like Peter Revson and Skip Scott helmed the rigs. Mark Donohue spent some time working the cars up for competition, too, and AMC actually produced a Donahue Javelin SST in 1970. The cars came complete with a spoiler designed by the man himself and produced solely to homologate the bits for Trans-Am compliance. How Fiendish.

The car got a redesign in ’71 and shed some of its Spartan looks for bulging fender wells and a lunging nose. The following years were good to AMC’s pony, though. The car took the Trans-Am title in 1971, 1972 and 1975, and a new 401 ci V8 found its way onto the option sheet. Other go-fast goodies also surfaced, like a fiberglass cowl-induction hood, front and rear spoilers and a limited slip in the rear.

Unfortunately, the mid-seventies weren’t a great time to be building massive-engined pony cars – a fact made worse by a plague of disastrous build quality. By 1974, interest in the car, and all other muscle cars in general, had evaporated faster than you can say “oil embargo” and AMC canned the Javelin. It was a short run for a car that took on the best Detroit could roll out and did well for itself, but that hasn’t stopped collectors with a taste for the odd from preserving solid examples. Fiendish, indeed.