During the decade of the Sixties, I went from four to fourteen years old – and I have to tell you, it was a great time to be a burgeoning, young auto enthusiast. Besides the birth of the muscle/pony car, you had the ‘61 Continental, ‘61 E-Type, ‘63 Avanti, ‘63 StingRay, the beautiful ‘65 Chevy Impala, ‘66 Toronado, ‘66 Lamborghini Miura…I could go on. But to reference a popular Sixties television show, for every Eva Gabor, there was a Mary Grace Canfield. And one car that caused me to blanch every time it came down the road was the ‘61 Rambler American – the product of AMC Director of Automotive Styling, Edmund E. Anderson.
Short and squat (the car, not Ed) – I thought the American looked hideous from any angle. It had a scowling brow over the headlights and a frowning grille, giving it a very “unhappy face.” From the sides it looked stubby and high-waisted, with the rear wheels way too far forward. The back was nondescript. Why would anyone buy one?
You may be familiar with the old story – in 1959 Dick Teague and a fellow designer from the UK were interviewing for jobs at AMC Styling. As part of the process, they were shown some of the firm’s upcoming models. Upon seeing one of these, the UK designer whispered to Teague; “My God Dick, it looks like a ruddy ordnance vehicle.”
Well after some research and reconsideration, I have to admit I was dead wrong, on several levels. First, a lot of Americans wanted an American – 367,000 were produced from ‘61 to ‘63 – a certified hit for low volume AMC.
Second, as it seemed with almost every new model from the company, the Styling team was given a previous old platform with hard body points to try to “dress up.” In the American’s case, it was especially egregious, as the ‘61 body was based on the 1950 Rambler unibody platform, also resurrected in 1958, with its tall spring towers and short 100 inch wheelbase. Part of me wonders if Ed deliberately gave the American that frowning face to mirror how he felt about being given the impossible task of updating an eleven year old design.
For years I carried a grudge against Ed Anderson, and while he passed away in 1989, I’d like to formally offer my apologies. It’s clear he did the best he could given what he had to work with. And bottom-line, no matter how ugly it was, the American sold – putting hard cash back in AMC’s always limited balance sheet.
One other thing I learned about Anderson regarding his leaving AMC. Evidently Ed was rather hard-headed – a personality trait George Mason overlooked. But when Mason passed, and George Romney took over, things got pretty tense. One day in 1961, Anderson and Romney had a disagreement, and Anderson basically said “do it my way or I’m leaving.” After backing down from several of these challenges, Romney replied “Fine, have your resignation letter on my desk before the end of the day.” Officially, the reason given was Anderson wanted a raise and the title of VP of Design but the company declined, so he retired.
Either way, it was an unfortunate end to a long and successful career. AMC’s entire product line, styled under Anderson, won Motor Trend’s car of the Year award for 1963. And as we now know, Dick Teague was promoted to Director of Styling and continued to do miracles with handed-down platforms for another two decades.
So it’s most definitely tardy, but please accept my mea culpa Ed, you done good…and a clean, two-tone American hardtop coupe would be pretty nifty to have in the driveway.
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1961 Rambler American – The Hip Ugly American by PN
I think you got it right the first time. I also grew up in that era, 6 to 16. They might have been doing the best they could with what they had to work with. Only thing worse than a Rambler was a Studebaker.
I was surprised to learn here that Studebakers were often regarded as dowdy, nerdy (in a bad way), or cheap; they were mostly before my time and I had long thought of them as a stylish if off-the-beaten-path car choice. I mean, they got a jump on the other established US automakers with a all-new design in 1947, the ’50 bullet nose was wildly popular, the ’53s were again trendsetting and beautiful, at least the hardtop coupes were. The Lark again beat Detroit to the punch. The ’62 GT Hawk was and is gorgeous. They had industrial-design legends like Raymond Loewy and Brooks Stevens designing their cars. How could they be considered dowdy and – gasp – worse than AMC?
