as the first mass-produced american passenger car with four-wheel-drive of any type, automotive industry analysts were taken by surprise at the fact that amc, a company most had deemed past its ability to produce competitive vehicles, turned the best of what they had into a revolutionary, novel, and all-around competent vehicle. in doing so, the small american manufacturer was seen as having cleverly pioneered a new market segment – one that would grow wildly over the next 25 years and beyond, as evinced by "four wheeler" magazine's conclusion in 1980 that the new amc eagle was, indeed, "the beginning of a new generation of cars." even as the automaker was struggling financially, "amc's reputation for developing vehicles on the cheap is only exceeded by its legacy of midwifing the suv", including the eagle to be the precursor to one of the most popular vehicle types on the market. indeed, the eagle's basic concept - that of a station wagon with awd, raised ground clearance, full range of power options and automatic transmissions, as well as rough-road capability - has inspired vehicles like the subaru outback and forester lines, the audi allroad, the volkswagen passat alltrack, the volvo xc range, and many others. similarly, motoring journalist marty padgett described amc's car-based 1980 eagle, combining all-weather capability with better gas mileage, as "the first crossover," that was succeeded by whole generations of subaru vehicles and other models.