(first posted 10/30/2013. Author’s Note: Going to car shows in many areas brings the same worn out, ear-splitting songs nearly every time. So I’ve re-written a few songs you likely would not hear at any carshow.)
No one looked as I drove by, Just a little nod would have been just fine, I slowed again, just for them, They all scoffed that I ran.– Sort of Stevie Nicks
This terrific old Ambassador was being so thoroughly ignored at the monthly car show here in June. Surrounded by a plethora of F-bodies and jacked-up 4×4’s, it was as out of place as a ukulele player at a flutists convention.
While any Ambassador in water heater white isn’t the most exciting car imaginable, one shouldn’t judge a book by its sour cream colored shell. The Ambassador played such a critical and overlooked role in AMC history. Before anyone gets distracted with that absurdly tall F-150 in the picture below, let’s take a walk around The ‘Bass.
Well, I was born a white ‘Bassador, In a factory in old Kenosha We were poor, but we had love That’s the one thing Dick Teague made sure of He designed cars to make a poor man’s dollar
-Quasi Loretta Lynn
George Romney had stressed quality of materials, solid construction, economy, and the unique features of the Rambler brand. With improvements such as the introduction of dual circuit master cylinders in 1962, American Motors had come a long way in a short time. The work of Romney and American Motors culminated in sales climbing steadily from 1957 to a peak in 1963. Rambler was on a roll while Romney and Company had worked hard for American Motors to become associated with economical, compact cars.
Upon Romney’s departure to run for governor of Michigan in 1962, Roy Abernethy was named as his replacement.
Roy Abernethy had grown up in the car business, starting at Packard and later becoming vice president of sales at Willys. His philosophy was vastly divergent from Romney’s.
Yearning to shed American Motors of its economy car image, Abernethy’s strategy was to have a full-on assault on the Big 3 by meeting them model for model. His thought process, however mistaken, was that correct and effective marketing would make American Motors much more competitive with the Big 3. Never mind that AMC had struggled to produce multiple platforms in the same factory; never mind that his ambitions to have the ’67 model Ambassador and Rebel made over would cost $60 million with a comparable cost in quality loss.
Perhaps Abernathy’s philosophy could be better described as terminally misguided. Having caviar tastes on a SPAM budget will invariably create issues.
AMC hit bottom (that time) in 1967. Fiscal year sales were down nearly 54,000 units; maybe that doesn’t sound like a lot for General Motors, but when your sales total was only 346,000 to begin with, that’s a hit (as a point of reference, Ford sold just a few more Mustang coupes that year). Mixed into that number were sales of the new for 1967 Ambassador.
There was a fair amount of surprise within the market by the Abernethy driven redesign of a platform that was only two years old. He had instructed Dick Teague and company to create a larger Ambassador for 1967. Teague delivered with a very attractive result, but it was to no avail. Even with the 3,745 Ambassador’s sold to the U.S. Postal Service, Ambassador sales were still down nearly 9,000 units from 1966.
The year of 1967 would leave AMC with a loss of $75.8 million, or just under $322 per car. Likely hearing the music playing just before the train wreck, the board at AMC rewarded Abernethy by terminating him early in the 1967 model year. He was replaced by Bill Luneburg, a Ford veteran.
-Somewhat Isaac Hayes
As one of their moves to better their corporate fortunes in 1968, AMC hired the advertising firm of Wells, Rich, Greene, Inc. to create a fresh ad campaign for the model year.
If you are going to reinvigorate your advertising campaign, aim big. Working with its connection to Kelvinator, the 1968 AMC Ambassador earned the distinction of being the first American car to offer air conditioning as standard equipment. While a small number of Ambassador’s may have been built without air conditioning, it was a delete option for those up north or those watching their dollars. AMC had outfoxed the competition, proving their willingness to take a risk.
AMC was also one of the first American car companies to break the old gentleman’s agreement of not making direct comparisons to competitors. Yet anyone who seriously thinks an AMC is competing with a Rolls Royce was simply not acclimated to reality. Perhaps this advertising did pay off as AMC realized a 13% increase in Ambassador sales plus a profit for 1968 – they just did not pay any dividends to their stockholders.
