I have a real love for the 1965 Ambassadors. Part of that may be due to my chance encounter with a lilac 1965 880 sedan back in the late ’90s, but the plain truth is I find them very clean and elegant. It was 1965, the Big Three were at the top of their game, and even little Wisconsin-based AMC fielded an attractive line. The luxury Ambassador convertible was the top of the heap. And if you happened to have one in Woodside Light Green with a white top and green interior?
It was only a few years ago that I discovered the 1965 Ambassador and Classic were not all-new, but heavily facelifted 1963-64 models. While it can be seen in the rooflines–particularly the two-door hardtops, the Classic and Amby both looked new, modern and attractive. I especially like the Ambassador’s stacked headlights and peaked fenders.
Yes, the stacked lights introduced on the 1963 Pontiacs was having quite a run by ’65: The AMC Ambassador, full-size Ford, full-size Plymouth and Cadillac all had them, and they all looked good! It was actually quite a novel feature on a Rambler, as just a few years prior their lineup had been rather vanilla.
Ambassadors were available as a four-door sedan, two-door sedan, two-door hardtop, wagon (with or without Di-Noc, at your pleasure), and the convertible. Two series, the 880 and 990, made up the Ambassador’s trim choices, but if you wanted a drop top you were just going to have to fork out the dough for a flossy 990, the sole choice for al fresco motoring. If the $2955 base price was a bit too dear, you could always get the very similar Classic convertible, but you’d lose those most excellent stacked headlights.
The 990 convertible was the flashiest Ambassador, but the station wagon actually had a higher price–$2970 compared to $2955. You must really have needed the extra space to spend fifteen bucks above this beauty for the longroof! And this one not only has a green interior, but also the optional Flash-O-Matic Shift Command automatic transmission with bucket seats and a center console. It cost $227.30 with the 155-hp 232 Six and $234.50 with the 250-hp 327 V8. It was only available with the console and buckets; non Shift-Command Ambassadors with the automatic got a column shift.
Only 3,499 1965 990 convertibles were built, and I imagine those with the buckets and console were probably in the hundreds at most. This car, on display at the AACA Grand National in downtown Moline (the 1961 Chrysler Town & Country, 1960 Valiant V-200 and 1931 Pierce-Arrow were also at this event), caught my eye immediately, with that lovely color. When I peered inside and saw the buckets and floor shift, I was in love. What a beautiful car! Were the redesigned 1967 Ambassadors really necessary? I think this car was clean and attractive enough to last at least into 1970 with only minor changes.
And how might this car have done when the gas crisis hit? The exaggerated Coke-bottle 1970-78 Rebel/Matador were bigger, and certainly bulkier looking compared to this car. It is so clean and elegant. Don’t you agree?
A beauty no doubt. Amazing how this green works so well and that Matador wagon yesterday – not so well.
While great looking on its own, it has to be tough to compete for the higher dollar buyer when your entry looks a lot like a contemporary Nova compact – not an insult, I really like the car and it was my pick for the Rambler / AMC dream garage – as a convertible, no less.
“The Sensible Spectaculars” from AMC for 1965.
This ad came from a 1965 Reader’s Digest. Based on some of the other ads, this car had some serious competition – but it did well for it’s company that year, 64,145 total Ambassadors. Sales were down about 40% the next year. This was the Ambassador’s best year by far.
Also, car sales were through the roof for 1965 so AMC undoubtedly benefited from this banner sales year. Cool ad – it appears the convertible in Tom’s pic has the air conditioning vents shown in the ad.
Well a friend has a 67 in his toy garage one day I’ll get back there with a camera.
I really like this. Such a shame that AMC regularly fielded the smaller but more luxurious Ambassador in the go-go 60s when almost everyone wanted more size to go with their luxury, then pulled the plug after 1974, the beginning of the era where smaller luxury began to take off.
The Ford Granada and Cadillac Seville attacked this “less is more” market with gusto, and made Ford and GM a lot of money doing it. Sad thing is, this piece of the market had been owned by the Ambassador for 20 years. A properly broughamed Amby could have done quite well through the rest of the 70s. All it would have taken was new rear door stampings (as Lincoln did from 1971 to 1972) to complete the package. Alas, another “what if”.
