In the 1960s, America was having its way with unique advertisements and promotions, especially at the car companies based within the states. As advertising was becoming more and more prominent in the media, auto manufacturers sprang on the opportunity to include their flagship models on the covers of the hippest new magazine. And for some reason, it wasn't Motortrend.

Of course, it was Playboy. There were few staples of America more well known.  They pioneered scandalous photoshoots and modern modeling with the most beautiful women in the world. It all began way back in the '50s and '60s when political correctness was kind of non-existent and women were exploited for product sales, really not much different from now but we have come a long way, I mean have you seen the early "Secretary" Mustang Commercials?

Either way, the popular magazine became a display of not only pretty girls, but pretty girls with cool cars. This is how AMC found it's way into Playboy and about the crazy life of a particular 1968 AMX.

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Playmate Of The Year

via Vanity Fair

The coveted Playmate Of The Year award was Playboy's most beautiful and elegant woman and they wanted to celebrate the recipient in high fashion. The prize: A pink car and other pink goodies. It might seem lame but then you remember that the awards started in the mid-'60s when cars were made to look really cool, which meant that a bunch of cars designed for aggressive looks were painted in the very cutest shade of pink.

AMC wanted in on the action it had seen from the previous years ('64-'67) and set out to make a deal with Playboy. Marketing guys from AMC traveled to several of the ever-popular Playboy Clubs to pitch their idea to the franchise. In fact, there was a club right in AMC's backyard in Detroit, Michigan.

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1968 AMX

via Unique Cars

AMC finally received the go-ahead and their new AMX was to be the Playmate Of The Year Award. Angela Dorian, born Victoria Vetri, won the 1968 POTY award and took ownership of her beautiful, and brightly-painted pink AMC AMX. This car wasn't to be any normal base model AMX, oh no. This particular car was heavily optioned with the 4.8 liter V8 and 3-speed automatic transmission along with power steering and brakes, bucket seats, AM radio, eight-track tape player, Magnum 500 wheels, and air conditioning.

via Automobile

To make the car even more distinct they painted the exterior in a lovely, popping pink and gave her an interior plaque with her body measurements on it, reading "36-24-35", how very American.

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Rediscovering The AMX

via Automobile

Most one-off cars that are built for special purposes are kept in a warehouse with other rare cars but the AMX and all the other pink POTY cars were driven and actually owned by these women. That means sometime in the early '70s in Hollywood you would have seen Marilyn Lange in a flamingo pink 1975 Porsche 911 S, or Liv Lindeland in her barbie-colored Pantera.

via Automobile

Victoria Vetri, on the other hand, wasn't sentimental about her AMX's special color, so she painted it brown, then gray, and finally black. Eventually, after over 40 years of ownership, the then-married Mrs. Victoria Rathgeb, decided to sell the car. It ended up in a used car lot of all places and was bought by an AMX enthusiast Mark Melvin.

Rathgeb ran into a hardship, or rather a lashing out, with her husband and sadly shot him with court consequences racking up to 9 years in prison. The AMX, however, was being treated very nicely by Melvin, with time and an estimate of around $50,000, his holy grail nostalgia AMX was completely restored to stock, pink glory and all.

AMC AMX pink playmate of the year award
Via phscollectorcarworld

We love how Melvin has taken the time and risk of restoring a special car like this AMX. The Playmate Of The Year cars were some of the most American special edition cars of the '60s as they celebrated models and their beauty along with horsepower. We don't know if it is just the aesthetic of a pink muscle car cruising Beverly Hills in 1968 that makes it cool, but nonetheless, we think this AMX and the rest of the surviving pink Playboy cars deserve to be sold for big bucks and maintained for future generations.

Source: Automobile

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