1968 also marked the beginning of what could be considered a hallmark of AMC products forever after – the flush mounted door handles.
– Vaguely Clarence Carter, Clarence Carter, Clarence Carter
For 1968, the Ambassador came in three trim levels with the DPL (what does that stand for?) in the middle and the SST at the top. From what I can tell, the example you have before you is one of the 8,788 four-doors produced in the base trim level. Don’t think that’s bad; with a 343 cid V8 pulling around just under 3,200 pounds, this isn’t the six-cylinder Rambler your grandmother drove.
This little darling was being offered up for sale. While I sometimes fear I could easily become the automotive version of the person who wants to take home every stray puppy, this Ambassador was a true delight to behold. A car this age that has always been garaged and has only rolled up 67,000 miles is always an attention getter, plus you know it has a lot of life left.
An Ambassador like this is the type of car you buy to drive. You are aware that it might get a scratch or a dent, but it simply isn’t fodder for a museum. An AMC like this is a car you can put the kids in and not have convulsions if they spill their ice cream. This is the car you buy, love, use, and fix as needed. Plus, you just keep driving it the entire time.
Isn’t that what it was made for?
Notice the fine quality seat covers. My uncle had talked for years about AMC and their reclining front seats. In 1967, he went and bought an Ambassador because of the reclining front seats (while paying full sticker for the privilege). I remember looking at those seat covers and thinking that they looked worse than the aftermarket seat covers on my dad’s car. I was not alone, I heard other people make the same comment.
On the plus side, this car had WeatherEye and ShiftCommand that mere mortal cars from the Big 3 did NOT have. Cool!
When I was growing up, every once in awhile the kid next door would get a visit from his Grandpa Bob. Grandpa Bob was the kind of grandpa who would sit on the porch and chew tobacco. And the kind of grandpa who would, if asked, give an 8 year old kid a pinch of chewing tobacco then sit and laugh while watching said 8 year old try to spit the taste out of his mouth.
Anyway, Grandpa Bob had a pale turquoise 67 Ambassador sedan, much like this one. This is why these cars always remind me of someone’s blue-collar grandpa.
This car came out several years too early. I have always thought that this car would have done well in 1973-74 and again after 1979. Unfortunately, the only years that it was attractive was from 1967-69 when nobody wanted a luxurious mid-size car. When there was some demand for such an animal, AMC had hopelessly uglified it, and then the pulled the plug on the Ambassador altogether after 1974, right about the time that smaller cars with higher trim levels started to sell. This car could have been AMC’s Valiant if only they had left it alone and gotten the quality back to where it should have been.
I like this car.
Funny that you mention this car as being driven by someone’s “blue-collar grandpa.” My great uncle – my paternal grandfather’s favorite brother – had this car, but with a red interior, bought brand-new in 1968.
When I saw this article, my first thought was, “That’s Uncle Herbert’s car!”.
Uncle Herbert owned several Ramblers and AMCs. The AMC dealer in town was also a prominent member of our church, which may have influenced his choice. This Ambassador replaced a 1963 Rambler Classic, and was replaced by a 1974 AMC Hornet sedan.
“Roy Abernethy had grown up in the car business, starting at Packard and later becoming vice president of sales at Willys. His philosophy was vastly divergent from Romney’s.”
Even if I didn’t know how this story would end, I could’ve guessed failure right from that line.
What kind of car show was this?! All I see are pickups and late model cars, yet off in the distance there are trucks towing empty flatbed trailers, suggesting there were a few cars that their owners thought worth trailering to the show. It almost looks like the Ambassador owner parked in the wrong section.
He parked in the very wrong section. Sometime ago I had a capsule on a ’36 Dodge; it was also at this show. I have a few other worthy cars from here in addition.
The show here is split between good stuff and “what the hell?” stuff.
Roy Abernethy didn’t seem to like Ramblers, and after getting his start at Packard, probably hated hanging with the Big Three executives in their Cadillacs, Lincolns and Imperials. While Romney went to bed at 9:00 pm, Roy knew how a real auto executive should behave. While Romney was pleased with profits and sensible cars full of families puttering to church every Sunday, Roy was probably embarrassed by the Rambler image.
