This car made me embarrassed to be a newly minted American in the fall if 1960. We had just arrived for the unveiling of Detroit’s spectacular new 1961 models, and I was in car hog-heaven. In my rambles to the car dealers, the Rambler-purveyor was last, in part because of their location. But when I finally made it, and laid my eyes on the new 1961 American, I felt betrayed. It was all wrong: the proportions didn’t work, its wheels were too big, the greenhouse was way to skinny in relation to the lower half of the car. If Tonka Trucks had made cars, this is what I might have expected. And if things weren’t bad enough, then I opened the hood. I was not proud to be an American that day.
This was the land of dream cars come true, but this one was a bad dream. I’d never encountered a car with such bizarrely disconnected upper and lower halves.
It was as if there were aircraft-carrier runways on both sides of the greenhouse. I really struggled with this, especially after having spent a nice long session at the Chevrolet-Buick-Cadillac dealer, with their bumper-crop of delights that year.
How could they call this an “all-new” car?
Well, when I saw a on “old” 1960 sitting next to the “all-new” 1961 out in the lot, my seven-year old brain tumbled to the reality of “reskinning”.
These two were a lot more alike than Rambler was trying to let on.
As out of date as the 1960 looked, given that it was just a slightly refreshed version of the Ur-Rambler of 1950, it still worked a lot better for me than the “all-new” one. Bathtubs are a timeless design.
The original Rambler’s bathtub style had lots of tumblehome, but it was in the form of a graceful arc, not the square-hipped blockiness of its successor. That also did nothing for its interior dimensions either.
While the ten years from 1950 to 1960 brought significant increases in interior space, even for the new compacts that arrived in 1960, the Rambler was stuck inside its obsolete unibody structure, regardless of how well (or not) the AMC designers were trying to hide it from the outside. This is a pretty cozy car; undoubtedly the smallest interior of any American car of the period. A Corvair feels spacious in comparison.
And I liked the earlier simple but elegant dashboard better too, despite knowing it was “old”. Given kids’ predilection for everything new, this new Rambler was creating a serious dilemma for me.
The rear seat was no better; narrow in width, due to the intrusion of those large wheel wells. That was very anachronistic for modern cars by then. In fact, the Rambler’s basic architecture reminds one more of a pre-war car, in the relationship of the body to its chassis. I had a classmate whose dad drove a ’59 or ’60, and that back seat brings back the snug memories of it. When they bought a ’64 Biscayne, it felt twice at least twice as wide.
In fact, the American just isn’t very American, but something you’d expect to find in the Auto-Parade of 1961 from some European country, and chuckle to yourself about its funny looks, while thinking “that would never fly in America”.
Well, the American didn’t exactly fly in America; let’s say it walked. And sometimes, that’s good enough. It was a pragmatic decision by George Romney to revive the American in 1958, as a low-end compact below the mainstay Rambler line. He knew the Lark was coming, as well as a raft of new compacts from the Big Three. What was there to lose? Nothing, really, and as the cheapest American car in its time, it sold reasonably well, enough to warrant this refresh for 1961.
By then, the Falcon had dominated its class, and the American’s sales dawdled along, about as fast as it drove along. What was I just saying about walking?
Yes, when I lifted the hood on that “all-new” American in the dealer showroom, I just about decided to head back to Austria. There, down in the bowels of its snug little engine compartment sat a flat head six. So much for “all-new”. As a kid, I knew I was looking at 1920′s or 1930′s state of the art. This was, by far, the last flat head in an American car.
I might have been dismayed then by the primitive little 195.6 cubic inch long-stroke six that made all of 90 (gross) hp, maybe about 75 or 78 in today’s net ratings. But now, I revel in its simple visual delights. Yes, the jet age had not yet arrived under the American’s hood. And the flat head lumbered on in the American through 1965.
No, that’s not a stock air cleaner on that little carb. These sturdy-enough mills preferred to spend their lives chugging along at between 1000 and 2500 rpm. Anything much above that felt strained already.
This Rambler is best enjoyed (visually) as a humorous time capsule, as well as its many details. Like the trademark finely-ribbed aluminum window frames: a better solution. Even if they did eventually get old.
The American’s odd shape in the big picture results in many curious little snippets, like the his door handle at the far end of that side protrusion. I could go on…
The truth is, I’ve come full circle, and love this little ugly American, with its too-narrow track and all. And of course, I’m not the only one. Its owner is a young woman, who recently picked it up. It’s madly cool now; even more so than all the more prolific old Falcons young folks are driving now. A wide-hipped boxy Rambler American: it doesn’t get much hipper than that, literally.