AMC was the bottom of the American barrel when I was a teen. I actually thought reasonably highly of the ’63-69 Ramblers which looked much like their Detroit competitors, but by the late ’70s they were obviously falling behind. Even Studebaker found the funds to facelift their cars almost every year, whereas AMC just kept selling variations of the ’70 Hornet and Concord and even older Rebel/Matador, along with a few oddballs like the Pacer. I also associated AMC with those rickety transit buses they made in the ’70s. The only thing cool about AMC to teenaged me was that they owned Jeep.
Those are the positive standouts in the postwar Studebaker line, but AMC had standouts like the 68-70 Javelin/AMX too. But for Studebaker sedans for 53 were dumpy, using the styling of the loewy coupes tacked onto a sedan body with tall short proportions and even used visible plugs in place of rear doors for the 2 door sedans, which is unfathomably cheap looking, the 4 doors still used exposed B pillar between doors too which was pretty old fashioned itself. The subsequent facelifts on the same center section up to the reimagined Lark weren’t bunch better, though I’ll concede the early Lark itself oddly works.
That was seen on some European cars around that time too – the Austin A30/35 (whose 2-door take rate seemed to grow as the model run continued) and, most unforgivably, the Saab 92/3/5/6 which didn’t even have a four door!
I think part of Studebaker’s problem and also AMC’s was the public perception of the company. Studebaker merged with Packard in the mid 1950s. It also was on the verge of not making cars at different time despite being a diversified company. The designs of its cars had old underpinnings. Studebaker was also managed for 3 years in the mid 1950s by Curtiss-Wright Aircraft. So people were hesitant to buy their cars. Studebaker like Apple in the 1990s of early 1980s Chrysler Corporation were reluctant to buy stuff from a beleaguered
company that might go out of business. The car company if reports pan out, may become an “orphan” car.
AMC had its ups and downs in the 1960s to 1980s. AMC’s chief problem where the failure of the Pacer and 1974 AMC Matador coupe. Both were expensive and shared little with other AMC designs. Both were a failure and the tooling costs for the limited appeal cars should have been used to upgrade or replace the existing car lines. Volume was needed over the long term and AMC didn’t have it with the Matador coupe and Pacer.
I never did like the `61-`63 American design. stodgy, too high of a beltline, and those rear wheels set too far forward. These always looked like a Librarian’s car, or at the very least something the USPS ordered. While the `58-60 models carried much of the styling cues of mid-50’s Ramblers, I grew to like those—especially the 2dr. wagons. However, once you sat inside one and looked at that dashboard, it was 1952 all over again.
I hated it when it was new and still hate it. The 55-60 style was good enough when new and still looks good now.
But all the Ramblers were good cars. Nash/AMC was the opposite of GM. Nash made lots of styling errors but never made any engineering errors.
The “angry face” was on trend for the late ’50s/early ’60s but a bit more curving of the “eyebrows” would suit the car better, and there may have been a way to sculpt the side flash a bit more deftly so that it wouldn’t turn back *out* above its’ existing most-inward point but keep angling in to take some width off those shoulders.
I think that’s just about all that could be done within the project constraints and those 1950 hard points.
The British designer’s reaction is especially interesting given how many times these have been likened, generically and specifically, to a British car!
“You may be familiar with the old story – in 1959 Dick Teague and a fellow designer from the UK were interviewing for jobs at AMC Styling. As part of the process, they were shown some of the firm’s upcoming models. Upon seeing one of these, the UK designer whispered to Teague; “My God Dick, it looks like a ruddy ordnance vehicle.” ”
I laugh every time I see one and think of this anecdote! He was absolutely ‘spot-on’ correct! The numbers sold verify perfectly that buyers in the low-priced, economy segment consider the aesthetic quality of the design to be absolutely no consideration in their purchase decision.
Ed Andersen does have to be forgiven for this homely, little troll. Given that terribly proportioned 1950 unibody platform, I’m not sure even the best designers of the era could have produced anything better. At least his last design efforts, the 1963 Classic and Ambassador were among the best AMC fielded.
One of the very few cars that could make our ’59 Rambler American look better when parked side by side.