Abernethy knew the shell game played by automakers. You sell the same shell in different colors, but different prices, and pull in the easy money. You get on the radio and television to tell rubes that their lives will be better if they bought on of your shells. Roy believed in marketing, and marketing exists to find ways to convince people to do things they didn’t think about doing your way. If you believe in marketing to solve your problems, you are not being honest with anyone, just hoping your targets never really look under those shells you sold them.
Romney didn’t play that game. He really liked people. He really lived the life of a Mormon Boy Scout. He believed that if you give people extra value, the product you are selling will sell and that business honesty will build your business into a successful one. Romney did believe in Ramblers. He did believe in making a car for every family.
Roy Abernethy didn’t.
I was about to write about the salesman running the company, but you said it much better than I would’ve. A Romney-led AMC focused on well-built Ramblers would have prospered in the seventies.
The Dart and Valiant were the Ramblers of the ’70s.
Romney reportedly supported Abernethy as his successor because he thought the main thing AMC needed was a strong effort to sell the new-generation Ramblers coming out in 1963-64.
A lot of historians really dump on Abernethy, arguing that he almost killed AMC. Yet his successor, Roy Chapin, tends to get a free pass. Why?
Consider the 1969 Ambassador. It’s wheelbase was extended to 122 inches so AMC could brag that it was the longest of any full-sized car. This resulted in similar exterior dimensions to the Nash’s of yore, but the cowl stretch did not translate into greater interior room than a mid-sized Rebel. Yet a full-sized price was charged. Not a terribly compelling value proposition, which helps explain why sales never rose above mediocre.
When Chapin took over in 1967 he plausibly could have changed course — but did not. And again in 1974 Chapin kept the Ambassador in the full-sized field when its platform came up for a redesign.
As JP notes, it’s ironic that AMC was one of the original pioneers of the luxury mid-sized car yet was AWOL when that market really took off in the early-to mid-70s.
Yes, the stretched wheelbase Amby was a joke, harkening back to a time when that kind of long-nose front end was a prestige thing. But on a mid-sized four-door sedan? Doh! That looked so clueless.
“Going to car shows in many areas brings the same worn out, ear-splitting songs nearly every time. So I’ve re-written a few songs you likely would not hear at any carshow…”
I DJ an annual charity car event a couple miles from home…
For over a decade, I’ve TRIED…T-R-I-E-D!!!!!!! to stretch the parameters of acceptable music for a car event/show. I (and the organizer) have even received compliments over our car show’s music mix. In fact, every year I’d go over the music with the organizer, so we both knew what to expect…what I was doing was no surprise to him.
But it seems the majority of the participants want to live in 1963…even the British Invasion is off limits. I can Motown them to death and the more Beach Boys and Jan & Dean, the better…but stay away from The Beatles or Stones and don’t play “Light My Fire”…it’s too long! Oh and those SCREAMING guitars!
This year I gave up the fight and remembering the show is a fundraiser for our local park, took on an attitude of ministry and service. Most fun show I’d had in years…but even though people compliment our music and how “it doesn’t sound the same as other shows”, it’s really, mostly, the same car show music played everywhere.
Maybe it’s the radio-style audio processing I use to give a more pleasant, less shrill experience.
Whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t kill the hobby…personally, I’d love to see an old car event where they play Linkin Park…Avril Lavigne…or for something REALLY out of left field, mix in some current Country!
Hmmn, must be a regional thing. Out where I live, car show music is classic rock, lots of Southern Rock, and any county that sounds like its been produced in the same studio as ‘Skinard. Plus the usual ’50’s – hell, just run the “American Graffiti” soundtrack.
Beach Boys? Jan and Dean? I don’t think most of the attendees ever head of California rock and pop. I don’t think most of the attendees cotton to California, period.
Funny, but country seems to be much closer to mainstream then it used to be, and you’d think it would sell to a car crowd. We are Midwest city dwellers, and my high school and younger kids are heavy into country.
Sometimes the beer, booze, babes, booty, trucks, tits and tractors are a bit much, but there are some very good songs in the mix. My wife and I went to a Darius Rucker concert and really enjoyed it. She took my daughters to Keith Urban / Little Big Town a week or so ago and they had a great time.