As I stood there staring at this American, reflecting on my fifty years of feelings about its boxy body, something kept tugging at me: there actually is another car out there that it reminded me of. I’d had the feeling before, but couldn’t quite place it. Suddenly, it popped into my head.
Finally. A reason to love the Studebaker Lark! Really, you have to give the AMC designers credit. As hard as it was to modernize the ’53 Stude, it must have been much, much harder to do so to the 1950 Rambler.
The sedans seem to have taken the facelift better than the 2 door. The less said about that greenhouse the better.
But Rambler at least got the engine right. I think that it was 1961 when Studebaker tried the ohv conversion to the old Champion 6 that was less than successful.
I wonder if any contemporary road tests compared these two, either in 1960 or 61. It would be interesting reading.
Dec. ’58, not ’60 or ’61, but close. http://goo.gl/LCkAo
Thanks. An enjoyable read. Later in the magazine is an article about what’s new with Edsel, Mercury and Lincoln for 1959.
JP, good point that Studebaker stylists had a much easier job updating the 1953 Studebaker body. The Lark looked more modern than the American even though it carried over door sheetmetal.
For 1961 the American came with either the standard 196 cid L-head or an overhead valve version. I don’t recall the latter having the problems that plagued Studebaker’s new OHV six.
I’m only talking about the cast-iron six. Justpassinthru writes below about problems with the aluminum-block version of that engine, which for 1961 was available on the larger Classic models as an extra-cost option. Aluminum blocks were trendy at that time because they held out the promise of less nose-heavy front ends.
I vaguely remember Dad using the garden hose to put out an under-hood fire on our American (I was maybe 5 or 6). I think the slightly used ’68 Country Squire LTD wagon showed up shortly thereafter…
Supposedly George Romney told the stylists to modernize the American, but they weren’t to change the car’s basic structure, and they weren’t to spend much money doing it. If I recall correctly, the 1961 model boosted sales over the 1960 model, which is amazing when you consider that it was less attractive and there was a brief recession in 1961. The rear wheel, in particular, looks as though it does not fit properly with the body.
Yep, if the rear wheels were moved back so as to be centered in their openings they wouldn’t have intruded into the back seat so much.
It looks like a childs rendition of a Cortina
AMC clearly did not learn this lesson because they repeated that mistake 15 years later. The Pacer’s rear seat similarly sits between the wheel wells, erasing much of the potential advantage of the wide body.
Those door handles always looked to me like they came from a Kelvinator fridge.
Nash Kelvinator they probably did.
I actually own a N-K fridge, and can confirm they did not, at least, not from the late 40s model of refrigerator… (c:
My brother has a Kelvinator fridge and the interior light has the same lens and trim ring as our ’63 Classic 660. Dont forget that GM (Frigidaire) and Ford (Philco) also made home appliances. Ford even made TV’s.
I can’t see how nothing but old widows that used to buy Plymouth Cambridges drove these. I can’t see how functional they would be at Freeway speeds without being uncomfortable with sustaining 60-65mph.
I see plenty of Falcons, Corvairs, Valiants and even a stray Lark or two on the Freeway (more likely a Lark VIII) and they aren’t necessarily banished to the far right lane doing 50 in modern traffic. They can at least keep up with a 240D. I’ve yet to see an American on the freeway….
They’d trundle along at that speed ok. It still had almost three times the horsepower of a VW Beetle at the time (36 hp), and the VW would cruise at 68 mph all day long, on level ground.
The American was the cheapest American car; sold to quite a few young families needing basic transportation. They were pretty common in Iowa City at the time; university town with lots of young families. Roomier than a Beetle by a fair shot too.
I always forget the power of Overdrive, which these had as an option right? And they got Borg Warner 3 speed automatics as options too, right?
The greenhouse and sidestripe look stolen from the MK1 Cortina even the rear lights grille the whole car looks cortina with the proportions stretched and mangled
I dont recall ever seeing one of these in the wild but no doubt NZ having a starved car supply back then some did exist this POS didnt compare well with anything I read th PS article it had the same HP as a Zephyr but a Zephyr looks good and has more room. OMG a sidevalve I thought only the Ford popular retained this 1920s feature so late in the century, according to PS it coukld reach 60mph so you could take it on a highway but I already have a car from this era that is better styled more modern mechanically and better put together.
