1970 AMC AMX vs a 5-Star Used Car: What Missing Crash-Test Ratings Mean, and the 7 Safety Checks to Run Before You Pay
A 14,000-mile 1970 AMC AMX 360 with a four-speed manual is for sale. Jalopnik's write-up, "14,000-Mile 1970 AMC AMX For Sale Is Perfect For Muscle Car Fans Heading Off The Beaten Path," says it isn't perfect, shows some wear, and isn't precious. In other words, it's a car meant to be driven.
Fourteen thousand miles over 56 years works out to about 250 miles a year. By normal used-car logic, that is as low-risk as it gets.
Now try to look up its safety rating. NHTSA has no star rating for it, and IIHS has no crash-test score. There is no complaint history to read and no VIN-based safety record. The listing looks low-risk, but the record that would let you check that doesn't exist.
That gap is the useful part of this story. Most readers aren't shopping for 1970 muscle cars. But the same question applies to the 2021 crossover on your shortlist: what do you actually know about how it protects you, and what are you assuming because the price looks right?
A note on method. None of the recent news stories this post draws on contain crash-test data. They are market and news pieces, and I use them as scenarios. Every dollar figure and complaint count in the worked example below is an illustration I built to show the method. It is not NHTSA data and not a repair quote. Your car's real numbers live at NHTSA and IIHS, and I show you where to find them.
What "No Safety Rating" Actually Means on a 1970 AMX
NHTSA's New Car Assessment Program began publishing frontal-crash star ratings with 1979 models. A 1970 car sits entirely outside that system. Here is how it compares with a typical used car from the last several model years:
| Safety question | 1970 AMC AMX | Typical used car, model year 2019 or later |
|---|---|---|
| NHTSA star rating | None (NCAP stars start with 1979 models) | Published for most models, by exact model year |
| IIHS crash-test scores | None | Published for most mainstream models |
| Electronic stability control | Not available | Required on all new passenger vehicles from model year 2012 |
| Airbags | None | Frontal bags standard since the late 1990s; side and curtain bags common |
| Automatic emergency braking | None | Common, but varies by trim and year |
| Backup camera | None | Required on new vehicles built from May 2018 |
| Where you check its record | Inspection and owner history only | NHTSA VIN recall lookup, complaint records, IIHS |
If you buy the AMX, you are accepting a different deal. A 1970 car can't be compared with a modern one on safety, and nobody is pretending it can. Hold it to a different standard: inspect it thoroughly, because no database will do that for you.
Low miles don't protect what ages. Tires, brake hoses, fuel lines, rubber bushings and fluids degrade with time, not with distance. A car that covered 250 miles a year can still have 50-year-old rubber under it. If you test-drive one like this, check the tire date codes (the four-digit week-and-year stamp on the sidewall), look at the brake lines and hoses, and feel for play in the steering.
Rarity makes it harder. Jalopnik's "7 Facts About The Iso Grifo, The Other Other American-V8-Powered Italian Exotic" covers another rare car built around American V8 power. The engine in a car like that can be familiar to any mechanic. That part is my inference, not the article's claim. But the brakes, suspension and body parts on low-volume cars are where rarity bites, and those are the safety-critical pieces. Before you fall for a rare car, ask who can service its brakes and where the parts come from.
This is the kind of side-by-side RiskBeforeBuy runs for you, so you don't have to hunt down each rating and record by hand.
Flat Used Prices Aren't a Safety Signal
Jalopnik's "5 Pre-Owned Vehicles Bucking The 'Used Cars Are Getting More Expensive' Trend" makes a good point for budgets. Used prices have run up since Covid, but five models trade near their pre-2020 values.
Cheap is not the same as safe, though, and a price that hasn't moved tells you about demand, not crash protection or defect history. A great-value car and a car with a known problem can look identical on a listing.
Elevated prices also raise the stakes. You are putting more money into any single car, so one unexpected repair hurts more.
The pattern to watch is the one inside a single nameplate. A headline safety award on the current model says little about the older model year you can afford. We walked through exactly that in our Kia Telluride piece on how an IIHS award sits next to an older model year's complaint load. Compare the exact year you're buying, not the badge.
Worked Example: A $22,000 Crossover, Two Model Years
Everything in this section is an illustrative assumption, not real data. Swap in your own numbers.
Say you are choosing between two used crossovers from the same model line, both listed at $22,000:
- Car A is the earlier model year. Assume 400 NHTSA complaints on file for its transmission.
- Car B is the later model year. Assume 100 complaints for the same component.
- Assume similar sales volume, so the 4-to-1 complaint ratio roughly means 4-to-1 repair odds. That is an assumption, not a measured rate. It gives a 12% chance of a major transmission repair within five years for Car A and 3% for Car B.
- Assume the repair costs $4,200.
- Assume a driver-assist event, such as replacing a windshield camera or bumper radar and recalibrating it, costs $1,100, with a 20% chance over five years on either car.
Expected cost of each risk (probability times cost):
| Risk | Car A | Car B |
|---|---|---|
| Transmission (12% × $4,200 vs 3% × $4,200) | $504 | $126 |
| Driver-assist event (20% × $1,100) | $220 | $220 |
| Expected total | $724 | $346 |
The expected gap is $378. That is modest, and I want to be straight about it. Averages understate the problem for any single buyer.