Going to car shows in many areas brings the same worn out, ear-splitting songs nearly every time.
Explains why I don’t go to car shows, and started shooting cars that I found curbside. I’d rather go hiking on the weekends in the quiet woods 🙂
I agree fully with that sentiment; I’ve often pondered the wisdom of attending for a variety of reasons.
I go to gatherings occasionally, for about 10 minutes. Then I realize, I’d rather be driving, and I’m gone.
+3 I concur with the above three statements. : )
I’m kinda with you and kinda not on the music. Some stuff like Motown is definitely overplayed at cruise nights. Beach Boys is not, although I am a Beach Boys fan so I wouldn’t complain if they got more airtime. Same with the British groups.
Some music from Big Sugar and the Tragically Hip would fit the atmosphere IMO. I think one could even slip a bit of grunge into the mix. You start playing stuff like Avril Lavigne and country though and, if I was attending, there would soon be one less car at the cruise night.
You start playing stuff like Avril Lavigne and country though and, if I was attending, there would soon be one less car at the cruise night.
Make that two.
I would much rather not have music. It’s not just that I’m bored silly with classic rock (although I am) — car shows are noisy enough with jillions of people milling around. The only strong argument I could make for having an “official” soundtrack is to discourage competing portable stereos so you don’t also end up with warring classic rock and norteño.
DPL was the abbreviation used on Diplomatic license plates. Not sure of what states, but I think it may have been New York and Maryland, and I’d seen pictures of those plates both around the UN and various embassies in DC. As to AMC’s use of the abbreviation, it’s about what was left for their brougham attempt after Ford got LTD, and Plymouth claimed VIP. The penalty of doing your version last.
As to the standard (delete option) air conditioning: Back when he was in the car business, the group my father hated to sell to most of all were school teachers. Back in the pre-union days, teaching was an incredibly honored but poor-paying profession. And their reputation was to be parsimonious as all get out. And, as a group, they were known for long negotiations to grind down the price of a car by a couple of bucks. I could always tell when dad came home from a “teacher day”.
A couple years after dad left the business, I had a prof at my one summer in the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown who had a ’68 Ambassador. With the air conditioning deleted. And an under dash aftermarket unit installed. At the time, I got curious as to why somebody would go to all that work, dropped by the local AMC dealer to look at a few window stickers, then researched the ads of a couple of local firms who installed air conditioners.
This deletion meant the dash vents were gone, which meant a slightly different dash (they didn’t do the Chevy Astro Ventilation bit where you got a couple of A/C like vents even if you didn’t get air conditioning), and, of course, all the under-hood stuff was gone.
The savings was . . . . . . . . . believe it or not . . . . . . . . $12.00 and maybe a few cents change. Thus making me a firm believer in my father’s attitude towards school teachers.
Potentially penny wise and pound foolish on several levels. My dad bought a used ’68 Impala in ’69 and added aftermarket air from Montgomery Ward. It worked but wasn’t the greatest. The under dash unit hogged center floor space (which as a family of five with the usual assortment of friends we occasionally needed).
It also sat low, and was a bit hard to send air to the back, and had to get around the center front’s head somehow. Factory air seemed to be a bit of a prestige item at the time, you lost that effect, and probably some resale value in the process.
I believe that the typical factory air car was usually equipped with a heavier duty alternator and cooling system, so aftermarket air was a bit of a compromise.
A teacher probably made $3 to $4 dollars an hour in 1968. A professor probably made a fair deal more. For the price of a nice dinner out for two, he could have had factory air.
Finally, if the prof really wanted to save money, he should have moved down market to a mid size car such as a low trim Fairlane or Chevelle. He could have had similar interior space, factory air, and been out the door at a lower final price.
Funny how many professionals, not just teachers, think they are experts outside their field!
If the car had AMC’s WeatherEye, there would have been no problems 🙂
I was told DPL stands for “deluxe product line”
I think Syke was right about DPL. SST in the late sixties meant supersonic transport, like the Concorde. A hilarious thing to call an AMC Ambassador.
An Ambassador of this era was my wife’s first car. She knew it was a white AMC Ambassador, but she’s had trouble recalling if it was a ’65-’66 car, or ’67-’69 car.
