(first posted 3/6/2018) I was in college in the mid-1990s when something improbable happened. At many of the coffee houses, clothing stores and eating spots that I would frequent, I started hearing a soundtrack of lounge music, swing jazz, vocal pop, and exotica from the 1950s and ’60s. Right around 1996, it was as if a rheostat had been turned exactly one hundred eighty degrees. At many places where I had become accustomed to hearing the guitar-driven modern rock of Blur, Smashing Pumpkins, the Breeders and the Cranberries (RIP Dolores O’Riordan), all of a sudden I was shopping, eating and drinking my coffee to the channel-separated, space-age orchestration of Esquivel, the tropical fantasies of Les Baxter, and the choral and instrumental masterpieces of Henry Mancini. Various editions of Capitol’s “Ultra Lounge” series of compilations were suddenly the latest, greatest thing – and being played everywhere in my college town of Gainesville, Florida.
My grandparents had played Mancini on their hi-fi all the time when I was growing up, and while I had liked that music as a kid (“Pink Panther” theme, anyone?), I had no idea I’d later be listening to this music in places run and owned by people I had considered to be tastemakers. The script had been completely flipped, and at that point, it seemed like anything that had previously been considered hopelessly square was now considered the best thing, ever.
With that, allow me to present our featured car. Rambler, as a brand, was never cool. They made some cars that were great (like our featured car), or interesting (the Rogue-based ’69 SC/Rambler comes to mind), or both – all of which predated my existence, but from what I’ve read, there was never a Rambler that, when new, was considered even remotely fashionable. I have always tended to love the underdog, and there’s something I find powerfully endearing about the first Marlin fastback, which was based on the ’65 Classic. While I find the larger, Ambassador-sized, final-year ’67 edition a genuinely great-looking car (which, ironically, sold the fewest of its three years on the market), it’s the stubbier ’65 and ’66 models that really tug on my heartstrings.
They remind me a little bit of myself as a dorky middle school student, trying so very hard to be cool by emulating my stylish, older brother who was, by then, a college man. Much like it’s almost as if I had gone through a checklist of all of his admirable, apparent qualities (the hairstyle, the clothes – even trying to listen to and like some of the more, let’s say, experimental music he had discovered), it seemed as if Rambler had tried a similar approach with the Marlin. Hmmm, let’s see… “cool kid” qualities… Fastback profile: check. Optional V8 power: check. (Well, actually, shame on me, as these are the only two I’ve been able to come up with.) We all know how the Marlin’s story turned out, thanks to an entertaining read by Paul Niedermeyer. I digress.
What had struck me about our featured car, which was formerly for sale at a local, neighborhood vintage store about six years back, was that it looked like it had been a fairly well-preserved family hauler… until a surfer / skater / gearhead had turned it into his or her ride of choice, if the stickers on its windows are any indication. Skaters were another subset of kids I had gone to high school with that I had thought were eminently cool. That group’s seeming near-complete lack of care about anything spoke to a rule-following, law-abiding kid like me. That such a car as this Rambler (a station wagon, no less) had been owned (presumably) by a grown-up version of such an individual seemed to be one of the highest endorsements of this car’s newfound hip-factor.
The ’63 Rambler Classic was all-new that year, and a big step forward from the ’62 model it replaced. New unibody construction tightened up its superstructure, and also saved about 100 pounds across the entire range. A V8 option was new that year, which was a debored version of the 327 used in the top-line Ambassador. So equipped, these cars could accelerate reasonably well, able to do 0-60 mph in about ten seconds. All of these positives and more contributed to the Classic line being named Motor Trend’s Car Of The Year for 1963.
This was just two years after the Rambler make had ranked (a distant) third for ’61 in total production among U.S. makes, after Ford and Chevrolet, with close to 378,000 units built. By ’63, Rambler’s ranking had slipped to 6th (now also behind Pontiac, Plymouth, and Oldsmobile), though sales had increased for the second, consecutive year, to 464,000 units. This ’63 660 “Cross Country” wagon was the second-most popular combination of trim-level and body style among all Classics that year, with 52,000 sold, with the most popular version being the 660 four-door sedan, with 71,600 sold.
Did all of these noteworthy things finally make the economy-minded Rambler brand cool? Again, I wasn’t there, but from what I’ve been able to gather, all signs point to “no”. Competence and excellence often do not necessarily translate to fashionability. Just like my dad had been dumbfounded during my high school years when I had rescued some of his old, plaid, polyester trousers from Mom’s Goodwill donation bag and started wearing them, sometimes there’s just no accurate predictor for what people might eventually find desirable. In the case of our featured car, its original, utter lack of cool – likely in the hands of an early owner who placed a premium on this car’s capabilities over its image – probably prolonged its life. Simply by being itself, this Classic 660 Cross Country wagon won out in the end, hopefully with many more chapters in its existence still to be written.