What matters is the bad outcome. A 12% chance is about 1 in 8. If it lands, a $4,200 bill is 19% of the purchase price ($4,200 ÷ $22,000). If the transmission repair and the driver-assist event both hit, you are at $5,300, or 24% of the price. Car B's odds of the same bill are about 1 in 33.
So the useful question isn't "which car is safe?" It's "can I absorb a $4,200 bill, and am I paying for that risk in the price?" If you can't absorb it, that points you to Car B or a bigger discount on Car A. If an inspection finds a known fault, ask for the cost off the price.
Complaints are a floor, not a rate. NHTSA complaints are voluntary reports from owners and are not verified defects. Counts depend on how many cars were sold and how motivated owners were to report. That's why the clean comparison is the same component across adjacent model years of the same model. You can model this for your own shortlist at RiskBeforeBuy.
The Fuel-Price Line Item No Safety Rating Covers
Jalopnik reported that Texas declared a "statewide disaster" over diesel prices and is allowing truckers to fill up with home heating oil, noting the two fuels are functionally identical (see "Texas Declares 'Statewide Disaster' Over Diesel Prices"). That is an emergency measure for commercial truckers, not a fueling strategy for your used pickup.
It does expose a cost that safety and reliability data never show: fuel price swings. Here is the arithmetic for a used diesel truck, using assumed numbers:
- 15,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 1,000 gallons.
- Every $1 per gallon swing in diesel price is $1,000 a year, or $5,000 over five years.
In this example, that fuel swing is bigger than the $4,200 transmission risk above. If you're shopping diesels, budget for both. Also read the maintenance records for fuel filters and ask whether the emissions equipment is intact or has been tampered with. We cover one specific case in our Ford F-150 3.0L Power Stroke diesel breakdown.
Where the Car Came From Matters More Than the Badge
Jalopnik's "Ford CEO Says U.S. Must Not Fall To Scourge Of Chinese Cars, It's Already 'Too Late' For Europe" also mentions Republicans figuring out how to ban Chinese cars without banning Mercedes. I'm not going to speculate on what any rule would cover, since the piece itself frames it as unsettled.
The takeaway for a used buyer is simpler. A badge doesn't tell you where the airbag inflator, camera, sensor or software came from. A star rating describes the car as it left the factory. It says nothing about how it was repaired afterward.
We covered that in our post on Chinese airbag inflators and why NHTSA 5-star ratings don't protect used buyers from illegal replacement parts. If the car has a collision history, ask for the repair records. Check that the airbag light behaves normally at startup, and look for uneven panel gaps or mismatched paint.
7 Safety Checks to Run on Any Used Car
- Pull NHTSA ratings for the exact model year. Use nhtsa.gov/ratings. Compare only against vehicles of similar size and weight, and treat "not rated" as an answer, not a blank.
- Pull the IIHS scores for that same year. Use iihs.org/ratings. IIHS has made its tests tougher over time, so compare within the same test version. Headlight ratings can vary by trim, so check yours.
- Run the VIN through NHTSA's recall lookup. Use nhtsa.gov/recalls. Separate "do not drive" or stop-sale recalls from cosmetic ones, and get proof that repairs were done. A certified-pre-owned badge doesn't guarantee that, as we showed in our Ford Explorer exhaust recall breakdown.
- Read the complaints by component. Look at categories such as air bags, brakes, steering and forward collision avoidance. Compare your model year with the one before and after it.
- Test every driver-assist feature on the test drive. Check the warnings, the lane-keep behavior and the backup camera. Look for dashboard warning lights at startup. Ask whether the windshield was replaced and whether the camera was recalibrated afterward.
- Check tires and brakes. Look at the date codes, look for mismatched tires (a real problem on all-wheel-drive cars), and check brake pad thickness and fluid condition.
- Pay for an independent pre-purchase inspection. In the example, I'd assume $200, but call local shops and ask. If it finds a $1,100 problem, it has paid for itself several times over.
The Bottom Line
The 1970 AMX is an extreme case: no rating, no databases, no driver-assist, just you and an inspection. But the habit it teaches applies to every used car. Don't treat a low price, low mileage or a famous badge as a safety record. Check the record for your exact model year, and price in the risk you find.
Before you make an offer, run your target car's exact model year through RiskBeforeBuy to see its complaint and recall picture next to its alternatives. That way you know what you're accepting before you sign.
Sources
- Ford CEO Says U.S. Must Not Fall To Scourge Of Chinese Cars, It's Already 'Too Late' For Europe — Jalopnik
- 5 Pre-Owned Vehicles Bucking The 'Used Cars Are Getting More Expensive' Trend — Jalopnik
- 7 Facts About The Iso Grifo, The Other Other American-V8-Powered Italian Exotic — Jalopnik
- 14,000-Mile 1970 AMC AMX For Sale Is Perfect For Muscle Car Fans Heading Off The Beaten Path — Jalopnik
- Texas Declares 'Statewide Disaster' Over Diesel Prices, Allows Truckers To Fill Up With Home Heating Oil — Jalopnik