original photos posted at the CC Cohort by Eric Clem
The restyled 1961-1963 Rambler American has often been derided as the ugliest and most mal-proportioned car of its time. It was boxy, but not in a good way. Its rear wheels didn’t looked like they were four inches too far forward in their openings. The rear end was crude, worthy of an East German Wartburg. It was too tall and narrow. In other words, it was all kinds of wrong.
But cut off the roof and roll back the new-for-1962’s convertible’s top, and all is forgiven, especially given that this was America’s lowest-priced convertible that year. How can something so homely still be so cute? Such is the power of a folding top on a sunny day.
The very first Rambler (1950) came only as a “convertible landau”, or what has often been called a convertible sedan, retaining the fixed sides of a sedan minus the central roof section.
It was definitely cute, chic, fully equipped and targeted at women who could afford this latest automotive fashion accessory. It wasn’t cheap though; at $1808 it cost almost the same as Chevy Bel Air convertible ($1847) and a fair bit more than the cheapest convertible in 1950, the Dodge Wayfarer ($1727). It was dropped after 1954 and was the closest American Motors would get to making a convertible until the 1962 American.
The 100″ wheelbase Rambler 2-doors were dropped for 1956, but it was revived for 1958, now dubbed the American. It lost its skirted wheels, but the result, especially at the rear, wasn’t exactly stellar. There’s long been speculation as to why the rear wheels look like they’re mounted some 4″ or more too far forward in the wheel opening. My guess is that the unibody structure would not allow the opening to start further forward; it’s the only logical explanation as AMC’s head of design Ed Anderson wasn’t blind; just constrained by realities.
Anderson’s brave attempt at updating the styling of the roly-poly American for the sixties just didn’t work. Again, he was heavily constrained by having to reuse most of the old American’s inner body, whose basic proportions cute in 1950 when it first saw the light of day, but compared to the all-new compacts from Chevrolet, Ford and Chrysler, the American looked dumpy, crude and just sad. The little Rambler had gone from being chic to something every kid and younger person would be embarrassed to be seen in.
But maybe not in a convertible? It was a bit unexpected for Rambler, which hadn’t built a full convertible since WW2. But compact convertibles were clearly in the air.
The 1959 Studebaker Lark had kicked off the wave of new compacts to do battle with Rambler and the imports. And in 1960, Studebaker again led the field with the first compact convertible.
And in 1962, Chevrolet fielded two compact convertibles, the Corvair Monza and the Chevy II Nova. Rambler didn’t want to be left behind even if the American’s styling was, especially compared to the low and stylish Corvair.
A folding top elevates every sedan, no matter how modest. From the right angles it manages to look jaunty, and even a wee bit European?
The front of the American was its best end, and thankfully the top “400” series came standard with the 125 hp ohv version of the venerable AMC 195.6 cubic inch long-stroke six and not the 90 hp flathead version that would still power base American through 1965. The two-barrel 138 hp version of the ohv six was not available on the American in 1962.
It was no Lark V8 or Corvair Monza Spyder, but the AMC six could still keep its own with the other compact (and non-turbo) sixes.
From the side and with the top up, the cuteness dissipates rather quickly.
The new American convertible had its moment in the sun in 1962, with 13,497 sold that year, only a bit behind the Corvair Monza and Spyder. But that didn’t last long; in 1963 that was down to just 4,750.
Although the vastly more attractive all-new ’64 American gave the convertible a bit of a bump in sales, to 8,907, sales of the convertible melted away each subsequent year until only 921 were sold in 1967. The American wasn’t the only one; all compact convertibles had a similar trajectory, having been superseded by the pony cars, although AMC’s Javelin never offered a convertible. AMC’s other convertibles also faded out at this time, with the last Ambassadors built in 1967 (1260 units) with the Rebel lasting through 1968, with 823 units. AMC’s convertible era was brief, although the Renault Alliance did revive the body style for a few years in the mid-eighties.
But who wouldn’t enjoy tooling down to the waterfront on a sunny evening and watch the ferries on the Puget Sound in this cute but dumpy American?
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1961 Rambler American – The Hip Ugly American by PN
1950 Nash Rambler Convertible Landau: Adorable, Thrifty, But Not Cheap by Aaron Severson
Never saw a convertible version of this generation, but by the time I was attending university, this first wave of compacts were used cars costing from $200 to $1000. (I paid $200 for an old Valiant.) My roommate had a 1964 American convertible and a girlfriend had a 1964 Corvair convertible. Those, I enjoyed.
This generation of American is indeed very odd looking. I do remember them in sedan form. Very archaic with a really slow 6 cylinder. The design of the top, didn’t fit the body. The roof was more squared and looked like it came from another car.
Sadly, the 1964 convertible I enjoyed was much slower than it looked. We had grown accustomed to pony car V8s, so assumed that the American would be as sporty. No. Not even close. When we dropped the top, it was barely a leisurely drive, even thought it looked sporty.
Slant 6s aren’t slouches, so even I wasn’t ready for that old AMC 6. It was a lesson I didn’t forget about affordable AMC cars, “All show – no go.” Right up through the Hornet/Gremlin years, you could get a cool looking car with a weak old 6 in it from AMC. Popular Chicagoland cars since Kenosha is a Chicago suburb, when AMC was HQed, but not as fun to drive as they looked. There was a reason they were low priced.