This is one of those cars you can tell had to share “hard points” of an older design. Even as a kid I could look at these and tell they were based on the ’50s Rambler, with the highly slanted B pillar on the coupes being the most obvious giveaway.
Ditto.
Man, that is one ugly car. Not really polarizing like an Edsel, just seriously awkward, particularly compared with the other compacts of the era. I mean, just think how a ’63 Rambler American would look parked next to a ’63 Valiant, Falcon, or Corvair.
With that said, I’m stunned they sold so many of them over the three year period and wonder if it’s sort of like an American VW, i.e., a homely mutt that some people find adorable for just that reason. If someone wanted to make a statement that they marched to a different drummer, a early sixties American certainly would do it.
In fact, remember that the car the four comical aliens in the classic tv sitcom Third Rock from the Sun had was an American from that timeframe. That’s some great car-casting.
They sure do, and did look dowdy but despite their utilitarian purpose, they were “styled” to look they way they did, come what may. I never noticed that they had a hardtop too. From the photos above, the hardtop looks much less blecch.
As a kid I remember seeing lots of these as a kid and then a teen through the 70s. They always seemed to be driven by young working women or a family’s teenaged daughter, the latter being handed down to them or bought used for them.
I guess they worked in that way since they were doubtless rugged, and didn’t have enough power to get the drivers in much trouble. I remember seeing a neighbor working on one and when I peered into the engine I was amazed. “It sits way down there??!!” as I mused to myself. It was the first time I ever saw a flathead engine. It looked like you’d just as easy climb from underneath to change the spark plugs than to try to reach down so far from the tops of the fenders.
Oh, I’m not convinced Mr Anderson needs such posthumous humoring, Mr Brophy.
A designer of proper merit is, surely, able to take that which most would rather leave and transmogrify its wants into virtues. If, for example, the given 1950 wheelbase is a tad reduced, then it is unwise to go adding fifth lights to the window side profile (thence causing the roof to end up visually somewhere closer to the rear bumper than the cabin), nor scallopy wheelarches in so compressed a shape. Work with what you have, as they say. And if they don’t, I, who know nothing, now have, and a lot of nothing is a glorious thing.
Neither should your young dislike for these gun-carriers change, and neither should your early opinion be changed by the fact that 350,00-odd people bought the things anyway. At least 349,000 of those were on very strict budgets, and the rest were either sight-impaired or quite spectacularly uninformed.
In like manner, the 1963 Motor Trend award is of no real account, for the cars to which it ascribes greatness aren’t, and certainly haven’t anything beyond competent inoffensiveness to recommend them in the aesthetic realm.
You were right the first time. These were indeed ordnance, suitable by their appearance for shocking a stunned enemy into immediate defeat (“They’re fighting for THIS?”), so for you in your opinion it should be not so much mea culpa as non peccavimus (which Dr Google tells us is Latin for not guilty).
The 4-door version was added in 1960, on the old bathtub body. Its roof was not extended from the 2-door though. The 1961 restyle is just new exterior skin on the 1960 inner body, so that was just what Ed had to work with.
I hated them too at the time, but I too have come to find a wee bit of a soft spot for them in my old age. Senility?
More probably reduced visual acuity.
“I hated them too at the time, but I too have come to find a wee bit of a soft spot for them in my old age. Senility?”
No Paul ;
Just sentimentality .
-Nate
As one who was there when these were new, I only remember solid single colors and no hard tops .
They didn’t drive “fun” like other brand’s compacts did .
AMC’s were the go to for serious penny pinchers and old maids .
I rather like the looks of the two tone hardtop in the first picture .
-Nate
Poor Ed! He actually did a couple of logical and smart things with this design – the side “flash” reduces the visual height of the bodyside and the wheelarches flare inwards to try to reduce the gap to the hugely inset wheels dictated by the original platform’s “bath tub” design. The squared off roof helps to modernize it too.
The front grille and side flash are very reminiscent of the British Ford Cortina Mk1 – though that car had the benefit of being a clean sheet design and was thus able to achieve much better proportions.
