The AMC Matador was sold and manufactured under the American Motors Corporation (AMC) from the years 1971 to 1978. There were two generations of this car and it was completely redesigned in 1974. The second generation included a station wagon and four-door model. There was also a coupe that was introduced in 1974 but did not share the design of the previous models.

The Matador was created to replace the AMC Rebel, a car that had been manufactured since 1967. The newly named and redesigned AMC Matador was available in several models and proved to be fairly popular. The redesign of 1974 was due, in part, so that it could meet new crash and safety requirements. Another reason the car was redesigned was because the era of muscle cars had come to an end and people wanted to drive plush mid-sized coupes.

American Motors wanted to bring the Matador to the public buyer's attention, so they started a "What's a Matador" ad campaign. This campaign turned the rather anonymous Matador styling into an asset. The company had polls conducted and it was discovered that the styling of the car meant excitement and virility to car buyers. In Puerto Rico, American Motors ran into some problems marketing the car because the name Matador has connotations with "killer".

The Matador was manufactured with straight-6 or V8 engines and came in both manual and stick shift models. There were minor changes in the Matador until 1972, when AMC introduced a buyer protection plan and gave car buyers a 12 month bumper-to-bumper warranty. They also upgraded several of the car's components.

In 1974, there was a major design change in both the station wagon and sedan. The two-door coupe got a radical overhaul and became separate from the rest of the AMC Matador line. The new safety regulations mandated by the United States government required that cars have higher impact protection and, as a result, the Matador was fitted with massive bumpers. The Matador proved popular as a police car, especially in Los Angeles and was used mostly from 1972 to 1974. Some of the cars stayed in service until the middle of the 1980s.

The domestic automobile market was moving toward smaller cars in the late 1970s. As a result, this larger-sized vehicle was no longer seen as attractive by consumers. Car buyers wanted more economical cars, especially because of the oil crisis in 1973. At the time, America endured a devastating inflation and the cost of fuel was increasingly on people's mind. As a result of declining sales, the Matador was discontinued after 1978.