American automobile industry in the 1950s
In 1954, the smaller American Motors Corporation (AMC) was formed when Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator Corporation in a deal worth almost USD $200 million ($1.735 billion in 2013 dollars) the largest corporate merger in U.S. history at that time. Other mergers with smaller independent manufacturers followed. Although AMC was moderately successful it was never sufficiently large to challenge any of the Big Three, and was eventually bought by Chrysler in 1987.
Roy D. Chapin Jr.
In 1977, on the 75th anniversary of the "birth" of two organizations, American Motors and "Popular Mechanics", Chapin described AMC's "corporate "philosophy of difference", under which we strive to offer the American motoring public a wider choice" and stated that "the most significant change we can look to will be the development of alternate sources of power to replace our dependence on fossil fuels."