page_title: American Motors Corporation
section_title: Renault Alliance, Encore & GTA
hierarchical_section_title: American Motors Corporation / 1980s product developments / Renault Alliance, Encore & GTA
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Retromobile 2012
context_page_description: American Motors Corporation was an American automobile manufacturing company formed by the merger of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company on May 1, 1954. At the time, it was the largest corporate merger in U.S. history.
  AMC's most-similar competitors were those automakers who held similar annual sales such as Studebaker, Packard, Kaiser and Willys-Overland. AMC's largest competitors were the Big Three—Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. AMC's production line included small cars: the Rambler American which began as the Nash Rambler in 1950, Hornet, Gremlin and Pacer; intermediate and full-size cars, including the Ambassador, Rebel, and Matador; muscle cars including the Marlin, AMX and Javelin; and early four-wheel-drive variants of the Eagle, the first true crossover in the U.S. market.
  Regarded as "a small company deft enough to exploit special market segments left untended by the giants", AMC was widely known for the design work of chief stylist Dick Teague, who "had to make do with a much tighter budget than his counterparts at Detroit's Big Three" but "had a knack for making the most of his employer's investment".
context_section_description: The Renault Alliance was the first joint product of the AMC-Renault partnership. Introduced in 1983, the Alliance was a front-wheel-drive Renault 9 compact car slightly restyled for the American market by Dick Teague, mostly to comply with American safety standards, and produced by AMC at Kenosha. The car was badged as a Renault and some cars also carried AMC badges. It was available as a sedan with two or four doors and later as a convertible. The hatchback, introduced in 1984 and badged as the Renault Encore, was basically the same as the European Renault 11 model. For the final 1987 model year, a higher-performance version of the Alliance 2 door sedan and the convertible was sold as the Renault GTA. This version had a Renault two-liter engine that was exclusive to it and not shared with the European Renault 9 and 11 models.
  The new model, introduced at a time of increased interest in small cars, won several awards including Motor Trend Car of the Year. Motor Trend declared: "The Alliance may well be the best-assembled first-year car we’ve ever seen. Way to go Renault!" The Alliance was listed as number one on Car and Driver's list of Ten Best cars for 1983. The positive reception and sales of 200,000 Alliances by 1984 was hindered by the availability of only two body styles. The Alliance was a European-designed car and not fully suited to U.S. market demands. The distribution network was also not well supported, which led to the lower quality delivered by dealerships with "disastrous consequences" for the image of the automobiles, as well as high warranty costs because of quality failings which greatly impacted sales from 1985 to the end of production in 1987.
  The Encore models were renamed Alliance Hatchback in 1987. Alliance and GTA production ended in June of that year while the Renault 9 and 11 models continued through the 1988 model year in Europe, being replaced by the all-new Renault 19.
caption: The Renault Alliance, based on the Renault 9, was built by American Motors Corporation from 1983 to 1987
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