It had “side crumple zones”
Ugh, the Volvo 240. Growing up in Maine in the 70s-80s I had the same feelings about them that Paul had for Ramblers in 61. And those Volvos weren’t cheap…
That Volvo at the end is a 144. MUCH better looking than the American, thought they were fugly as a kid, and time has not helped…
I would jump all over this if it was the 2 door HT version! I’ve often considered getting one as a fun summertime commuter…its probably good that I haven’t found one because my 70 mile a day round trip isn’t what one of these deserves!
In addition to the hardtop there was a cute convertible version.
Yeah, cute in the sense that bunny slippers are cute.
At least it removes the jarring, eye-drawing horrific matchup of the 1950 greenhouse with the erzatz-modern cubist body!
Yeah…I think a convertible would be the way to go with that car. An Austin Powers swinger-machine, what?
I saw a lot of these when I was a kid. Partly because we owned a Rambler, a 1962 Classic 400, and it spent a LOT of time in the shop.
And partly because the Rambler dealer, later the Renault-Jeep dealer, was two blocks away from my childhood home…and home for a considerable part of my young-adulthood in the early 1980s.
Say what you want about the flathead 6. And you’d be right…but up one rung on the model ladder, there was the Classic…with the broiler-foil six – and a bigger failure in aluminum could not be imagined. Our own, had an oil leak…IN THE BLOCK, with a porous defective casting. It was replaced with an iron-block six…being as how I was, at the time, six years old, I don’t recall if the replacement was the 232. I don’t believe, however, that AMC paid for it, over and above having engines readily available for all the disgruntled customers.
So yeah…by default, the flathead six wins.
This car’s proportions are awkward, agreed…but the wagon wore them better. Fact is, I always thought a 2-door wagon would make a nice counterculture ride.
It must have been embarrassing to be a dealer flogging these things to an innocent populace who no doubt were excited at the prospect of a brand new car to show off in their driveway.Its a sad inditment that the best engine in the 6 range was an ancient design and the dealers actually stocked replacement engines thats unheard of almost BMC quality.
Ah…you misconstru, Bryce. It wasn’t the flathead six that was failing – it was the new-in-1961 196 OHC six which kept failing.
http://www.oocities.org/dr_rambler/history.html
AMC had many, many problems in the years 1954-1979; but one of its biggest was created with the 1961-62 boom years: They overbuilt but underengineered their products. They were prone to rust; to poor assembly quality; to engine and automatic-transmission problems.
Not all of that was completely their fault. Salt as a melting agent on the roadways was still relatively new – it became commonplace in the early 1950s. It took some years for problems to show up; and many more for even the big companies to address the corrosion issues. The automatic transmission problems were that of AMC’s supplier, Borg-Warner; the product was inferior (I can attest to that on TWO different examples, fifteen years apart). The aluminum six was new technology, released by a company which didn’t even have the resources to BUILD it (the block was cast by Doehler-Jarvis), much less engineer it properly. It was, literally, beta field-testing by the consumer – and the tests failed and consumers were very, very angry.
One more step down the latter for a company which could ill afford it.
Interesting link did Chevrolet not hear about this failure as they repeated it with the Vega with similar results
One other thought: By the time the troubles on our Rambler became obvious, AMC had completely rebodied their cars; had replaced the broiler-foil mill with the now-legendary series of sixes (culminating in the 4.0 Jeep engine, now deeply missed) and had started to phase out the “Rambler” name. They made big mistakes; they blew it – and they knew they had. Later AMCs were unrecognizable in comparison to Ramblers of those years; and little was shared, other than the B-W auto transmission. Those stayed around until 1972, to be replaced by TorqueFlite transmissions.
So, it probably wasn’t out-and-out fraud. Later AMCs were better built…I can attest, as I had a 1972 Gremlin in 1987. Good car, other than the lo-buck three-speed manual, which went out and sealed the car’s fate.
I see the 63 Valiant’s styling owing alot to these American’s
I had a chance to buy one of these (in Kelvinator White) for $400 when I was in high school 30 years ago. I test drove it and it strained (as in gas pedal flat on the floor) to go up moderate 3 or 4% inclines that my 1600cc Karmann Ghia just required a little more throttle to conquer. The extra body weight+slushbox+terrible aerodynamics just killed it. It even had the same six as pictured in the article. It was pleasant enough on the straight and level. The guy also had a 318 ’66 Coronet for about the same price, but it had a lot of trouble starting and every body panel was a different color – I drove off feeling grateful for the condition of my Ghia.
