Alt country singer-songwriter Neko Case caught a few gearheads’ attention back in 2009 when she crouched on the hood of a 1967 Mercury Cougar for the sleeve art of her album Middle Cyclone, but even dedicated Neko Case fans may not know that she previously co-wrote and performed a musical ode to the ’63 Rambler she once owned — perhaps the only song ever written about a 1963 Rambler Classic sedan.
If you’re not already familiar with the music of Neko Case, it’s a little hard to explain, or even to classify generically. Her 1997 first album, The Virginian, is pretty unequivocally country (and more upbeat than her subsequent work), but it’s country as if it might have been if Patsy Cline had lived long enough to get really into The Replacements. Case’s subsequent albums have become progressively more lyrically cryptic: strange, often surreal, occasionally harrowing. They’re still country, I guess, but a kind of David Lynch fever-dream country. (Play the title song from Case’s 2006 album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood in the car while driving through a rural area in the rain and you’ll immediately understand what I mean.) I file her music under “alt country” — it’s about as far as you can get from current commercial country radio fare while still remaining in the same genre. Mostly.
The car nerd’s immediate reaction to the sleeve art of Middle Cyclone might be, “What, they couldn’t get a Mercury Cyclone for the photo shoot?” However, the car wasn’t a rented prop, it was Case’s own 1967 Mercury Cougar, “Angie Dickinson,” which she later donated for a charity raffle.
I saw a contemporary reviewer of Middle Cyclone who presumed that the inclusion of the Cougar on the sleeve art was somehow ironic, which it was not. Case loves cars: In her recent memoir, The Harder I Fight the More I Love You, she explains that when she was 18, she paid $350 for her first car, a mechanically shaky, faded yellow 1964 Ford Falcon. (She was excited about getting a ’64 Falcon because it was the same kind of car the Rodriguez Brothers drove in the 1984 cult movie Repo Man, which should also tell you something about where she was coming from.)
Although Case didn’t yet have a driver’s license, much less insurance, she more or less taught herself to drive in the Falcon, going out late at night to reduce her chances of being stopped and arrested.
This experience left Case with a fondness for smaller ’60s domestic sedans. Her memoir explains:
After selling the Falcon to a friend, I ended up buying a 1963 AMC Rambler Classic 660, and I paid all of fifty bucks for it. It had a battery-eating problem that turned out to just be a faulty ground wire. It was a tank with a bronze coat of paint and four doors, which made it horribly uncool to gearheads, since only two-doors were considered cool. “How dare someone snub you because you are efficient!” I’d say as I stroked my hand along the bulletproof submarine flank of the dash. How I loved that car! The engine compartment was so large I could stand inside the gap between the body of the car and the engine. It was a straight six, which meant the oil filter and spark plugs, air filter and carburetor were on top and very accessible. This made me that much keener to work on it myself.
The Rambler Classic 660 sedan pictured here is NOT Case’s actual car, but another 1963 Classic 660 four-door approximately like it.
AMC actually called this color “Calais Coral,” but I could see someone reasonably calling it bronze, especially with some patina.
The only other 1963 Rambler color that might conceivably fall into that category was Corsican Gold, pictured above, but I’d be hard-pressed to call that bronze unless it was on a car with more surface corrosion than paint.
Case’s memoir continues:
I was good at gapping spark plugs (I kept a gapper on my key chain, and not just for show like some rockabilly dickhead) and adjusting the idle and diagnosing any problems my sweetheart might have. I kept that old Rambler running at peak as long as I owned it. I didn’t want to be beholden to other people, especially strangers, to fix the car for me, and not just because I couldn’t afford it. Its radio glowed aqua blue-green, and I listened to the oldies station or just traveled with a Walkman to listen to tapes illegally as I drove along. I had a little confidence for once. I was moving, the car was working, because of me, because of what I could do.
Thus, Case began a long love affair with cars and later with vans, including a two-tone silver-and-brown 1988 GMC Rally STX diesel van christened “The Beaver.” She told Car and Driver in 2025 that because she presently resides in rural Vermont, where AWD is a must, her current vehicles are a 2021 Subaru Outback, dubbed “The Mackerel,” and a 2024 GMC Sierra truck, which doesn’t have a name and for which she confessed not having much affection.
As I said at the outset, back in the late ’90s, Case wrote a song about her Rambler, “My ’63,” co-written with Dallas Good of Toronto alt country band The Sadies, with whom Case has often toured and who have played on several of her albums. The lyrics describe the Rambler as a gift from a friend in the summer of 1989 (although I suppose getting any car that runs for $50 could be considered a gift), but she even describes its disconnected ground wire.