I fully understand your thinking JP, but I think AMC would have had to freshen the Ambassador/Matador sedans and wagons significantly to make them competitive and successful. I was in my early teens at time, and I knew the Ambassador and Matadors were old designs. They didn’t appear like 70s styled cars. The roofline, boxy styling and semi skirted rear wheel well, told me at the time, it was a 60s car. They seemed frumpy to my young eyes. Same for the interior, especially the dashboard. Their size would have been very competitive. But I think they would have had to invest significantly to make them appear modern. Do I think it was worth it? Definitely. The money they wasted on the Matador coupe, could perhaps have made the Matador/Ambassador sedans competitive with the Granada. And future downsized competitors.
Not helping, was the Concord arriving very late to the luxury compact party.
Arriving late to the party was standard operating practice for AMC wasn’t it?
A nice looker especially in that colour.I really enjoyed AMC week
I completely agree on the clean and elegant characterization of the 65-66 Ambassador. I’ve always liked these cars, with their stacked lights, bladed rear fenders, and louvered lights. I knew these convertibles had to be rare as I don’t recall ever seeing one in the midwest when they were new. My uncle bought a new 66 Ambassador 4-door sedan. I’m not sure of the trim level but recall that it was dark blue with a lighter blue brocade interior that was very attractive. These cars also had very handsome dashboard layouts. A nice finale for AMC week.
Someone please explain the twin stick floor shift as advertised in the Reader’s Digest ad. I don’t remember that one………
Thank you in advance.
It is rather elegant, but a bit stubby overall to my eyes. I could see this as a bit longer, lower, wider and thinner overall. Maybe the Pontiac next to it is giving me that impression.
Three-speed floor shift plus overdrive. The hot setup for drag racing:
http://www.streetlegaltv.com/news/twin-stick-transmission-coolest-tranny-ever/
1963-65 only, in ’66 they had a real four-speed.
“Stacked headlights…..quite a novel feature on a Rambler…”
Not novel, the Ambassador had them first, back in ’57!
PS: I totally agree, this ’65 convertible is a very sharp car, one I’d be proud to own. If only, indeed.
I forgot about that one!
“Were the redesigned 1967 Ambassadors really necessary?”
Well, some sort of redesign was necessary to accomodate the new V-8s and make the old torque tube drive go away. Besides, as much as I like the ’65-66 Ambassadors the ’67 is even better IMHO. A ’67 Ambassador DPL Hardtop (Frost White, black vinyl roof, charcoal brocade interior) is the car I learned to drive and, unfortunately, the first car I crashed.
I agree – the 67 Ambassador was a very attractive car. When I was a kid, my next-door buddy’s Grandpa Bob bought one. Robin’s egg blue, white vinyl roof and blue cloth interior. I always thought it was an attractive car. He must not have liked the 74 version, as he replaced his 67 with a new 74 Chrysler New Yorker.
I personally like the ’65 and ’66 Ambassadors (the ’66 more so). . . . very elegant and clean. A nice spectrum of engine choices matched to the car’s weight (less than the big, bulkier competition). The 155hp 232 six (more than adequate), a 287 V-8 and the 327, btw, was 270hp . . . not 250. Good power to weight ratio and a “we try harder” attitude. Unfortunately, trying to go the competition car-for-car, never mind the inner body panels, doors and rooflines were basically shared – was not the best choice for AMC . . . .
Easily, one of the prettiest color combinations I have seen in some time.
A beautifully tasteful car.
Lest anyone let a thrill run up their leg over the ’67 Ambassador, remember that car by the fact that AMC had sunken to selling a stripper version of it it, with RHD even, to the US Postal Service.
That fact alone would just about drive away any potential customer when the competition was an LTD or Caprice and I imagine by the ’67 model year sales were commensurate.
AMC was just too stupid to change the name of the car. A Biscane, Bel Air, Impala, Caprice sort of naming scheme. Or a Custom, Galaxie, LTD sort of naming scheme…
Oh my, I didn’t remember that. It appears they even bragged about it.
Freaking gorgeous. Love every part of it and that rear is pretty sexy for conservative old AMC.
That is a beautiful car. I would love to have one with a modern drivetrain.
STUNNING. What a beautiful car. Stylistically, this is at least the equal of the same vintage Sport Fury, Fairlane, Skylark, etc. If AMC would have been on this path around 1960, that frumpy image would’ve never existed and who knows what would have become at that point.
Holy Umlauts, Batman! Two beautiful convertibles have been spotted in Gotham City!
The red ’65 Pontiac is a real beauty, but showing those cars side-by-side illustrates one reason why I prefer the Rambler. I love a low beltline, especially on a convertible.
I have pics of that Pontiac too. Looks like I need to write that one up as well!
Gorgeous car…it’s a shame that American Motors went so very, very wrong in the 1970’s.
