You have to hand it to American Motors. They were always willing to take a chance on doing some different in hopes of it catching on. In the late 1970s, they took the aging Concord (aka Hornet) and added four-wheel-drive to it to become the Eagle. That created a niche they would sell more than 150,000 cars into before the end came for AMC in 1987. They tried it again by turning the Spirit into a 4WD sub-compact called the SX/4 and sold another 30,000 automobiles. This 1983 SX/4 is being offered from the estate of the original owner. It hasn’t been used in about five years and does run but needs brake work. Located in Flagstaff, Arizona, it’s available here on eBay where the bidding has reached $5,300.
AMC performed surgery on the Hornet in the early 1970 to come up with the Gremlin to compete with the Chevy Vega, Ford Pinto and the growing onslaught of Japanese imports. As the Hornet morphed into the Concord/Eagle, the Gremlin became the Spirit in the 1980s. That gave AMC the basis for the SX/4 which saw a shorter production run as the Eagle. It appeared for only three model years 1981-83 and the last year of manufacture is the hardest to find today because production was low, including the seller’s interesting car.
This single owner SX/4 was always garaged-kept in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. After the passing of the original purchaser, the car somehow found its way to Arizona because the buyer will have to retrieve it there. It’s been inactive for about five years and we’re told it does start and run but doesn’t stop because the brakes are stuck from sitting so long (we assume they’re stuck open). The body looks good for its age and the SX/4 still wears its original paint. It’s mostly rust-free, save some surface rust on the undercarriage. We’re told it was never in an accident and has new tires and wheels. It sports a set of lovers on the rear window which is part of the hatchback design of the car.
The car is powered by AMC’s 258 cubic inch inline-six which was good for 110 hp back in the day. It’s paired up with a 4-speed manual transmission in support of the full-time 4WD. The mileage is said to be 72,000 which should equate to there being more life being left in the old girl. The seller mentions that the car has controls for factory air conditioning, but none of the hardware is there under the hood. It must have been removed at some point and is long gone now, but a little blue electric fan is there now in its place!
Some paperwork for the AMC product has been saved, such as the owner’s manual and sales brochures. These cars weren’t commonplace back in the day and less so almost 40 years later. AMC built 17,390 of them in 1981, another 10,445 in 1982 and just 2.259 in 1983, the last year for the SX/4. Hagerty doesn’t offer an estimate of their value today, but there have been a handful here on Barn Finds over the past couple of years. Those sellers were asking as little as $3,000 for a project and $17,000 for a real stunner.
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