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Saturday, May 5, 2012.
Prettiest car of the ’60s. I’ve been trying to figure out why coolness skipped the Rambler.
I owned a lot of VWs. Based on my supposed “reasons” for owning a VW, I should have been buying Ramblers. (Thrift, reliability, smallness, even anti-corporate hippie nonsense. AMC was a much smaller and nicer corporation than VW.)
I think it’s a matter of who Owned The Conversation. GM owned most of the automotive conversation, including the muscle-car end of Cool. At that time VW owned the hip end of Cool, for no good reason. There just wasn’t any Cool territory left to claim.
Polistra, I also like its looks – and to your point, it’s so hard to fathom GM’s sales / engineering / styling dominance at that time, in present day.
this could be considered what volvo based their volvo 240 wagons on the sheer simplicity of the design is spot on.
It shares with the Volvo the feature of using the exact same rear doors, windows and window frames on the wagon as the sedan — as opposed to most other makes that modified the door and/or glass to accommodate a different C-pillar on the wagon.
On the Rambler, this results in a slight dip in the wagon roofline at the C-pillar. Many earlier Rambler wagons had a much more pronounced version of this feature; on this one it’s subtle. Volvo adopted a different solution, using a straight roofline and not caring that the slightly curved tops of the rear door window frames didn’t quite match up.
I love it, and I love that it has survived mostly intact all these years.
A great analogy. Which, incidentally, this Rambler is the best looking one I’ve ever seen of this vintage. Perhaps it’s due to the terrific contrast of the color combination seen here. Had the white continued throughout, I may not be able to make the same statement. And the Lava soap green used by AMC on some of these was harsh.
Seeing this Rambler has prompted some “what-ifs” this morning. What if Roy Abernathy had never been put at the helm of AMC soon after this Rambler was built? What if AMC had been able to re channel its efforts from trying to outmaneuver GM to making significantly new product across the board? What if AMC had been able to give a serious update to the Matador / Ambassador by the early 1970s? The list could go on.
But it is what it is. And this Rambler wagon has certainly proven itself of being able to brighten up the rainy day from when Joe found it.
I’ve owned a few Classics and Ambassadors of this vintage. When well-equipped these are roomy, comfortable cars with good gas mileage. The look is almost like Mercedes of the time.
Under that sophisticated (for the time) unit body and clean design there is still a lot of Nash-era technology though. Trunnions in the upper front suspension, torque-tube rear, OHV six derived from an old Nash flathead, and of course vacuum windshield wipers. Drive one of these with the 195.6 six and Flash-O-Matic trans and you’ll see why Ramblers had the reputation of being an old man’s car! They would step out much better equipped with V8 of course but those heavy Nash engines way up front didn’t do much for handling.
Interestingly when these wagons were equipped with a third-row seat in the back there was no spare tire because there was no room for one. Run-flat tires were original equipment in that case.
As I understand it Romney originally intended that this body shell be retained, with a mid-life refresh, until at least 1969 for the “large” Ramblers. Unfortunately Abernethy torpedoed that plan and AMC started bleeding tooling dollars the company could ill afford. In hindsight a luxury compact this size with updated underpinnings would have probably sold well during gas crisis times.
Part of the problem was that the Big Three were invading AMC’s market niche. For 1964, sales of the Classic and Ambassador dropped by a fair amount, despite the addition of a handsome two-door hardtop and a booming market.
The problem was that GM had invaded the segment with its all-new 1964 A-bodies, which were spread across four divisions. It was one thing for AMC to stick with the same basic body for seven years when there wasn’t much competition from the Big Three. By 1965, GM, Ford and Chrysler were each offering a full line of intermediates, and giving them major face lifts at least every two years.
While Abernethy’s effort failed, I’m not sure that making minimal changes to the basic 1963 body would been any more successful over the long run.
Part of the problem was that the Big Three were invading AMC’s market niche. For 1964, sales of the Classic and Ambassador dropped by a fair amount, despite the addition of a handsome two-door hardtop and a booming market.
Exactly right. There was no place left for AMC to hide. Abernethy draws all the flack for trying to go head to head with the big three, but Chapin carried on with the same line, because they had no choice. Chapin even doubled down on it by making a second try at ponycars with the Javelin and a second try at a cheap compact with the Hornet.
They tried to exploit a perceived niche with the Pacer, then, when everyone else was going full brougham with midsize coupes with vinyl roofs, opera windows and hood ornaments, they tried the Matador coupe.
Also, weren’t these Ramblers (and maybe the 64 American) the last AMC cars to feel really substantial and well-built? The newer ones may have been better looking but none of the ones I ever rode in gave the impression of solid quality.
I’ve read that the real slide started with the 1967 Rebel and Ambassador. AMC was under financial pressure, and cut corners on those cars to save money.