I really love the ’63 Classic and Ambassador – very underappreciated and, as Paul has said, prescient designs, showing what Anderson and his team were capable of.
Unfortunately, automotive designers often have to polish the turd they are given. In the case of the ’61 American it was a particularly stinky one!
Amazingly, these were a full 3″ narrower than the bathtub cars, so a lot of the “fat” needed for George Mason’s favorite skirted front wheels was trimmed away. On paper that led to a considerable gain in space efficiency since the interior width was unchanged.
There were actual gains in trunk space despite being shorter in length as well, and an inch or two more rear headroom on sedans from the squared-off roofline.
It would be interesting to know why they couldn’t cut away even more width though.
That’s interesting! I assumed they were just as wide. I guess they were limited by hardpoints of their basic structure. It would have made sense to widen front and rear tracks, but that would have meant a large investment….
Not everyone was drinking Detroit’s Kool Aid back then. This car was cheap, quirky and not an import and that was a big deal back then to many.
Along that same thought, I wonder if the people who bought all those ’61-’63 Rambler Americans would have bought an import but just couldn’t bring themselves to go non-domestic. So the quirky little Rambler it was.
In fact, I see a bit of the Rambler in that great paragon of the Iron Curtain, the East German Trabant. Not so much in the overall design, but the later 1964 Trabant 601’s roof has something of an American look.
The gold one in the “lead pic” is a beauty.
Ford UK cloned the styling for their MK1 Cortina but made a better job of it.
Oh my goodness, dare I admit this? I just got back from a twenty five mile ride in the country in my ’61 Rambler American Custom 400 4 door sedan. I read Curbside Classic every day and was pleasantly surprised to see this writeup. I’m not too surprised at the comments though. Yes, the styling is a bit quirky, but I think they were a good value when they were new. Well built and when equipped with the 196 OHV engine (125 hp) they may not burn rubber, but they can scoot along just fine. I’ll be driving mine until the first sign of snowflakes, then it will hibernate til spring. If you see me in Lancaster County, PA, give me a wave or a thumbs down and I’ll know it’s a fellow CC reader.
They got good reviews too at the time. And yes, with the ohv six, it was a lively car. Keep driving it!
Jim, I will be putting my ’62 convert in storage tomorrow. I’ve been a proud owner of one of these homely little cars for 50 years, and I still believe AMC did pretty well with what they had to work with. While AMC made a few mistakes, they didn’t make any big blunders like a Vega or a Pinto. I would fault them for investing in an aluminum block 196 in 1961 (when the basic engine design was already 20 years old). I will swear by the 199/232/258/4.0 engine family as the best inline sixes built by an American company at the time. And the 3rd generations V8’s were likewise well engineered, durable, and competitive. (I’m proud owner of a few of those, too!)
I think the convertible is kind of cute, in a Geo Metro convertible sort of way.
The four door model in particular looks very ill-proportioned. The two door models fair much better. And the new 1960 models, both four and two door, look fantastic!
In my post above I miss-typed the year. I meant the 1963 models were much better, not the 1960 ones. Sorry for the confusion!
“You were right the first time. These were indeed ordnance, suitable by their appearance for shocking a stunned enemy into immediate defeat (“They’re fighting for THIS?”)”
“Unfortunately, automotive designers often have to polish the turd they are given. In the case of the ’61 American it was a particularly stinky one!”
Justy Baum and Huey respectively: Thanks for the good belly laughs I guess I needn’t be so diplomatic in my responses.
My pleasure!
I bought my 63 rambler classic 660 five years ago. I thought it was plain looking nothing to write home about interior nothing special but strangely I get a lot of thumbs up when driving it down a highway. Anywhere I go people ask me about it. I guess it’s one of those cars that really wasn’t appreciated for its look at the time but 60 years later gets all the attention.
There are two of these I had experience with back in the 60’s. The first was a ’61 two door wagon that was my fathers company car until 1967. He bought it from the company then and my grandfather drove it another couple of years until rust took it off the road. The other (’61 two door sedan) was owned by my piano teacher in the mid 60’s. She and her sister drove it well into the 70’s.