While overall a nice looking car, the stacked headlights are a turn-off for me. To my eye, they are the least attractive incarnation of stacked headlight styling for their time.
+ 1. The heavy angular trim is kind of jarring – like they thought they had to bling it up to give it credibility as a luxury car.
The interior looks great though, as do the wheels/wheel arches.
For AMC the Ambassador was a rather nice looking car, but considering it came with an obsolete 327 V8, torque tube drive and let’s not forget the wonderful advertising campaign for 1965: “:The Sensible Spectaculars” which had to turn off anybody with a pulse. I suppose the AMC faithful considered it interesting; everybody else just walked on by.
Beautiful car, but my memory is that it seemed dated at the time, harking back a little generically to the pristine 61 Contintental when almost everyone was being wowed by GM’s Coke bottle profile. And of course it was ‘small’ at a time when size mattered.
A great colour – just enough grey in it to make it sophisticated/dignified. Would this work on something like a Fusion? Time for a comeback.
That Ambassador 990 Convertible has got to be the best looking vehicle they ever built.
That 990 convertible was Tommy Magliozzi’s ‘black beauty;’ a source of numerous accolades on NPR’s “Car Talk.”
This is a handsome car, but by 1965, GM was offering its much more stylish A-bodies for the same or less money than this Ambassador.
The Ambassador is a clean and handsome design to our eyes, but it’s not hard to see why many buyers in 1965 thought that it looked “old hat” when it was parked next to an Oldsmobile Cutlass, Pontiac LeMans or Buick Skylark.
And in 1966, the new Dodge and Plymouth B body gave you all of the angularity of the styling but mated to superior drivetrains, including legitimate big block V8s.
I also think that by the mid 1960s, the old AMC way of adding value by giving the buyer a longer wheelbase with all of the added length in the front doghouse was becoming an artifact from an earlier era. Had they figured a way to stretch the passenger compartment to make an Ambassador more roomy inside with that wheelbase stretch, it might have been a better value. They might have done better with an average between the AMby and the Rebel wheelbases, and make the more expensive car a higher trim package, much like an LTD over a Galaxie 500. I am not sure that most people noticed the wheelbase stretch of the Ambassador anyhow. I know I didn’t when these were commonly seen.
Interesting to note then the 1965-66 Ambassador body got a longer lifespan in Argentina who was made until 1974 or 1975 by IKA/Renault
http://www.productioncars.com/gallery.php?car=9078&make=IKA&model=Renault
There was even a customized Ambassador who served as a presidential limousine
http://www.cocheargentino.com.ar/a/autos_presidenciales.htm
I just purchased a 1965 Ambassador convertible July 30 2014. Originally from California it spent the last nine years and 900 miles in NJ. The body is California pristine Mystic Gold. Floor shift with bucket. seats. I live in Michigan. It will never see winter or salt..
As attractive as the 65 Ambassador was, it was the beginning of the end of American Motors, who boldly tried to take on the Big 3 with little success. Roy Abernethy tried to erase the “economy” image of AMC, and wound up with no direction at all. Pretty much all of his decisions were wrong, especially the one to not put the attractive Tarpon into production in favor of the ungainly, bloated and ugly Marlin. They blurred the distinction between the Classic and Ambassador by offering the V8 in the Classic, a mistake in my opinion as it stole sales away from the more profitable Ambassador.
In hindsight, they did the best with what they had, but often wasted money tooling up for low volume vehicles that did not justify the expense, and that included the ill fated Pacer. Same for the 74 Matador Coupe, it was just a waste of precious dollars that did not sell well enough to justify the cost.
In the early 70s, though, they did return to the frugal budgets that had served them so well in the late 50s and early 60s. The Hornet was well designed, had interchangeable bumpers as well as other smart features. The design was good enough to live on as the Eagle, well into the 80s. The trouble is that it was too little, too late, and the heavy handed emissions laws were the kiss of death for poor AMC. The government chose not to allow auto manufacturers to share emission technology, and that cost AMC a fortune.
I wish they could have survived and prospered.
I have a 65 ambassador convertible 327 car 30k original miles numbers matching. They switched the column shift to the floor twin stick. Wondering what it would take to switch it back and the approximate value it’s in decent shape need interior work but it’s good
I am so lucky to have one.
we are so lucky to have our Lola too, as far as we know she is the only one in Australia, wish I knew how many are left out of the 3and half odd thousand that were made originally. I have yet to see another with red brocade and leather upholstery thou.