Special trim models targeted to regional areas had undoubtedly been around for a while, but these 1967½ AMC Rebel wagons somehow escaped me so far. There were three of them, and I’ll start with the Rebel Mariner, as it was sold in Los Angeles, Portland, Eugene, San Francisco, Seattle, Miami and Tampa-St. Petersburg. Wow; I need to keep my eyes open for a survivor in Eugene! What would the odds be of that?
The Rebel Briarcliff was marketed in the Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Providence, Hartford, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Albany and Memphis areas. Can’t say I remember seeing one in the Baltimore area at the time. Nice interior colors.
The Rebel Westerner was marketed in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, San Antonio, Houston, Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit areas. Detroit? Milwaukee? Chicago? The needed an upper-Midwest themed one for them. Got any suggestions?
I don’t understand why they would have offered the Mariner in Eugene. For kayakers on the Willamette? At least up at Portland the river is navigable to the ocean. As for an upper Midwest theme, how about pre-rusted? Or at least with factory snow tires.
Every automaker offered trim and emblem regional specials over the years. In the 1970s Oldsmobile had the RPO Y76 package that dealers used to create regional special edition Cutlii between 1973-77. Perhaps the most famous regional special was the Mustang California Special, but there were also the Twister Special for the midwest, the High Country special for Colorado, the 400 for Chicago, etc. Invariably these were appearance packages with no real performance content.
Sure the GT/CS Mustangs were well-known, but I’ll always remember the Aerobird or maybe MN12 Cougar with vinyl top and landau irons, the Bostonian Edition. Some of those even made it out to California.
That Mariner version is NICE! I love the color combination and that yacht like paneling on the side.
Phil,…I certainly agree that it is a nice looking ride, I wouldn’t have any problem at all driving it, a really sharp looking wagon! wonder how many were made with the Mariner trim package and how many are even left?
I love that ‘Mariner’ version! Great color combination, and that yacht deck like paneling on the sides really gives it a nautical flair. I can picture it towing a classic wooden Chris Craft speedboat to the launching ramp, then parked at the Boat Club bar for the owner to have a few ‘quickees’ after a day of boating fun.
I wonder, in the history of wood applique on cars, whether there’s ever been another car with fake teakwood paneling?
The Mariner is definitely the most eye-catching of these three.
I’d rank them Mariner > Westerner > Briarwood. But maybe the Briarwood’s black camera grain would look better up close and in person – it’s certainly distinctive, at least for somewhere other than the C pillars or roof.
According to the ads these were sold at “American Motors/Rambler dealers” – is that the signage the dealers actually used in 1967, or did some still have “Rambler” signs and other had changed over to “American Motors” to de-emphasize the Rambler? It doesn’t appear they identified as “AMC” until about 1970 when they adopted the new red/white/blue logo. So what was the predominant signage on AMC dealers from 1967-69?
The American carried the Rambler brand until its final year, 1969. That might be why, or part of it.
I like the Mariner. The camera-grain black and leather-look brown Di-Noc on the other two…er…h’m. Points for originality and creativity, but I can’t quite get onside.
As to edition-cars marketed to particular areas, wull, ah tellya whut: g’wan dayown to th’ local Crassler-Plymouth Dealer ‘n’ celebrate th’ cintinnial o’ th’ beginnin’ o’ th’ Waw o’ Nawthun Agrayession! Git wun o’ these here li’l ol’ Vaahyint Dixie Spayecials…if yew c’n payuss th’ brown-bag tayest, that eeyiz.
Hummmmm. So Interstate Motors in Bristol, TN ordered up some gray Valiants, put a sticker on the door, and made their own special model? I’m thinking that even in 1961, for a variety of reasons, this may not have pleased the folks at headquarters back in Michigan.
No, that’s not what happened. See:
…and also:
Wow, that dealer even brags about having Confederate salesmen!
I’m sure it worked. That flag is still being enthusiastically flown today.
Well, given that in 1961 any of those guys would be at least 116 years old, I’m guessing good deals were to be had. 😉
One of these “confederate” salesman” !! Oh my.
There’s more/better information on the Dixie Special Valiants in the comment thread of this post.
And it seems that CC thread (now adding this one into the mix) has more info on this special series than anything else online. Which is kind of neat.
I still think that this was something that was pretty much put together by the regional dealers’ network. No doubt during one of their meetings that involved lighting things on fire in big fields in the dark of night. (I say this as someone born in “one of the 4 states” and who lived in two of them as a yout) All of the ads are pretty near identical except for a few places where the local could slug in the name of the dealer and perhaps the names of the “confederate salesmen”.
From the ads, we can see that VA, TN and NC were 3 of the 4 states. I wonder what the 4th was.
And yeah, something like this would be frowned upon by many today…but still, I’m surprised that I can’t find any record of someone trying to sell one of these in modern times. I mean, given the popularity of General Lee (Dukes of Hazard) replicas, surely there’d also be someone who would try to capitalize on an original Dixie Special.
We don’t have to guess; the answer to your 4th-state question is right there in the other thread I linked. So is the origin of the Dixie Special.
I’ve never seen or heard of one of these in real life, either. I doubt if very many of these were sold, given the Valiant’s whole-country 1961 sales figures. I also doubt if the Dixie Special decal(?) applied to the exterior of the car was good for more than a couple of years in the southern sun.
Daym. I just had to read that out loud. It did loose some impact in my somewhat broad Aussie accent.