I think it looks far better with the top up than the regular 2 door sedan! Thinking about it, I am kind of amazed that AMC did not add a 2 door hardtop as a companion to the convertible. That was possibly the hottest body style of the time, and it would probably not have been difficult or expensive to adapt a steel roof onto the convertible body. It seems to me that the sales upside would have been far greater with a hardtop than with a convertible.
One nit – the Lark convertible was added for 1960.
On further looking, maybe AMC made the right call. A look at Studebaker numbers:
1959 hardtops: 7075 (VI) and 7996 (VIII) Total – 15,071 units
1960 hardtops: 2829 (VI) and 4565 (VIII)
1960 convertibles: 3107 (VI) and 5464 (VIII)
Totals: 7394 hardtops, 8571 convertibles, 15,965 all together.
It looks like hardtops + convertibles in 1960 were only slightly higher (about 900 units) than hardtops alone in 1959. I guess that was still an increase (overall sales were down about 7% for 1960) but not much of one. So maybe Rambler hardtops would have just pirated sales from the convertibles.
AMC did add a two-door hardtop to the American line-up for 1963, and produced 14,850 for the model year.
One nit – the Lark convertible was added for 1960.
True that! Fixed now.
AMC shot itself in the foot by not dumping that wretched flathead and making the only slightly better OHV i6 standard across all lines .
I remember these new and indeed they were drab and almost ugly .
I’d rather have a ’49/’50 Custom Convertible like Lois Lane drove .
-Nate
I remember our Rambler American flathead as being faster than Falcon automatics VWs, Renault Dauphines and 4 cylinder Chevy IIs. Being in a farm town, it was also faster than most old 6 cylinder pickups.
Sometimes farmers from close-in farms would even drive their Massey-Ferguson, John Deere, IH or whatever to run a quick errand. The American could beat any of these off the line – although it was close.
OK, pretty faint praise. Still, the American flathead wasn’t the slowest thing on the road.
The few inches of drive shaft tube they saved on each one must have been worth it I guess, The Lark worked much better.
I knew someone in the early 80’s who had a flathead six American. About 20 years old and it seemed archaic. I actually think that from certain angles this body style looks OK.
“from certain angles this body style looks OK”.
And just what is that angle? 90 degrees, whilst flat next to it in a drunken stupor, perchance?
Why, oh why, did Rambler not make a two-door roofline with the convertible’s much more stylish rear side windows?
They did in 1963 only. Still not a looker, but much better without that awkward slanted B pillar that makes it obvious the car is just a heavy facelift of the 1950 model.
It’s like a fat american Mk 1 Cortina
They still look to me like a drawn from memory thru a hang over MK1 Cortina, which is or was a stylish car for what it was, at least Ford got the rear wheels centred in the wheelarch.
I’ve always liked the Mk1 Cortina (give or take an impractical inch off that too-tall roof), but yes, there is a resemblance, and “drawn from memory” was surely at the top of the design brief for the under-funded Rambler.
As usual they did what they could with what they had. And as usual it wasn’t quite enough.
Indeed a cute car, but that rear axle position sure is a puzzler isn’t it?
One of the best examples of television car-casting was the early sixties Rambler American convertible in the well-written, hilarious Third Rock from the Sun.
If there was a car that oblivious extraterrestrials would drive on Earth, that would be the one. I’d go so far as to suggest that it could be an assumption of the occupants when one is spotted being driven on the street.
Facelifting a 1950 design to make it look modern in 1961 while retaining the same hard points and body structure is close to impossible. I’m not sure I could do any better a job than Ed Anderson did.
Somebody at Chrysler nonetheless must have liked it – the ’63 Valiant has almost the same face.
Often thought just that about that Val.
This car looks like the Ford Taunus P4 (1962-66). The German model was derived from the US front drive Cardinal, that never got produced.
Yes, that’s it! It DOES remind me of that.
We had a red one, white top running round my home town until the late “70’s”. Never, that I can recall saw the top down.
If memory is correct, was usually in the neighborhood near the hospital.
Lady with “Lucille Ball”, red hair was the driver.
Think there was a “AAA: sticker on the back..
Well, the pics do make it look a lot better, but in truth, it’s a bit like someone with a gigantic honking schnoz turning up to the plastic surgeon to have their arse reduced.
Interesting! These pictures reminded me that the Rambler American had a full wraparound beltline. As it was introduced shortly after the Corvair, the stylists at Rambler couldn’t have known (during development) that the Corvair would have that feature, so it seems impossible that they cribbed it from Chevy. Yet Chevrolet designers get all the credit. Talk about being a day late and a dollar short.
I was thinking that too. Aspects of the Corvair design concept seem to be there, but if they did know about it they did a pretty poor job of translation. Maybe the also somewhat boxy (and natural competitor) Lark was the stronger influencer.
It took less than a year to implement changes in external skin. This was hardly a new car; just a major reskin.
The idea that it took 3-5 years to develop and design a new car is utterly off-base. Chrysler engineered, developed, styled and tooled the 1960 Valiant in 18-20 months, top to bottom. And that included all new engines and transmissions and more. I could cite other examples.
Yes, it’s hard to fault Edmund Anderson for the American. He could only do so much with an oddly proportioned older design that would have been hard to update under any circumstances due to its construction. The ’56 V-Line Hudson was another story. Nonetheless, Anderson had quite a career as a stylist.
CC Effect! I saw one for the first time yesterday evening.