Interior materials quality and workmanship on the 1967 models were a step down from the 1965-66 models.
The 1967 cars were fine. They just got squashed by the big 3.
They had several quality issues, and the interiors featured cheaper materials compared to their predecessors. The big problem, of course, was that tooling up for them cost AMC a bundle, but sales never met expectations.
The 1967 cars were fine. They just got squashed by the big 3.
I don’t have any windshield time in a 65-66. Mom’s 64 Classic felt very stout. The instrument panel in the 64 was all steel and fit well. The headliner was a weird fiber mat of some sort, like bits of fiberglass loosely packed together with some sort of binder. The trim on the inside of the C pillars was a vinyl sheet over cardboard. Over the years, the vinyl came untucked from the edge of the C pillars and would flap in the breeze when the windows were open.
My Aunt’s 70 Ambassador, was the car I learned to drive in. It still had AMC’s excellent coil spring seats, and the funky fiber headliner. The instrument panel was made of a number of molded plastic bits, a lot of plastic bits, that didn’t fit together very well. I don’t think closing the doors telegraphed a sense of solidity like the 64’s did, but they also never had the chorus of rattles that seemed to plague GM cars of the era once they had some years on them. That 70 did have a couple of rattles and squeaks though.
The 70-71 period appears to have been the bottom of AMC’s quality. In 71, AMC cut the new car warranty to 90 days. They quickly figured out cutting the warranty was not the way to cut warranty expense, if they wanted to keep their customers, and bumped the warranty back to 12 months with the “Buyer Protection Plan” in 72.
The 74 Ambassador I drove while working at the foundry was great. Probably had the 360 as it went very well, and had a much more nailed down feel on the road vs the foundry’s 74 LTD what wallowed all over the road. The instrument panel, while the same design and materials as my aunt’s 70, was fitted together much better, and I noted no rattles or squeaks. There was still evidence of cheapness tho. The woodgrain in this 45,000 mile car was wearing off of the insert on the driver’s door and the first time I drove the car, the box for a recently replaced window crank handle was still laying on the front seat.
The window crank handle on my parents’ 1973 Gremlin had to be replaced, too. That was the least of that car’s problems.
Abernethy was between a rock and a hard place. Whenever an independent had any kind of even modest success with a model, Ford and GM quickly jumped into that market and wiped-out any long-term hope the independent might have had. Studebaker’s Lark got killed by the Big 3 compacts, and Rambler got sidelined by the Big 3 intermediates. Abernethy really had nowhere to go but to try and compete mano-a-mano with the big boys across the board, but AMC just didn’t have the resources to do it right. As it was, AMC really lasted a lot longer than they probably should have.
They also had a big steering wheel close to the driver unlike Pontiacs or Chrysler products which seemed to acknowledge that you should have ordered power steering. And the coil springs on top of the rear axle (or something) meant that the floor at the rear was much higher than in other station wagons. Same thing with the previous body. They should have just used some cheap leaf springs and gotten the floor down to normal level in the station wagon. I was a kid and remember these things when I went station wagon shopping with the parents at the time. Oh, and the dashboard designs were ugly and outdated looking.
What if AMC had been able to re channel its efforts from trying to outmaneuver GM to making significantly new product across the board? What if AMC had been able to give a serious update to the Matador / Ambassador by the early 1970s?
A very dangerous question to throw out around me.
AMC inherited the ex-Buick V6 when it bought Jeep in 70. The V6 was quickly retired and AMC in-line 6s were used in Jeeps. Buick, being loath to use a Chevy 6 in it’s slightly retrimmed version of the Nova, bought the V6 tooling back and it went on to have a long life at GM.
What if AMC observed what Renault was doing with the R12, Audi with the 100, and Saab with the 99 and decided that a higher end compact, front drive car, with closely tailored sheet metal to provide maximum interior space with minimum exterior bulk was an unexploited opportunity in the US?
Take the money that went into the Pacer and Matador coupe, develop the V6 the way Buick did to refine it’s character, bolt it to a B-W Type 35 as B-W was particularly willing to modify that trans for various front drive configurations, then contract with Saab to develop a new platform for the 1975 Ambassador, which would have come out looking rather like an 82 Buick Century.
Then take the tin snips to the Ambassador to develop a lower cost, hatchback body that would look rather like a Citation, to replace the Hornet and Gremlin in 78.
All enabled by inheriting that V6 from Jeep and B-W’s flexibility with it’s existing transmission.
B-W type 35 adopted for longitudinal, front drive installation, in a Citroen SM.
B-W Type 35 adopted to transverse installation for an Austin Landcrab.
I’ve always thought, since most of AMC’s profit came from Jeep, if they had dropped cars and concentrated on Jeep, they would still be here given how the automotive landscape has changed.