Case sings:
They said, “Son, it’s just a ’63
Your engine’s impressively small”
One ninety six, yeah it’s just a straight six
But my Rambler will outrun you all
The song also mentions that other famous Rambler (and Nash) feature, the fold-down seat that could be used as a bed:
Cos’ there’s four doors in my ’63
The seats fold out into a bed
You start every time that I turn you over
I love you my ’63
The song is admittedly not any great showcase for Case’s talents as a lyricist (for that, see the aforementioned Fox Confessor Brings the Flood), but it’s a heartfelt goof, and how many songs are there about Rambler Classics, really?
“My ’63” is a particularly obscure part of Case’s discography. It doesn’t appear on any of her studio albums, only on the B-side of a limited-edition 7-inch single, Car Songs, released by Bloodshot Records in 1998. (The A-side is “Highway 145” by Whiskeytown.) However, it is on YouTube as of this writing:
Case’s memoir was released by Grand Central Publishing in early 2025. Her most recent album, Neon Grey Midnight Green, was released on ANTI- in September 2025. For a sampler of her past work, there’s a 2022 compilation entitled Wild Creatures, although you’re generally better off with her full albums; her previous studio album, 2018’s Hell-On, is somewhat more accessible than her new one, which remains as unclassifiable as ever.
Related Reading
Vintage Car Life Road Test: 1963 Rambler Ambassador 990 Twin-Stick – Only Rambler Offered A “5-Speed Manual” (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1963 Rambler Classic 660 Cross Country Wagon – So Uncool, It’s Utterly Cool (by Joseph Dennis)
The last picture, illustrating a song about the bed, shows a rare Rambler WITHOUT the recliner. People bought Ramblers for the recliner in the same way that people bought Fords for the V8.
Good catch. Intact 1963 Rambler Classics are not abundant, and I was lucky to find one that was the right color. I added an example from the brochure.
I can find a 63 600 wagon in my vicinity.
I’m not saying there are none, but I wanted to find a six-cylinder four-door sedan in what I think was the right color, and that was a narrower selection.
Dad had a new ’61, then a ’63 Classic Wagon. Not sure why he had the former such a short time, even for him, except that’s the car we drove in from California back to Pennsylvania (the ’61 was bought in Compton) and I think it was in a dust storm; Dad probably thought it would rust back east. The ’63 didn’t last any longer, though it met it’s demise in a traffic accident on rte 40 in Catonsville in summer of ’65, my Dad was turning left into our motel (we’d just vacated our home in Catonsville on our way to Burlington where we’d be living thru Nov 1969) one driver waved him to turn in front of him but the person in the other lane didn’t and T boned the Rambler. My Grandmother was baby-sitting us in the motel, picked the pieces of glass out of Dad’s skin (seems it shattered, maybe the side windows weren’t safety glass?)
Both cars had AM radio (first car with a radio) and automatic (my Dad’s first new car a ’56 Plymouth was bought before he met my Mother, who wasn’t comfortable driving anything but an automatic. Guessing both had heaters as well. Both 6’s.
I have heard of Neko Case several times, but must admit I haven’t listed to any of her music. Just listened to My ’63 now, undoubtedly the finest song ever written about a 63 Rambler Classic.
Undoubtedly sounds like The Sadies backing her up too. A great cult alt country/rock band from Toronto, RIP Dallas Good.
While the year and model are not mentioned, “Sausalito Summernight” by Diesel prominently features a Rambler…
“The engine’s thumping like a disco. We ought to dump her in the bay.”
I will be listening to her music today! Calls to mind Ben Vaughn’s 1995 release Rambler ’65, the only album recorded in a 1965 Rambler. Vaughn is a real car guy with songs like “El Rambler Dorado” and “Motor Vehicle”
Thanks for this! I hadn’t heard that one before and now I’m going to listen to more Neko Case (regardless of whether she sings any more songs about her ex-Rambler).
Of course, the Rambler song that is now stuck in my head (thanks….) is “Beep Beep” by the Playmates. The 45 of this was a childhood staple and played so often in my house that we near wore out the record.
I love that there’s also a censored version of “Beep Beep” that was made for the British market. And what, you may wonder, needed to be censored in this innocuous novelty song? Welp, the BBC had a strict policy of not playing songs with brand names in them as that could be construed as product placement or advertising. So the Cadillac became a generic “limousine” and the Rambler became a “bubble car” (like an Isetta and such, near the height of their popularity in 1958).
“Beep Beep” by the Playmates”
Came to add this. But, well, here it is.