Her dad bought it new, and eventually it was behind an uncle’s barn until it was resurrected in the early ’80s so my wife could drive it in high school.
I always thought the ’65-’66 car was sharp in a “Sensible Spectacular” way. But the ’67-’69 car just seems a bit dowdy. An acceptable blend of ’60s styling themes that had been done by Pontiac, Ford, Mercury, Plymouth and Cadillac for several years. But, just not as nice as any of them, and kind of late in the game with the majors pumping out a lot of big updates in their mid size and full size lines ’68, ’69, and ’70. .
Wow! Someone who can understand and decipher Stevie Nick’s vocals and lyrics?!?
http://www.songlyrics.com
I needed it as all I could remember of Clarence Carter was not exactly meshing with what I was trying to accomplish here….
much as i love that song , i had no idea those were the words.
They aren’t; I rewrote them.
The 1967-8 American Motors Ambassador 880, 990 or Diplomat Cross Country wagons were the best family cars of the sixties. The v-8 engines had plenty enough power for the loaded weight of the car and for the freeways of the era. My Dad bought the 990 wagon in deep dark blue, with handsome woodgrain exterior panels and a classy interior trim. The separate wide and comfortable semi-bucket front seats were among the first to fully recline. Dad let me use it for high school dating before I bought my own car. It was stylish from the outside and inside, it was quiet and comfortable, and oh those seats that reclined with the flip of a lever and a little lean-back push on the unsuspecting girl… oh the mammories! And for those of even more questionable character, it was a one minute job to disconnect the speedo and odo cable under the dash, and just as fast to connect back at the end of the evening, so next morning the odometer showed my hundred mile ride to hell and gone as a short five mile trip to the movie. If I could find and buy one today in great condition, I would long to install a few safety upgrades and make it my daily driver: highway cruiser, package mover, and long-distance vacation vehicle. But going deep into the past has a price, since many of the cars from the last 15 years are head and shoulders above the 60s in quality, comfort, safety, reliability, and long term service especially in engine and drivetrain.
The interior shot gives me a flashback to my grandfather’s Ambassador which was metallic green, and slightly grimy due to living on the street in Brooklyn. I don’t remember much since it was downsized to a Hornet by 72-73 although I do remember the “Weather Eye” on the HVAC controls and the dash vents. Interestingly, by 1970, his brother in law had bought a stripper Mercedes 250 (1968) and my father had a used Mercedes 250S(1966) which replaced our 1964 Valiant as we gradually shifted to imports.
The old Valiant was also a standout for having factory AC, as did most of the family cars going forward. The exceptions were the 4 cylinder second cars, which didn’t get AC until the 80s and automatics until the 90s.
Nice car,but so were the opposition,that front end looks very Moparish.Quite a few Ambassadors were sold in RHD in the UK in the 60s,they were one of the few car manufacturers to make RHD models for the UK.A couple of years before Ford made a big deal of the Galaxy being quieter than a Rolls Royce in their advert.
Would AMC have survived if they hadn’t slugged it out with the big boys?Hard to say,in hindsight it was a wrong decision which signed their own death warrant but at the time seemed a good idea.Some great cars came about because of it,the AMX,Javelin & Rebel Machine being AMC’s finest hour
> Nice car,but so were the opposition,that front end looks very Moparish.
Funny, I would’ve said it looks like a Plymouth Satellite with the front clip of a Ford Galaxie.
My mistake,I knew there was a Mopar in it somewhere,those stacked headlights reminded me of the Plymouth Fury I used to get a lift in
It’s the eternal dilemma for a small marque: You don’t have the resources to go head to head with the big players, but if you find a profitable niche, the big players may smell money and end up shutting you out of it. That’s why a lot of successful smaller automakers are luxury or sports car manufacturers, which are segments in which you can get away with charging enough to be profitable on volumes that the major automakers generally consider too small to be worthwhile.
Carving out a sustainable niche in a mainstream, value-oriented segment is tough for smaller manufacturers and ends up being as dependent on your competitors being shortsighted or clueless as on anything you actually do. (For instance, I think a major reason Chrysler remained the dominant player in the U.S. minivan/MPV market for so long was that pretty much all their competitors spent a decade trying to pass off cargo vans and tall station wagons as minivans rather than simply following the Chrysler formula.)