Jason, this was indeed a very nice example – not just for its condition, but also as you’ve pointed out, this fantastic color scheme.
I never went inside the store to see what they were asking for this one. They would occasionally have a car for sale in that lot, but I’m always reluctant to ask and get a seller’s hopes up inadvertently, unless I know of someone who might want the car for sale.
I also love that this one had what appeared to be original hubcaps.
Back in the ’70s I saw one of these in a magazine that had been converted to four wheel drive, using IH Scout drivetrain parts IIRC. Now THAT was cool!
First off, what a great approach to this car. I remember in the early 80s finding a treasure trove of my father’s old skinny ties that were suddenly cool.
And you have me maybe 75% of the way there on this car. But I still just can’t. There are a handful of AMC cars that I could love but this just doesn’t make it. It is nothing I can exactly put my finger on, but it is just a lot of little details – like the odd shape of that rear wheel opening that tries to mimic the front one but doesn’t quite cut it. Or the lower character line that appears to be going uphill as it goes to the back.
I would do better with older (more quirky) or newer (more conventionally attractive).
I guess you could look at it this way – at the lunch table for the hopelessly uncool cars of 1963 the Rambler could get a lot more dates than the Studebaker could. 🙂
Few cars were ever as boring and stodgy as the 1962 Rambler Classic and Ambassador. What few styling excesses found on the previous years’ cars were trimmed away, leaving behind a dull-looking box. The 1963-1964 transformations were almost miraculous.
Yeah but you gotta love those cool R symbols on the hubcaps.
Now this jogged my memory a bit. I inherited a 63 Classic when my dad passed away. I recall it being a well built, solid car. The problem I had which caused me to sell it was that it wouldn’t start in the morning if there was even a hint of dampness, let alone rain. I did all the usual things, plugs, points, cap, rotor, wires, even a new coil. All I had to do was jump it and it would start right up, otherwise it would just crank over. Can’t recall if I ever put a battery in it.
Nice car otherwise.
I’m sure this has been said before, but Rambler was building in the 60’s what American buyers were demanding in the late 70’s- reasonably proportioned, roomy cars. Ironically, right at the time buyers were embracing boxy midsized sedans and coupes, AMC brought out the Pacer and the swoopy Matador coupe. Timing is everything.
Poor AMC – always late to the party… or, conversely, the first one there when the doors opened, an hour before anybody else showed up.
I have mad love for AMC, especially the Matador coupe and Pacer you mentioned (genuine love, not ironic love), and both generations of Javelin have consistently ranked among those in my lottery list.
Looking at this nicely styled, sensibly sized Classic 660 wagon, it dawned on me that between this and the Hornet Sportabout (and all of that car’s subsequent iterations), AMC had a knack for styling smaller wagons.
Agreed- I think they missed their calling. Funny thing is, kid in HS showed up with a new white ’71 Javelin. Had all the appearance options (spoiler, wheels, etc), but was a 304/ 3 spd. We all agreed though, it was a cool looking car. In retrospect, it wasn’t a bad package- cool looking, but probably got decent fuel economy and didn’t cost a fortune to insure.
Dorky cars seem often to become cool again. Valiant/Dart, early Ford Falcoln, Volvo 240, the list goes on. This was especially the case in the 90s, finding something that WASN’T cool and embracing it WAS cool. That whole I don’t care but I do care thing about Gen X. The same thing applied to flannel shirts and library cardigans. The funny thing is that this only applies to certain cars. The Ford Maverick has never been cool, for example.
Actually, there was a Ford Maverick that could be considered ‘cool’, and that would be the first year, minimalist Maverick intended to do battle with the Beetle before the Pinto. Specifically, they would be the ones with the steering wheel horn ring and ignition switch on the dash.
But, yeah, most Ford and GM products are too ‘corporate’ to be cool.
I have one of those. Never considered it cool except among Maverick fanatics.
This is the perfect way to look at these cars. They were so “out,” that they are now “in.”
My great uncle had a 1963 Classic sedan in off white. He was an AMC/Rambler loyalist. The Classic was then replaced by a 1968 Ambassador SST sedan, followed by a 1974 Hornet sedan. All were sensible, somewhat plain cars that did what was asked of them. What they didn’t do was make anyone particularly envious of the drivers and passengers.
Knowing my great uncle, that was probably a big reason why he bought them. He would also probably chuckle at the notion that his 1963 Rambler would ever be considered remotely “cool” or “hip.”
A similar shift happened at UIUC right around that time.
My grandfather had a Rambler, and knowing now what I didn’t know then (it was just a cool classic car to me then) it makes perfect sense. He wasn’t a skinflint but cars just weren’t something he cared about. Later on in the vehicle’s life he had it painted at Earl Scheib, which worked well until the new paint fell off in sheets. Made 90s GM paint look like a Kustom Kolor job.