Wow – I had completely forgotten about Neko Case. A friend of mine turned me on to her music in the late 1990s or early 2000s, and somewhere I have CDs of her first two albums (The Virginian and Furnace Room Lullaby). My most memorable song of hers was “Tacoma” (about the city, not the truck) from Furnace Room Lullaby. It’s one of those songs that I can still recall the lyrics to, even though it’s been about 20 years since I’ve played it. That’s a sign of an excellent songwriter.
I can’t remember why I stopped following her – maybe I didn’t like one of her later albums, but somehow she dropped off my radar. I never knew much about her, or her interest in cars, so I found this article fascinating. I never would have guessed there’d be a song out there about a Rambler Classic by anyone!
OK – sometime soon I’m going to find those Neko Case CDs and give them another listen. Thanks for this writeup!
Just looked up the song I was thinking about, and the title is “Thrice All American,” not “Tacoma” as I wrote above.
That’s a new one for me, as well as Neko herself. Very well done. And I can relate, especially the part about there being room to stand next to the engine inside the engine compartment; done that a few times with my F100 six.
Now how about an ode to her ’64 Falcon?
It doesn’t specify a Rambler Classic—but there is another song where a “’63 Rambler” plays a role: Vanity 6’s “He’s So Dull” (1982):
I forgot all about that! Although it takes a much less favorable view of the Rambler:
I was quite content never having heard that song or that band.
It’s so dull…
It’s so dull…
It’s so dull… that I had to stop it half way through.
My sister had that, it’s not the worst track on the album I can assure you.
For such a talented guy Prince really had this crazy idea that whoever was his girlfriend at the time was also musically talented.
Something new to me as I never thought of someone writing a song about these Ramblers. I actually now find some of these cars from the 1960s have pleasant styling but even back in the day they were somewhat forgettable. I had an uncle who only bought mid-level Ramblers, mostly 4-door sedans in the least attention grabbing colors. He owned a dry-cleaning business and was as plain as his Ramblers. My heritage is Southern and a sweet cousin of mind once said, “Yankees put their crazy relatives in the attic, Southerner’s put their crazy relatives on the front Poarch”. This uncle should have been put in the attic, if only because he was so dull and not blood, married into my crazy family. However, his daughter was one of my favorite cousins and we had wonderful fun times together when I was a teenager. In the 1960s, she was the first topless go-go dancer to be arrested in her community and at the time had the highest IQ ever recorded in her high school, near genius. She drove a yellow Mustang.
I’d always wondered about putting a Cougar in the cover a car with another Mercury model on it. I figured maybe it was like The Black Keys’ album El Camino, which features an early woody Town and Country minivan on it. Definitely prompts a kneejerk reaction from gearheads.
The music is excellent though. I think exposure to Neko Case early on shaped my musical tastes quite a lot.
Looking at that Rambler, it’s actually a pretty good looking car. Definitely not ‘over the top’, but not necessarily boring. Each bit fits nicely in it’s place, and nothing looks like an afterthought. Beautiful yet modest grill/front end. Clean rear end, but with taillights ‘considered’ in design, not just cut out or stuck on afterwards. Swoopy stylish wheel wells front AND rear. Not just round cutouts, (or ‘square’, for that matter). Very clean, well proportioned design, and this is a 4 door. 😉
Maybe look a little better as a hardtop, but all-in-all, very nice, IMO.
I’ll take 2, make one a Wagon.
Neko Case is one of those artists I’ve heard about many times but whose work I’m unfamiliar with, but I know she’s well regarded. I’ll have to check out more of her music now that I know she’s a car buff too.
1960s Ramblers and 1990s Alt Country music also crossed paths when Ben Vaughn recorded “Rambler 65” entirely in his 1965 Rambler.
Well, that certainly sounded promising…and sure enough, thanks to YouTube, it is!
Thanks for the recommendation!
When I was growing up, the neighbors three house up had one exactly like the featured car, right down to the color.
While I’ve always considered the Rambler kinda frumpy, the ’63 just had really good looks to a 6 year old me at the time. It still does to my eyes.
I’d still proudly drive one just like this to a Cars and Coffee!
Thanks for the heads up on another good artist .
I learned from the comments too =8-) .
-Nate
The more distance you can put between yourself and commercial country, the better. Like my alt hero Robbie Fulks, I’m bewildered at how it can just keep getting worse, year after year. Last week the top song on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart was AI generated and at this artistic low point, who could tell?
Thanks for this, alt country is my favourite music genre,
I like the Cougar with its eyes open, its just like the old Matchbox Cougars that were always cast with headlights, the Chargers as well.
I have always considered this car to be the height of AMC styling. Didn’t it win Car of the Year that year?