page_title: Dick Teague
section_title: Teague designs
hierarchical_section_title: Dick Teague / Teague designs
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a photo I snapped of a Matador X Coupe that was shown at a large car show in Daytona Beach, FL. Owner Steve and Mary Williams.
context_page_description: Richard "Dick" A. Teague was an American industrial designer in the North American automotive industry. He held automotive design positions at General Motors, Packard, and Chrysler before becoming Vice President of Design for American Motors Corporation, and designed several notable show cars and production vehicles including AMC's Pacer, Gremlin and Hornet models, as well as the Jeep Cherokee XJ and either designed or assisted in the designing of later cars for Chrysler such as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Neon after American Motors' buyout.
context_section_description: British automotive writer Nick Georgano devotes a chapter to Teague in the book titled The Art of the American Automobile: the Greatest Stylists and their Work describing individuals whose creative talents made a difference in production and custom automobiles since the 1930s. According to the authors of the book,Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future, Teague was one of the people that "helped to transport us into the future." While serving as the chief stylist, Teague was called by Popular Mechanics to predict the design trends for automobiles in the 1960s. Together with Brooks Stevens, Teague presented ideas about future cars and vehicle technologies at the 1963 SAE congress in Detroit. Teague, "who is generally considered to have been a bit of a maverick" predicted an evolutionary process for automobiles that turned out to be right. Teague foretold improvements in conventional gasoline engines, while cars "would have greater variety of style now that glass could be shaped, and better suspension systems" In contrast to Stevens, Teague believed that the automobiles of 1970 would still be built to provide basic transportation, and not be "a home on wheels" powered by an advanced power plant “the size of a breadbox.”
  During the early-1960s, Teague's styling team began developing an entirely new concept for AMC - a sporty fastback design. Teague knew that the automaker was just not willing to spend the millions of dollars needed for all-new tooling, his design team made imaginative use of existing tooling and create spin-offs from existing products. The results were proposals for which Teague selected the names for both: the Tarpon show car and the production Marlin. Although promoting the smaller version, Teague recalled that "Abernethy had decided that instead of a 2+2 we would build a 3+3 sports-type car."
  Teague was responsible for the design of several AMC and Jeep vehicles. He developed the Gremlin, Pacer, Matador coupe, Rambler American, AMC Javelin, and AMX Hornet, and subsequently adapted AMC's compact platform for the Concord, Spirit and Eagle models. He was also responsible for a number of concept cars and lobbied for the production of several, including the compact Tarpon that ultimately led to the large Marlin. He also lobbied for continuing the two-seat AMX models after 1970.
  The 1968 AMX GT was one of the Teague-designed concept cars which had some of their design elements incorporated into production models. For this short-wheelbase coupe he styled a truncated kammback tail which was then used on the 1970 Gremlin. He also designed the "Concept 80" series of show cars, built on variations of existing AMC platforms as ideas for possible future models.
  Perhaps Teague's strongest effort ever was the "handsome design" of the 1970 AMX/3 that AMC developed with help on the chassis from Italian sports-car engineer Giotto Bizzarrini and road testing and development from BMW. Before he and his team of designers settled on the final design, a fiberglass pushmobile was made with the molds taken from the final clay mockup. The AMX/3 is one of the most unusual cars to come out of Detroit in the late-1960s featuring an internationally sourced components, a top speed of 160 mph (260 km/h), and potentially the Ford Pantera as its closest competitor. Teague was instrumental in moving the car to production at a reasonable cost, but upcoming U.S. bumper regulations and other issues would have inflated its price beyond volume viability.
  Teague was responsible for the Jeep Cherokee (XJ) that was launched in the United States in 1983. He described the practical and utilitarian appearance of the new SUV: "We didn't want to lose the flavor of the older Jeeps ... We wanted it to look like something you'd want to take into the rough country." The design was unchanged and remained in production through 2001 and in China to 2005. The Cherokee XJ was described by one automotive magazine in 2009 as "possibly the best SUV shape of all time", and was the last Teague design to go into production. Automotive journalist Ro
caption: 1974 Matador X Coupe
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