The AMC Matador was badged as the Rambler Matador for the Australian market and was assembled at the AMI plant in Melbourne, who also assembled Toyota and others, including Volvo.
It later became the Australian Toyota assembly plant.
They were unique in sharing the same colour palette as the Toyota models and the coffin nose Matadors as the later ones were nicknamed, actually continued using the dash from the previous model, where the U.S models from the Wisconsin plant, had a later design.
The LAPD ordered a lot of the pre-coffin nose model as they offered unrivalled power to weight ratio performance and better handling than the big three could offer at the time and were so well regarded, some remained in active duty until the mid 1980s.
The later coffin nose model still saw widespread service with U.S law enforcement in the 1970s, as attested by their common appearance in police shows at the time.
Only a handful of the coffin nose Rambler Matador were actually produced locally over two years and I got to drive someone's V8 wagon once and it was my first experience driving a V8 and it went! The steering had zero feel and was so over assisted it felt like it wasn't connected to the wheels at all!