There were only 1500 of them produced in total. There is a place on Colorado called the Rambler Ranch, an AMC museum that has one of each kind. The Rambler Ranch sounds like a neat place to visit.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/41772/inside-the-rambler-ranch-one-of-the-worlds-greatest-automotive-collections-hiding-in-rural-colorado
Several vids on YouTube including this – Dennis Gage / MyClassicCarTV visits Terry Gale’s Rambler Ranch. They drive a 1955 Ambassador w/ 252 six & a 1957 Ambassador with a V8.
The Rambler Ranch bought my 1961 Corvair Greenbrier.
I think the model shot her eye out between the Westerner and Mariner ads!
Thanks XR7Matt, I was indeed thinking that was the same model in all 3 ads.
I’ve seen a couple of the Mariner models come up for sale over the years. Never any of the other ones. Maybe Mariners were more popular?
Upper midwest suggestions…only things that come to mind are a “Badger” or “Wolverine” model. I’m not sure how they would have outfitted the model in those ads.
The Eagle was the first real upper-midwest special. Galvanized body and 4WD. Maybe it should have been named Timberwolf as an arctic-loving but tough avatar.
Not just an American car thing. Here’s the Volvo 142 California Special:
https://bringatrailer.com/2016/12/08/super-orange-ex-museum-1974-volvo-142/
From the link: The seller briefly notes that the car is some sort of California Special Edition–maybe that explains the colors?
Colour me dubious.
It’s the upholstery. And the 142CS is well-documented.
I’ll take your word for that; I will not take BaT’s, nor some random seller’s.
In the summer of ’71, we were doing a traffic study, and the house on the corner where I was stationed had a Mariner. They had that car for several years. It was so long ago, but my recollection of that car is that is was copper colored instead of blue. Did they later offer these in more than one color or model year?
I never even knew the Westerner or Briarcliff existed, let alone see one.
The decor details, and ads, are tastefully done. I like the metal badging on the C-pillars. As it’s primarily a dress-up package, without a great deal of pizzazz, I can see why sales were limited.
In the bottom pic, the model looks a bit like Marianne Williamson.
Perhaps because these were made in Wisconsin, I recall seeing all 3 models displayed at the State Fair one year.
Until now, I never realized these were limited to regions. I like the Mariner, but I guess given our location we could only get the Westerner.
My brother & I unsuccessfully tried to persuade the old man to trade off our Rambler American. We would have been happy with even another AMC product. Anything but our dumpy American.
Regional marketing. What a dumb idea for a car. As if every one in region one wants the blue car and nobody could ever want the red one or the white one because they live in region one where people are only supposed to want the blue car. This whole concept failed because the people who were supposed to buy them were too stupid to know that they were supposed to buy them, so they didn’t. Brilliant marketing.
Oh, dear.
Do you not realise these weren’t the only versions of the car available in the targetted regions? I mean, you do understand people could still go get a regular non-edition car in their pick of the colours and trims available on that model in that year…don’t you?
Or is there some other reason this has got you so frothed up?
AMC needed to sell every car that they could in 1967. Restricting availability was a move that they couldn’t afford. The blue Mariner really catches my eye. If it weren’t available in my region I might just buy a Ford Country Squire instead. Lost sale for AMC. It’s the Mariner trim that makes the car pop to me.
The model’s pose in the Westerner ad reminds me of a similar scene in Blazing Saddles.
On the regional editions, the Buick California GS comes to mind. It even made the factory full line brochure in ’69.
https://nihilistnotes.blogspot.com/search?q=Ovoid
The factory never used the designation but in Europe customers quickly dubbed the stacked headlights Mercedes-Benz in 1959 adopted for US-market W111s as “Californian”, California presumably then the most American thing imaginable. The arrangement was a necessity imposed because the US rules wouldn’t permit the use of the “tombstone” lights but the factory did adopt “California” when the W113 was for some years offered with just a hard-top, presumably because, viewed from Stuttgart, California must have seemed permanently sunny. The W111’s headlamps were much admired by Detroit and Mercedes-Benz later offered them worldwide such was the public response but the W113 configuration remained a one-off. It was one of only three occasions a production SL would be offered without a folding top and one of two with only a fixed roof.
Oh, my. Whatever merit there might be to their design-related comments, they get almost all of their headlamp ‘information’ wrong—not just a little bit, either.
Guess I’d best step it up on those sealed-beam articles I keep threatening to write.
For the upper-Midwest, maybe a special version with snow-tires, block-heater, windshield-visor (don’t think they sold those anymore), a place to keep the keg and the tailgate barbecue, rear-window defroster, and special Minnesota Vikings, Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, or Cleveland Browns colors?
I’ve always liked the Mariner. One of those Briarcliffs would be a hit at Princeton Reunions. I’m intrigued by camera-grain but black side paneling is a bit extreme.
Given the name, it’s a surprise they didn’t market in the New York metro area.
Not just in the US, we keep getting various “Austria only” models from time to time, see the below example (other car makers had/have them too).
https://auto.oe24.at/neuvorstellung/bmw-3er-sondermodell-mountain-nur-fuer-oesterreich/172186016
This post makes me wonder if any of the Briarcliffs made it through my great-grandfather’s dealership in Berea, OH? If only such records still existed!
On the topic of special editions, my brother and I came across a peculiar reginal edition Ford pickup in an abandoned stone quarry a few years back. It was a base model ’78 Ford F250 custom, green on green with a 300ci straight six and a four speed. On it’s front fenders were a pair of faded out stickers claiming ‘Six Shooter Special–Cleveland District.’ We contacted a local small-town Ford dealer and were able to determine it was something of an introductory special for the ’78 Fords. They probably only produced a 100 or so of them, and this was probably the only one left!