Dennis, great photos as always but now I just want to eat at Patio Beef. Their actual beef is so-so but there’s a couple really good things I’ve had there…
Nailed the locale! Leo’s chicken dinner is still one of my faves.
(It never ceases to amaze me just how many CC readers are familiar with this little speck of the U.S. called the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago… See Tomcatt630’s comment below. 🙂 )
(I can see I hadn’t had my coffee yet because I accidentally called you Dennis instead of Joseph.)
I knew a guy who lived about a block away from there, so spent a fair amount of lunchtimes there. Haven’t tried the chicken though.
That being said, since you’re one of the few (only?) prolific posters of vehicles in the city, I can almost always nail down the location if it’s off a major street.
…not to be creepy or anything. 🙂
Cool! And yes, these have been cool with hipsters and other young-uns out here for quite a long time, although I’m not sure all of them can fully appreciate the Rambler’s original status.
I will say that the’63 did help a fair bit at the time, in making a new Rambler a bit less violently uncool as its predecessor had been. But it still was fundamentally uncool.
Oh this brings it back! For a while, I had a ’63 Ambassador 990 Hardtop, such a rare car now I can’t even find a pic on Google. It had the Light green metallic body with the white painted roof, the 327 (natch) and was a damn good driver. A compact and manageable size, just nothing special to drive. The one thing I like about the Rambler line, from a restorers perspective, is that most of the brightwork was stainless steel, and would come up like new with rouge on the polishers wheel. That and the front and back bumpers were interchangeable, it made some aspects more manageable. But oy vey, trying to get parts in general was a challenge, and with the internet was made way easier, but to try to do up the Amby in the mid ’90’s was not cool. I ended up using the car for parts as it was a bit too far gone, but it was well made and solid feeling still, just Rambler-y in its cardboard headliner, brazed on front fenders kind of way. This car unfortunately never rated highly enough for a pic at the time, but Pauls article had a ’64 in the same colours and general look, minus the revised front grill.
But oy vey, trying to get parts in general was a challenge, and with the internet was made way easier, but to try to do up the Amby in the mid ’90’s was not cool.
I have received confirmation from a couple former AMC styling department guys who show up at the local AMC meet each year that, when Chrysler bought out AMC, Iacocca had all the old AMC parts stock rounded up and everything was either sold for scrap or dumped in a landfill.
There are rumors that, as soon as AMC was bought out, a few guys went to their local AMC dealer and bought up every old part the dealer had and stashed them.
The vendors at the local AMC meet have pretty sad offerings. Very, very few NOS parts to be had. The vast majority of parts have been culled from junkyards, in pretty rough condition.
Not a surprise that Chrysler junked the old AMC parts inventory after the take over. By the late 1980’s, 1960’s-1970’s AMC cars were disappearing from the roads at a fearsome rate, carrying a large inventory of parts for which little or no demand existed made poor business sense. Typically, those obsolete inventories are job lot offered to parts suppliers such as NAPA at rock bottom prices. Likely in the case of AMC, even those companies saw little potential for further profitable demand for AMC parts.
In sort of a CC effect, I’ve been seeing a red and white ’64 (I think) Rambler Classic 660 around my neighborhood a lot recently. And yes, I think it’s extremely cool. Most likely that’s because I’m too young to remember Ramblers being uncool. I think pretty much any car from the 1960s would be considered cool just just for the relative rarity of being a car from the 1960s.
For that matter, are station wagons becoming cool now? I’ve noticed a few customized wagons on the road recently, things like 1990s Caprice wagons and their GM stablemates. It seems like wagons might be losing their “boring family hauler” stigma (that honor now going to minivans and SUVs). Or maybe anything with a V-8 and rear wheel drive is considered a candidate for souping up now.
Paul, I’m adding “violently uncool” to my everyday speech. Thank you.
Looks like pics taken near old Dominicks’ grocer, now a Whole Foods, on Chicago’s Broadway [street].
Parents had a 1964 Classic 550 wagon, base model. Looked better when it got a 770 grille after collision repair, as seen above pic.
I never liked the shape of the rear wheel opening on these, it just ruined the whole car, gave it the looks of a sourpuss IMO. AMC may have had a quality product in 1964 but they were still using very old fashioned steering and suspension parts, and the competition had moved on. These cars were just so-so in too many areas. They finally upgrated the mechanicals on the 1970 Hornets, but those cars had the cheapest, chintziest interiors of any compacts in the decade. By the time they finally upgraded to Concord it was way too late.
+1 on that rear wheel opening shape. It throws the styling of the whole car off. But then Rambler was like that in those days – there always seemed to be a detail or two that just didn’t look right.
Weirdly, as least in my opinion, by the time AMC was really on the ropes and had to reuse all their older body shells to create the Eagle, it seemed like the style had spun around again to actually looking distinctive, especially compared to the sheer A, B, and G GMs that were seemingly everywhere by the early to mid 80s.
