Junkyard Find: 1983 AMC Eagle SX/4 Sport
Ahh, the AMC Eagle! So much car-industry history wrapped up in the Eagle, which was a highly innovative machine made during the very last gasps of American Motors (and continuing as a Chrysler product, briefly, before Chrysler killed the Eagle and kept the name for its new marque, which was then slapped on a rebadged and modified Renault 25). Since I live in Colorado, I see Eagles on the street all the time— there are several daily-driver Eagles living within a few blocks of me— and I see them in the local wrecking yards. So far in this series, we’ve seen this ’79 wagon, this ’80 coupe, this GM Iron Duke-powered ’81 SX/4, this ’82 hatchback, this ’84 wagon, this ’84 wagon, and this ’85 wagon. The AMC Spirit-based SX/4 is much less common than the larger AMC Concord-based Eagles, so today’s find (in Denver, of course) is quite interesting.
I don’t see any SX/4 badging on this car, but I’m fairly certain that any Spirit Liftback was sold as an SX/4. AMC experts, please fill us in on the details of Late Malaise Era AMC branding/badging.
This one seems to have just about every possible option, including the optional center gauge cluster with clock and vacuum meter.
Automatic transmission, sporty steering wheel, air conditioning— this car is loaded!
I found an old German 1-mark coin from the pre-Euro era on this car’s floor.
The good old reliable AMC six, which Chrysler kept making into the current century.
These cars aren’t tremendously valuable, so it is not shocking to see this rust-free example about to be crushed.
Yes, the SX/4 was pitched as a sports car.
Two-wheeling in style or four-wheeling in the wild!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Does anyone have access to this vehicle? If so, please contact me.
I have a 1979 eagle Sudan blue 79000 original miles clean interior except headliner runs great drives like new will sell email me at hartfordboy74@gmail.com for pics