My finals are officially over and I am in a much better mood this Thursday and as promised from last week’s post, we are going to have a look at one of the sweetest AMC muscle machines ever built. The 1970 AMC Rebel Machine.

Muscle car fever had peaked in 1970 and AMC was a little late to the party when it came to introducing a full-size muscle car. Their compact Rambler Scrambler from the year before had been a success and AMC sought to apply the same formula to new model for 1970. Enter the Rebel Machine. Instead of sticking with their small car formula, AMC made the choice to craft their new muscle car on an intermediately sized platform so as to be able to break into the Big Three’s near monopoly of the market.

Much like with the Scrambler, AMC teamed up with Hurst Performance to create the fire-breather you see here. The same 390 cubic inch motor was dropped on to the K-member but was a little more potent than the 315 horse version that went in the Scrambler. For 1970 AMC engineers tuned the big block so as to put out 340 horsepower and 425 pound feet of torque. All that power was good enough to launch the Rebel Machine to 60 mph in 6.8 seconds and run the 1/4 in 14.5 ticks.

The Machine came in the same type of over-the-top paint scheme as its predecessor. Adorned with white paint with red and blue striping, the Rebel Machine was certainly a car to get noticed in. Something I had never heard before doing some research was that only the first 1,000 Machine’s built came with the red, white and blue paint scheme from the factory and after that people could order any color they wanted. I myself am partial to the patriotic paint scheme but everyone has their preferences. With between 1,900 and 2,300 Rebel Machine’s built (I found different numbers in a couple places) these are certainly rare cars these days so if you see one, appreciate it.

Next week’s post may be a little late due to spring break but if anyone has any suggestions, hit up the thread in the forums with all the previous posts to throw out ideas.