I love the 1963 Rambler Classic, by far my favorite AMC.
Manufactured in Kenosha, Canada, Argentina, Belgium, Australia and New Zealand. The wheelbase was bumped up 4 inches to 112”, yet it was 1” shorter. It weighed around 300 lbs less than the 1962 model. The ‘63 had curved side glass and you could order reclining bucket seats on the 4dr Sedan & Wagon. While this car is not exciting it truly deserved the Motor Trend “Car of the Year” Award.
I don’t care for the ‘64’s new grill, although the addition of a 2dr hardtop was nice. Saw a lot of Classics growing up in Wisconsin in 1970’s and recall the ‘63 and ‘64 were usually rust free. Hope someday I’ll be able to find a low mileage survivor, I think it would be a fun old car that you wouldn’t have to worry about.
Mixed mind on this one. Overall fine and some interesting lines; nothing terribly offensive. I think other cars carried off the concave-front look better (’62 Plymouth, ’63 Dart), but this one works okeh.
For years I’ve had it in mind that one of these cars was featured on an old super glue package from the ’70s, but now I’ve dug it up again I see it’s not one of these. So…what is it?
The Super Glue Car reminds me of a generic version of a 1967-1973 Mazda Luce.
I don’t think it’s a generic version of anything—it appears to be a photo.
Nicely played! I was going to say that other than the deformed wagon part, I thought it strongly resembled a ’69 – ’71 Mazda 1500 or 1800 (as they were called here).
In 1963 a cheapskate uncle traded in his ’47 Studebaker on a new Classic 550 wagon. Bare bones and a sickly mint green, it was weirdly optioned with only a power tailgate window and Solex glass. A few months later our next door neighbor bought a top of the line Ambassador 990 wagon. Was quite nice IIRC. Nice interior, nicely equipped and the 327 V-8.
The ’63’s were a huge improvement, but Rambler never could escape its image as a dorky car.
Dad, a 36 year old engineer with three kids, bought this exact car in 1963. Availability of a V-8 sealed the deal. Safety and comfort features, compared to our ’59 Chevy, sold my parents. Dual brake master cylinder, standard front seat belts, split reclining front seats with headrests were the features I remember. The clean styling helped as well. My fondness for it was the fact that it was the first car I ever drove. Nonetheless, peer pressure and the uncoolness of Rambler led to him replacing it with another Chevy in ’65. My uncle, who lived next door, replaced his ’59 Chevy with a ’64 Buick Sportwagon, the coolest family truckster around.
I’ve never seen one with this sort of side trim before. It almost looks homemade.
I believe in 1962 Rambler was fourth in sales with a car that dated from 1956
this had to be unheard of so I am sure they were ambivalent about finally
dumping it in 63 I think after 63 the other guys were setting the sales charts on
fire year after year and am dropped further and further behind The dopey car
image was not making it Of course the swinging new Marlin came in
How did that work out?
I just noticed the pictured car is parked in front of HR Block. Accountants. Couldn’t ask for a better background!
Sometime in the late 70’s, my dad bought a Rambler wagon (a ’64, maybe?) from one of the local car dealerships. He got it for next to nothing because it needed a clutch, and no one felt like taking the torque tube down to replace it (or pull the engine, I forget which).
He was willing to do the work. It looked pretty decent and drove fairly well the only time I drove it.
Had AMC acknowledged the assault that the big 3 were launching against them, instead of trying to compete with them, the end result might have been different. Honda was into motorcycles and later yard equipment and small engines as well as quality cars. I believe something like this should have been their business model. Kelvinator wasn’t enough to offset the losses in the automotive division. GM had Frigidaire. Ford had Philco. They key to fighting the big guns is to hit them where they ain’t.
I have never been cool. Attempts ever to be so have only ever provoked unintentional hilarity. As an illustration, I once tried on a pair of skinny jeans in a store, and waited for my niece to return and advise. An older woman quite unknown to me, waiting for her son to emerge, looked and just said “No”. (I should add she was right – I looked like a pregnant stork). My niece on returning simply fell about from laughing at me. I didn’t buy them.
I used to order my coffee as a ‘double short black with a bit of milk”, only to be asked in trendier environs, “You mean a machiatto?” and answered earnestly “No thanks, two short blacks in one cup, and a bit of cold milk”.
I liked ABBA. I still like ABBA. You get the drift.
Which means I usually like odd cars, or unloved ones, but I can’t take to this Rambler. Where it is not dull, it is awkward. The roof looks bent and it looks as if it’s skirts are hoiked up round it’s bum, with the exhaust pipe rudely dangling. It isn’t even charmingly out of fashion. No, it’s not for me.