Mate o mine has a 67 SST its mint but was RHD converted new next time I visit I will get some good shots for you guys.
As a pre-teen in the early 70s, I remember seeing numerous AMC models at the time.
I don’t know if it was me, but I found so many looked either stodgy or frumpy.
I was a young boy, but whether it was the Hornets, Matadors or Gremlins… I found they looked ‘different’ in a misfit way. Perhaps it was because they were fairly rare compared to Big Three models, and had odd styling quirks. The Canadian military base where I grew up had all black Hornets as their Military Police cars, and they definitely looked odd to me in that role. I was 8 years old, and I knew they were trying to save money with these cars. Haha I never saw Javelins or Ambassadors. The first AMC product that I can remember looking very clean and modern were the Sportabout station wagons.
The Pacers seemed quirky too, even when new.
AMCs just looked diiferent, but NOT modern to my very young eyes.
The Military Police Hornets looked exactly like these.
Except, they were all black. But with very similar light bars.
I wouldn’t be shocked if they had 6 cylinder engines.
AMC’s – weren’t they nicknamed “Kenosha Cadillacs?”
Romney’s approach wasn’t too different than Bob McNamara’s at Ford – stressed no-nonsense cars that were unpretentious.
When I was in high school, in the later part of the sixties AMC cars were not cool. It was like they didn’t exist. They did not project the right image for a teenager. None of my friends owned a car we had to depend on our parents allowing us to use the family car on Friday nights. One of us would get lucky and secure a car but we hated it when the only person to get a car was my friend Steve. You see Steve’s mom had a ’63 Rambler American. What is that saying “you can sell a young man’s car to an old man but you can’t sell an old man’s car to a young man”.
Actually, the punch line is that you can’t sell an old man’s car to anyone.
What a nice example of a mainstream model, and at a car show even.
This one looks to be in nice, though unrestored shape, good enough to keep nice, and just drive it as a daily driver.
As to the car show music, I’m with you there, if they insist on only Jan and Dean, the Rip Chords, and the Beach Boys or Mowtown or the like, white nice, it gets old, rather quickly IMO.
So to keep it fresh, I’d expand beyond the car/surf music of the early 60’s and add stuff from the British Invasion era, and post British era with Psychodelia, summer of love, on into Disco and the 70’s, at the very least which would include Southern Rock, California Rock (Mamas and the Papas, Spanky and our Gang, the Doobie Brother, early Fleetwood Mac to name a few). You get the idea.
I’d also add in there the Sir Douglas Quintet doing She’s About a Mover, ? and the Mysterians’ 96 Tears and such as well.
How about no music at all? There’s no way to make everyone happy, so why annoy some?
The guy that organizes both of the local cruise nights that are most convenient for me to attend is also the DJ. He puts in a lot of effort, mostly all by himself, and I wouldn’t want to discourage him.
+1 on no music at all. Maybe hand out headphones to those who must have doo-wop with their cars?
Same deal at the Hamilton Airshow. I went a couple of years ago and the PA played all sorts of cheesy music and talking, talking, talking.
Our family paid >$100 to get in and hear Merlin V-12’s, not cheese and blather.
Two words: Live band
Less repetition, more variety, way more crowd appreciation(even if they don’t care for the music, a concert always generates excitement) and best of all there’s breaks between sets. Plus musicians play music, which pretty much means no chance of pop, rap, or techno irritating anyone 🙂
It’s hip to be square.
Is it just me, or did the wipers on AMC’s bigger cars seem rather small for the windshield?