Sure, the 1961 American doesn’t look as graceful as its predecessor. But then — as now — buyers tended to gravitate to new sheetmetal. American sales increased for 1961 even in a down market. As a point of comparison, Studebaker Lark sales fell sharply.
At any rate, the pre-1961 American was soooooo ugly that it just begged on bent knee for a redesign. Only a reskinning could possibly do the trick.
AMC historian Patrick Foster has described the 1961 American as “a real beauty, a jewel of a small car.” I’d instead call it remarkably amateurish — even for the time. No wonder chief designer Ed Anderson wasn’t given the promotion he longed for.
One has to consider what Anderson had as a starting point, and how much money he was given for the job. Could Bill Mitchell have done much better with those considerable constraints?
Anderson was given a clean sheet of paper, and a reasonable budget, for the 1963 Classic and Ambassador, and the results were quite good.
Bill Mitchell isn’t the ideal example because he was an admitted big car kind of guy.
But, yes, I do think Anderson could have done much better in pretty basic ways. For example, why did he choose to accentuate the “shrunken head” look of the greenhouse with radically squared-off fender shoulders instead of a more tapered design, a la the 1963-66 Valiant? Did someone accidentally shift the drafting paper, thereby throwing off the proportions for the wheel well cutouts? And who on earth thought it was a good idea to square off the c-pillar, thereby making the back windows of the two door way too long? None of these beginner’s mistakes were necessitated by the old body’s inner panels.
The 1963 wasn’t a bad design but it had weaknesses that required costly fixes later on. The body’s teardrop shape was unusually pronounced for the time, which put Rambler at a disadvantage versus other mid-sized cars regarding rear leg room and luggage capacity. The “shaver” front end lacked continuity with previous Ramblers, and the overly tall cowl was quickly ruled obsolete by GM’s 1964 mid-sized cars.
Despite its Volvo-ish sensibilities, the wagon is the worst model of this series from a space efficiency standpoint. As the second and third photos of the coupe show, the rear greenhouse on the coupe, although tapering in, was still wider than the decklid opening. In order to build a wagon on the cheap, using the same rear quarters as the coupe and a tailgate that obviously makes use of part of the decklid stamping, AMC had to pull the greenhouse even farther in, making it ridiculously narrow.
Amateurish is being kind thats truly pathetic I can see why it was cheap being roomier than a VW is no recomendation these must have been hard to sell to sighted sheeple
Like Paul I enjoy these cars for their quirkiness. There were a few in the wrecking yards during my teens and I too was fascinated by the flathead 6.
I can’t imagine buying one new, but as a $3k collector car these have a place in the old car hobby. Anyone who complains about Hemi Cuda and A/FX altered wheelbase drag cars being out of reach, here is your ideal ride. Somehow it already looks like the wheelbase was altered (or maybe that it should have been and it wasn’t).
I’ve seen some of these Ramblers very heavily rodded and for sale, but even though you can put $80k into your 61 American project it’s still worth about $3k..
The Rambler American – U.S. Trabant!
I used to see these often, but the Rambler Classic was much more numerous. In fact, my best friend in the mid-60′s – his dad owned one!
Beauty! My sister bought one of these new from the factory when she was teaching in St.
Catharine’s Ontario. My dad bought it from her when she got married in ’65 replacing his ’51 Dodge Regent. It ran like a top until the flat 6 finally collapsed a few years later.
Visual appeal endorsed by East German Stasi
I still like the Rambler front better than the 2011 Mazda smilely face.
Somebody is still flogging one of these–a four-door, I think–around my neck of the woods (suburban New Orleans). I see it once every couple of months. It looks like it was painted Navy style–with a mop–about twenty years ago. No matter; you have to respect a fifty-year-old daily driver no matter what it looks like.
There was nothing cute about these things.
When I was 3 or 4 in the late Sixties I remember seeing a red and white one pull into our driveway. It belonged to friends of our family, and I thought it was the ugliest thing on wheels. Nice people, ugly car. I’d take our ’67 Beaumont any time. Years later, I saw an American convertible in a used-car lot that looked like it had been through more than a few owners. My opinion of then hasn’t changed much.