[5] AMF became a major part of what would soon be referred to by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower as "the military-industrial complex" after World War II.

Until the mid-1980s, AMF's range of consumer goods included powered model airplanes, snow skis, lawn and garden equipment, Ben Hogan golf clubs, Voit inflatable balls, exercycles and exercise equipment, Hatteras Yachts, Alcort Sailboats, Nimble bicycles, motorized bicycles, mopeds, and scuba gear.

In the late 1950s, the company won a contract for designing and constructing "a small 1 MW swimming pool-type reactor" at the Soreq Nuclear Research Center in Israel, which for a short time helped the Israelis conceal the fact that they were also building the Negev Nuclear Research Center for military purposes elsewhere in the country with French assistance.

To get the cash to develop the invention, Patterson swapped AMF stock to acquire eight small companies with fast-selling products.

After incorporating key features developed by Leslie L. LeVeque,[7] the AMF Pinspotter was perfected and put on the market in 1952, and helped to turn bowling into the most popular US participative, competitive sport.

After a prolonged labor strike in 1953, AMF moved bicycle manufacturing from a UAW-organized plant in Cleveland, Ohio, to a new facility in Little Rock, Arkansas.

[9] The new plant was heavily automated and featured more than a mile of conveyor belts in six separate systems, including an electrostatic induction painting operation.

[9] Taking advantage of the increase in its target markets in the aftermath of the baby boom, AMF was able to diversify its product line, adding exercise equipment under the brand name Vitamaster in 1950.

Manufacturing quality as well as the technical standards of the Roadmaster bicycle line — once the pride of the company — had fallen to an all-time low.

Despite this product placement, the film's protagonist expressed a preference for his lightweight Italian Masi road racing bike, deriding the elderly Roadmaster as a "piece of junk".

[14] By 1961, AMF controlled and operated 42 plants and 19 research facilities in 17 different countries, producing everything from remote-controlled toy airplanes to ICBM launching systems.

[4] Peter Karter was among the engineers working on the reactors AMF built in Pakistan and Iran under the Atoms for Peace program.

In the late 1970s, in a reference to its numerous leisure product lines, the company began a TV advertising campaign centered on the slogan "AMF, we make weekends".

Unlike large Japanese corporations such as Matsushita Electric Industrial (owners of the brand Panasonic), which had a standing corporate policy of discontinuing any product line or division in which they were not able to stay in first or second place in total market sales, AMF continued a practice of purchasing new companies in unfamiliar markets, while simultaneously failing to reorganize and modernize its core operations.