The reason grandpa raved about the seats in his Ambassador is that American Motors and Cadillac were the only two American automakers still using coil springs in their seats. The upholstery and door panels in the white Ambassador pictured here are obviously the bottom-of-the-barrel police/taxi/government fleet model level. For a peek at some of the most luxurious interiors available at the time, often the best in class, you need to find some old American Motors sales brochures. AMC offered some of the most beautifully appointed cars on the road, but “offered” and “sold” are two different things. The Ambassador was the first American car to offer air conditioning as standard equipment, and that was the first item many customers deleted. AMC’s traditionally frugal customers were prone to skipping right over the “extra-cost-options” portion of the order form and going straight to the “delete-option” section to save a few bucks. Many of the dealers were equally stingy when ordering stock for the showroom. Anybody could order a 1967 Rebel SST or Marlin with a 343 V8, with four-on-the-floor or console-mounted automatic, and bucket seats, but almost nobody did. Most of them were equipped with the bulletproof, but unexciting, six with 3-on-the-tree or column mounted automatic. Finding a “nicely equipped” Rebel, Marlin or Ambassador is nearly impossible today, but that’s no surprise because it was nearly impossible when they were being built. People who aren’t AMC fans are always incredulous when they stumble on one and see what was available. Oh, by the way, “DPL” stood for “Diplomat”. At various times throughout its history Nash/Rambler/AMC also used the “Statesman” and “Premier” names, keeping with same theme as “Ambassador.”
Hey, just wanted to say that I liked your article,
I drive an Apollo yellow 67 AMC Ambassador with a 343 as a weekend and trip car. It’s still a wonderful ride!
I have a really nice 68 SST 4 door, white with black vinyl top… it too is largely ignored and semi-invisible! I still love her tho
Your ’68 Ambassador is beautiful. It looks like a high end model for sure, and I like the color combination. Tasteful. My dad gave me his ’67 Ambassador four door sedan in ’69 while I was going to college. It was blue with the black vinyl top and the blue brocade interior and had the 343 V8. I liked it a lot, but, in ’71, after graduating, traded it in on a new VW Bug. Like so many cars I have owned over the years, I wish I still had the ’67 Ambassador tucked away somewhere to get out occasionally.
I had a ’67 like that with the 304 V8 and 3 speed stick with overdrive… Boy would that car really go… was a 4 door and had vacuum wipers too… never missed a beat. Had three of the 1967 right hand drive Post Office Ambassadors too… one of which I purchased direct from the GSA when the Post Office was selling them off in 1972, with only 2,700 miles on it!! Had a 232 6 with Borg Warner automatic, with heater. Had radio delete, and electric wipers on it. Drove that one for several years, until it broke the shift cable and I could not find another one.
Maybe a 290? The 304 didn’t arrive until 1970.
I can’t quite pin it down, but the grille on this Ambassador looks to have drawn influence from Pontiac, in the crossbar across the grille, but without the middle divider. Cross brand design influence was pretty commonplace, I guess more than we realized at the time, but this Ambassador did a nice job of being a pretty car.
I love it when I see cars from a bygone era still displaying their dealer sticker. I wonder how a car this age has only been driven 67,000 miles. It’s either going to be a fantastic bargain, or a restoration in waiting.
As for music at car shows, the demographic (ie. baby boomers) who make up the majority of attendees at these, has a preference for music types, not including sock hop crap from the 50s. I’m for playing a variety as you may find on classic rock and current easy listening music stations today, if they must play anything. Or, just nothing at all. As an aside, I hate going to certain brick and mortar stores where I’m trying to figure out what I need (I’m looking at you Home Depot), and they are pumping whatever music that I hate over the speakers, loudly enough to be very distracting. I have found myself walking out without what I came for, out of frustration.
Besides the white El Camino in the background, there is nothing else in the photos that even interest me. I love AMC/Ramblers, and this one is a gorgeous example of an everyday life automobile. It certainly would have got my attention had I been there.
The Ambassador used to be a real step up from Rambler. However, Romney decided that when he axed the Nash and the Hudson, it was just a temporary thing to launch a stronger and more focused AMC. So he permitted a Rambler Rebel to get a stretched hood and keep the Nash Ambassador name. That was a dishonest thing to do for a Mormon Boy Scout like Romney. Yet he kept doing it every year until he left.
AMC never followed up with returning the Ambassador to its real identity. It kept on stretching the hood and offering extra gimmicks. Anyone in the market in 1966 knew this about the Ambassador – the fake luxury car that was really just a Rambler. What Abernathy needed to do was launch a real larger car or shuffle the models so that the Ambassador had a dedicated body. Instead he kept up the gimmick Romney started.