Perhaps because it is too much like me. Though I don’t think I’m about to come into fashion…
Probably the best vintage for AMC in my eyes. The colour and the body style are the two cherries in top. And a terrific post, as per usual.
But Joseph, you’ve sat on this beauty for six years??
Tatra87, thank you so much. This car sold fairly quickly, if I recall correctly, and was replaced in the sole parking lot for this vintage store by yet another classic vehicle – one which I may write up later.
Sadly, this vintage store closed a few years back. Its old storefront near the H&R Block is now a chicken wing fast-food place – which I have yet to try, since they’ve been open for just a few months.
My Dad bought one of these new, a green station wagon (with 2 kids and lots of stuff to go along with them, my Mother was a big fan of wagons). I’m not sure, but I think he must have bought it in Pittsburgh; he had it only 2 years when we were moving from Catonsville MD to Vermont it was totalled outside our hotel room (some guy waved my father through and another guy in the other lane hit him right in the drivers door…my Grandmother was staying with us and had to pick pieces of glass out of his skin)….it was replaced by a new 1965 Oldsmobile F85 wagon (also in green…what can I say…my Dad’s family is irish…and green was a popular color back in the day).
My Dad was a chemist in the early semiconductor industry and we moved around a lot back then.
This was the 2nd AMC wagon in a row that they owned…he had a 1961 (also a wagon) with the “chevron” taillights…that one he bought in Compton, CA. We had flown to California when I was tiny (1 year old) and my Dad drove his 1956 Plymouth plaza out there when we moved…carrying some very flammable materials he needed for his new job in a cold chest packed in dry ice….and on the way ran into a big problem when he ran out of dry ice and couldn’t locate replacement. My Mother must have talked him into this first wagon in our family…we drove back east (to Pittsburgh) in the 1961 when my Father got a job at Westinghouse Semiconductor in Pittsburgh.
I’m not sure what led him to trade in the 1961 for a 1963 so soon…he didn’t usually keep cars too long, but 2 years was short even for him (and as he’s gone 2 years now, I can’t ask him). Maybe something happened on the trip back from California to the car? I could ask my Mother, but I’m sure she wouldn’t recall as she’s not much into cars…but to buy substantially the same model car only 2 years later without accident happening, etc. would have been a bit odd…but like I said, I don’t know anything about the purchase of the 1963, it is the most “mysterious” purchase of all the cars he’s owned.
Well, today would have been his 87th birthday….my Mother’s is tomorrow (yes, they’re one day apart in age…people look at me funny when I tell them it’s my “parents” birthday…we’re used to combining them since they happen back to back). Happy Birthday…Dad.
Thank you for this great account – I (and I’m sure others) very much enjoyed reading it.
Happy birthday to your mom, and happy would-be birthday to your dad. Having also lost my dad, I think of him fairly often. A parent may be gone, but they are always a part of us.
Thanks, Joseph.
My Mom says she had a nice birthday (we’re taking her out to eat this weekend, I spent today assembling some of the birthday presents she got (from my sibling)).
I also never asked my Dad if people joshed him about moving from California (Los Angeles) to Pittsburgh…nothing against Pittsburgh (we often stop there on our car trips back east to visit relatives.)…but it certainly was against the grain around this period of time (1961?) when it seemed like everyone else was moving TO California, not from it…but I think part of it was related to his employer….he only stayed there 2 years…I think Southern California ws booming in the early 60’s… and also only stayed at Westinghouse Semiconductor for 4 years (they moved him from Pittsburgh to Maryland…he actually had an office in the old Baltimore Washington Airport where I guess they rented space)…so then we moved again, this time up to Vermont (the first time…he transferred to Virginia for 5 years then back up to Vermont for another 7).
Setting aside brief hipster revivals, were Ramblers ever cool? And did anyone really notice when they stopped being “Nash Ramblers” to become just Ramblers, then AMC this or that? To me, a Javelin is essentially a Rambler, as is a Gremlin. And when Penske and Donahue started racing Ramblers one transAm and NASCAR, it just seemed like a desperate ploy. Sure, some of the styling was nice, and in fact I really like the later AMC Spirits, but ultimately they’re all just Ramblers. No offense to Rambler fans, every car deserves its enthusiast supporters, I’m speaking from a mass market perspective. Of course, I feel the same way about modern Buicks. Any hint of Wildcat or GNX – or even 225 – heritage is long gone.
I’ve long felt that the ’63/4 Rambler Classic and the ’55/6/7 Chevy were the ideal size, weight, and power for the average family of 4 or 5. Sensible, functional, simple, and affordable. If only US family cars had retained a philosophy of practicality instead of ersatz pseudo-luxury that led to their morphing into the inefficient and profligate whales of the mid-’70s they would have been far better adapted to the conditions resulting from the world altering oil and pollution crises that eventually led to the ultimate decline of the US industry.
