While mention is made of prototype engines such as the air-cooled 1.8 V4 or 288 Kaiser-Frazer V8, what other engine projects or variants of existing in-house engines could have helped an ATL successful AMC as well as give a better idea of what was potentially available?
1) - In OTL AMC produced the AMC Straight-4 (from 1984), AMC Straight-6 (from 1964) and AMC V8 engines (from 1956 and again from 1966).
An earlier ATL AMC Straight-4 would have initially had a displacement of around 2172cc+ and could have been doubled up to form the basis for a more compact AMC V8 initially displacing around 4344cc+.
2) - There was also the OTL 230 Jeep Tornado SOHC Inline-6 (from 1962) though it was neither designed by AMC nor used in a domestic AMC branded vehicle, which later in South America spawned 181 cubic inch to 241 cubic inch variants in the IKA-Renault Torino as well as a smaller 153 Tornado Inline-4 unit used in overseas Jeeps.
An ATL AMC that adopts and improves the Jeep Tornado engine (instead of pensioning it off to South America) for the 1970s would have potentially given the company a 2986-3950cc Inline-6 SOHC as well as a 1978-2644cc Tornado Inline-4 and even a 3956-5288cc Tornado V8 engine.
Which route would have benefited AMC or were other engine options available?
Also what impact would in-house 4-cylinder engines such as an earlier ATL 2172cc+ AMC Straight-4 or ATL 1978cc+ Jeep Tornado-4 have had on AMC's compact / subcompact models, especially in place of the OTL (
Mercedes-designed) Volkswagen EA831 and GM Iron Duke 4-cylinder engines?