So, the chink in the armor of the Mormon Boy Scout became a larger flaw for the company as AMC tried to legitimize the Ambassador using Rambler parts. Sales didn’t expand even after AMC sunk tens of millions into the Ambassador.
It wasn’t just because Americans knew what a Rambler was – it was also because Americans knew what an Ambassador was. It wasn’t a Galaxie 500 LTD, or a Chevy Caprice. It wasn’t a Plymouth Fury III VIP or a Chrysler New Yorker. It was a Rambler, dammit. No extra letters at the end of the Ambassador name changed that.
What AMC needed to do is focus on what it did best – build great compact cars. They needed a real upgrade for the American and the Classic – not turn them into something they weren’t. Romney might have had a weak moment keeping the Ambassador around after 1957, but I don’t believe he would have sunk $70 million into an Ambassador. He would have sunk that in a new compact and intermediate.
Abernathy was no Iacocca, but then AMC was not Ford. AMC didn’t have a full size Galaxie to turn into an LTD or a Mercury Monterrey. Iacocca could find new profits in an LTD because he already had a legit big car. Abernathy didn’t and he ended up losing AMC millions because Abernathy thought he could turn a Rambler into an Oldsmobile without actually making an Oldsmobile.
This is a good car. Sad to see it hawked as something it wasn’t.
I agree. Most folks went with the Big Three however, and you’re right – a Rambler is a Rambler is a Rambler. Had they stuck to their knitting and stayed with compacts and the like, they might have done better.
The initial motivation to field an Ambassador for 1958 was a simple one: to offer a somewhat larger car that loyal long-term Nash and Hudson customers could be enticed into, keep them in the fold. Of course, it was produced the same way Nash had created the Ambassador for years, as an extended front end and eight cylinder version of their bread-‘n-butter sixes. It was intended as plus business, an adjunct to the volume Rambler. Given their still precarious financial condition in 1956-’57, that was all that was possible.
Did it have a future in the 1958-’61 configuration? No, That method of creating an upscale car had become passe, but Abernethy reach for the only approach he was familiar with for his 1965 version. It didn’t find the great acceptance hoped for, but given the tepid Rambler Classic, Rebel and AMC Matador volumes in subsequent years, the Abernethy/Chapin Ambassador returned plus business that was badly needed.
Part of the problem was that the post-1964 Ambassadors appeared to be stealing sales from one model – the Classic/Rebel/Matador. I’m therefore not so sure that the sales earned by the Ambassador represented “plus business” to AMC.
Sales of what should have been AMC’s bread-and-butter cars were on a downward trajectory during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Quite true, the Ambassador may well have diverted sales from Classic/Rebel/Matador. Those three had lost much of the value family economy car credibility that was the underpinnings of the earlier Classic success. Whether Ambassador diverted or not, it still kept the sales within AMC. Its volumes may well have been as strong as they were in the late 1960’s as prior Classic buyers now found themselves in better financial circumstances, readily willing and able to enjoy a little more ‘luxury’ from the car company they still preferred.
An example of this was seen in my school years, where the guidance counselor and his junior high school teacher wife progressed from six cylinder Classics to a 1969 Ambassador very unlike their earlier modest Ramblers. It was more his choice, she referred to the long dark blue Ambassador as “the gold-plated monstrosity!”
I agree with you about the music at the car shows. It’s the same homogenized crapola you hear on the so-called “classic rock” stations. A never ending loop of Kansas, Pink Floyd, and Bob Seger.
Now about this car–I have a soft spot for these early Ambassadors. I saw one very similar to the subject car in Huntington Beach, California back in 2010, during an ill-conceived month long stay there. (Too expensive for working class people.) They are attractive and unique in their somewhat unattractiveness. The 343 and 401 V8’s were pretty solid. I did not know they offered A/C as standard. That would have been really something in that era, when it seemed that feature was an option on almost every American car, save for Cadillac and Lincoln.
Yes, as posted above ‘DPL’ is abbreviation of Diplomat. AMC shortened it to ‘D/L’ later, but was more mid level trim.
And, D/L was even used by successor Eagle for the base Talon coupe, 🙂