Even supposedly mid-size cars fell victim to the more is better syndrome, exemplified by GM ‘s gross Colonnade line. Only too late did the ’77 B & C cars finally bow to demand for more efficient vehicles, too little and too late, further compounded by GM’s cascade of errors in the ’80s. Rambler got it right starting in the ’50s, too bad they didn’t stick to it.
When I first saw pics of the Rambler Classics as a little kid, I was impressed how modern, well-sized, and proportioned they were. This styling could have been cost-effectively adopted for the 1970s.
While the ‘uncool’ label may stick, I was surprised that the just as valid ‘sensible’ quality didn’t result in more sales. To my eye they are well-designed, attractive sensible cars. I wonder if they had stuck – with real discipline and focus – to just one or two models, and put all their money into build quality and gradual improvement, that they could have carved out a successful niche for themselves.
Trying to compete with the big three in every segment in the later 1960’s and ’70’s was clearly disastrous, and it also destroyed the clear and positive identity the company had built for itself in the 1950’s and early 60’s. Volvo, VW, and Mercedes (and Valiant to a degree) were showing that a different approach could be successful, and I can’t help thinking that Rambler could have had a portion of that market with the right development and marketing strategies.
Based on this specific car, the company’s ultimate fate shouldn’t have been pre-ordained.
Only teenage nerds and geek would drive one of those Ramblers in the 1960’s, since it likely be a car owned by their parents. No self respecting teenage boy would buy and drive one of those to high school when I was a kid. They were too “sensible shoes” for the Swinging Sixties, even if the front seats reclined to make bed with the back seat.
Great read, Joseph.
Growing up our family had a 1961 Rambler Classic (much like the one pictured above by Tonyola, only ours was flesh-colored instead of blue). The same color as a Band-Aid.
And I’m a huge Henry Mancini guy, so props to you. I snatched up every one of those Ultra Lounge CDs when they came out in the 1990s. Great stuff, and I’m still listening today!
If you like that old Exotica stuff, be sure to check out the “Red Album” (vintage Hawaiian Slack Key music by Leonard Kwan). Totally cool!
I love exotica music; one of the local NPR stations (Kansas Public Radio) started playing it about 25 years ago, and I got hooked on Les Baxter, Martin Denny, Henry Mancini, Karla Pundit-to name a few. Totally cool music!
In regard to AMC, the company’s high water mark was from about 1958 through the early 60’s, due in large part to the 1957 recession and public dissatisfaction with the styling of the big three’s cars in the late 50’s. It would probably be accurate to say AMC brought out the first intermediate sized cars like the Rambler Classic, the Big 3 were quick to introduce their own intermediates starting with the Ford Fairlane which were superior to AMC’s vehicles. Mechanically AMC vehicles were dated which did not help and don’t forget much of AMC’s advertising during the Romney era was the equivalent of Mormon sermonizing about the evils of horsepower, racing and speed.
AMC couldn’t compete with the big three, let alone the Germans and Japanese. Probably their best course of action would have been to follow Checker’s example, and leave automobile manufacturing and become an auto parts manufacturer.
Joseph,
If you really want your heart springs tugged a little I have a 72 Ambassador wagon. Oh, don’t get me wrong, not to buy, but if you’re in the area you can drive it some…
Awesome! Thank you!
As the son of Rambler owners, memories of teenage ridicule have long colored my opinion of any car bearing the Rambler badge. Time has mellowed my opinion enough to at least acknowledge a couple of good points. The shaver grill ‘63 was a big step forward in modernity over the previous year. The Rambler was always an example of good space utilization versus traditional American full size cars. A low bar to be sure, but still a good contrast. The new ‘63 still had dated underpinnings, but we mechanics found the ones coming into our shop to be generally well built vehicles. Any make might have a horrific lemon stories, but I can’t recall any Rambler in our town having such a story. That about exhausts my nice comments about Ramblers. If I could go back in time to 1963, I still wouldn’t want to be seen in one. Sorry Rambler!
Rob, thank you. This confirms much of what I thought I had read about Ramblers and their reputations: uncool, solidly built.
AMC’s 550/660/770/880/990 numbering reminds me of Convair’s passenger planes. I think Convair got swallowed up by General Dynamics, akin to AMC and Chrysler.
In “Lost Continent”, the brilliant Bill Bryson’s account of his travels around much of the lower 48 in the 1980s, the author includes tales of childhood family motoring holidays, with himself and two siblings in the far back of a Rambler wagon. In my mind’s eye, the featured car looks perfect.
Another great read. I do not remember knowing anyone who owned a Rambler when I was in high school or younger, but I did do my driver training in a ‘66 Classic 4 door. I did not have enough experience to really judge the car, but it was relatively reasonably sized, and easy to see out of. It seemed like a good car for training drivers.