1972 AMC Matador 4 dr sedan from North America - Comments

My dad bought this car back in sept 72,i remember that because the canada-russia series was being played then. It was a beautiful canary yellow with a black roof (painted, not vinyl. I was playing at my neighbors yard when we went around the back of his house on our bicycles and there it was, the car we went to look at as a family about a week ago in the local amc showroom. I darn near flipped cuz this was the most streamlined looking car we ever had. I remember the first thing I did when dad took us for a drive is turn on the radio. Darn thing kept buzzing because we didn't put our seatbelts on (not mandatory at all at that time).I have fond memories of that car, and it didn't give my parents any trouble at all that I can remember. We kept it for 5 yrs and traded it in for a 77 skylark. Tears flowed that day as we drove out of the gm lot in our new car.

My 2nd car was a 1972 AMC MATADOR.It was a 4 door with a 304 engine, air,quick ratio power steering, and automatic transmission. The paint was badly faded, but it ran great. The had tons of low end power, but not much top end. When I got the car it had 89,000 miles on it in 1976.It was fun to drive and dependable. I was 17 and stupid and thrashed it severely (drag racing, burnouts).At140,000 miles the trans. cracked into, and the engine started using oil at150,000.I soon sold it to my brother who rebuilt the engine. He drove it for 1yr. and blew a head gasket and trashed the engine. My brother in law got the car and put in a 401 engine and trans.,drove it till at 210,000 the rear end locked up. By then the car was pretty far gone. It got sold to the junk yard in 1984. The only complaint I had about the car was the vertical AM radio.

I grew up with the 1972 Matador. Dad bought it new in '72 and we had it into the 80's when he sold it. I don't ever remember any mechanical problems other than the water pump was replaced in the 80's. The steering was super easy, near zero effort to turn the wheel. It was a large comfortable car and I slept many times in the back seat on the way home from Grandpa and Grandma's house. This one was a copper color all over and had lots of crome and the 258CID engine, which was very easy to work on and maintain. I think it only had AM radio and no air conditioning, manual door locks and windows.