the initial proposal for production of what would become the amc eagle came from roy lunn, the chief design engineer for amc jeep. "project 8001 plus four" was lunn's code name for a new "line of four-wheel-drive vehicles with the ride and handling conventions of a standard rear wheel drive car" built on a uni-body platform. in february 1977, amc contracted ff developments to build a prototype vehicle based on a production v8 powered amc hornet with drive torque split 33% front and 66% rear. testing and further development proved the feasibility of a vehicle with greater ground clearance, larger 15-inch wheels, as well as a torque split closer to 50% – 50%, with lunn recommending using the amc straight-6 engine coupled to an automatic transmission.