As I venture to the last wedding of summer, and have to pay the exorbitant hotel prices in a resort town, I sure wish I had a car that could double as a tent. This brings to mind the one brand of Station Wagon that came as a ready-made tent.
Nash had long been a proponent of not wasting your money on overnight accommodations. They first introduced the “Bed-in-a-Car” feature 75 years ago. Although I doubt Ralph Nader would approved of letting Suzy here relax on the road while Dad drove their Bathtub Nash here.
The concept really came into its own when it was spread to Nash Station Wagons during the 1950s. It found a perfect home in the all new for 1956 Ramblers.
Now there was sufficient room for a family of four to snuggle up on the side of the highway. Well, Tommy can have the rear cargo area in the wagon.
By 1961, the rechristened Classic Cross Country wagons were among the most popular station wagons in the land. Rambler moved nearly 82,000 of the various trim and seating configurations of the Classic Wagon that year, shaking off new and recent competitors from all American Manufacturers save the luxury three.
All the more remarkable is Rambler sold these many wagons (and rose to #3 in Model Year sales in 1961) with a car that in many ways had not seen much change since 1956. Add in the fact that the American was a clever (if not particularly pretty to quite a few eyes) re-skin of the original 1950 Rambler, the truth of the matter becomes that AMC had cars that were equally moribund as anything Studebaker offered during the same period.
The (fleeting) success of Rambler in the early 1960s seems to be a combination of factors. For one they were decent cars: well assembled, competently engineered. And despite their really awkward styling cues, somehow connected to a more conservative buyer market. I think it is fair to say these were the buyers that Volkswagen Beetles may have appealed to, but were to small or still too associated with Germany for a host of Middle American buyers that still had “The War” on their minds.
The styling of the 1961 models are particularly curious in that respect. I don’t know if I really like the grafting of the 1960s “Headlights parallel with the grille” look on such a 1950s body. Also the more flowing curves that worked well on the slightly pontoon front fenders on the 1956 body don’t work as well as the blunt cliff applied to the 1961 models.
The projectile fenders fitted to the extended wheelbase (forward of the cowl) Ambassadors balance out the stubby look. But the Ambassadors were decidedly more pricey, in actual full sized price (if not size) categories. There were other things that made the Classic such a value, even in comparison to its glitzier big brother. For the size of the engine, the 195.6 Inline 6 was decently powerful, not as powerful as a 225 Slant Six, but with up to 138hp from the 2 barrel version it wasn’t exactly a slouch either. At least as compact inline sixes went, it was no wheezing Falcon Thriftmaster or head gasket exploding Lark Skybolt.
The other benefit of producing this body for so long is that any bugs or problems that are associated with planned obsolescence that most likely sent quite a few normal Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth buyers to Rambler stores. It also made AMC seem like the more stable independent in comparison to Studebaker, whose troublesome Skybolt Inline Six was probably the last straw with all but the Studebaker loyal and avid Mr. Ed fans. But the majority of those buyers found their way back to those Big 3 manufacturers as they introduced more sensible sized sedans and wagons of their own.
Ramber tried with their all new Motor Trend Car of The Year winning 1963 models, but despite modern looks and useful updates on the tried and true formula it was losing traction to the more sensible choices from the big 3, like the Fairlane Squire.
But for a short time before the magic door gate wowed every other suburban house, and Vista Cruisers, well, cruised vistas, the Motel on Wheels Cross Country was the absolute state of the art in wagon technology. A car with a bed. I’d be saving $250 this weekend. Maybe I can interest the owner in a weekend car swap….
Note: a rerun of an older post.
My parents bought one of these new in 1961.It was bronze with multi color interior.Two things I really remember: they covered the seats in that plastic stuff ( super hot and sticky) in summer and freezing cold in winter.Second thing was : making rt turns at slow speeds made engine die.not all the time.The fix ?,was to install clear bowl of some sort to see if fuel as available.I was nine at the time,my father had no mechanical scale.we just accepted it and drove it until they traded in for 1966 Volkswagen camper
Well….maybe my parents weren’t typical buyers, but they had 2 of these in a row (a ’61 and a ’63). My Dad hadn’t met my mother when he bought his previous car, a ’56 Plymouth Plaza stripper, which was a fine car but after he married her, the Plymouth seemed like it didn’t fit his new family the way the Plaza did when he was a bachelor. Mom learned to drive on her Dad’s ’51 Chrysler Windsor with semi automatic, but really she was never comfortable driving anything but a full automatic. Plus…my sister and I came along, so he needed the space for all the baby stuff. He still kept the Plymouth till ’61, when he bought the new Rambler in Compton, Ca near where we lived for a short time back then. Dad changed jobs frequently, and his family was from the East coast, and my sister and I were a bit older (so we might tolerate a long car ride back east) so we all rode in the ’61 to his new job in Pittsburgh (imagine moving from Los Angeles area to Pittsburgh in 1961…everyone there thought my Dad was nuts). I’m not sure why he only kept the ’61 2 years, never thought to ask my Dad but I suspect the car got sandblasted on the way back east, and Dad probably was concerned about rust once he got to Pittsburgh, where he bought the ’63….same green color that all his wagons were until 1973.
Maybe Dad wasn’t typical of the buyers of these, as his first 2nd car was a ’59 Beetle…he first drove Beetles in the early 50’s while he was stationed in Germany in the US Army. Till 1980 his 2nd car was always foreign made inexpensive car (since it was his commuter car and didn’t get much use otherwise). Not sure why he bought Rambler but it probably was a better choice than the Falcon, Corvair, and even Valiant wagons.)
If Dad was concerned about rust, perhaps that’s why Ramblers were tops on his list. One of AMC’s top bragging points was that, at the factory during assembly, their unibodies were ‘deep dipped’ into an anti-corrosion, rust-preventative bath which was one of their primary selling points used to differentiate themselves from the Big 3.
Could be…though he bought the first Rambler in southern California, he lived most of his life to that point in the Northeast. He didn’t keep either Rambler very long enough to know whether they would have lasted longer…the first got traded on the 2nd and the 2nd met its demise in 1965 outside our motel room parking lot off of route 40 in Catonsville, where we were staying after vacating our house moving to Vermont…he was turning left into the parking lot and being a 4 lane road one guy waved him to turn in front of him, but another didn’t and clobbered the Rambler…my Grandmother was staying with us (we never lived closer than 4 hour drive away, this happened to be the closest we ever lived to them) and was picking glass shards out of my Dad’s skin afterwards.
Somehow he found his way up to Vermont without a car (probably flew to Burlington) where he bought a ’65 Olds F85 wagon to replace the Rambler.
Interestingly, we moved yet again to Virginia and back to Vermont (different town though) where one of our neighbors owned the local AMC dealership. But Dad never owned another AMC, though they were good cars for their time. He had several cars rustproofed, but didn’t seem to make much difference, while we were living up north they still rusted quickly. Back then we moved around a lot but even in Virginia lived with a little snow each year.
Been in the sunbelt for almost 45 years now, great not worrying about rust but there’s other things that kill cars…the sun is so strong it can eat paint, and things like plastics (dash) and rubber (weatherstripping) degrade over time…and those are the harder parts to find….cars in wrecking yard here usually have those parts that are bad or worse than the one you want to replace…but wrecking yards up north can still have useable ones fortunately.
As a wagon, not a bad looking ride. The “4dor”, sdn our neighbor had though always looked “homemade”.
Love these cars, as a kid and as an adult.
Ramblers were assembled i NZ they werent rare as far as US cars went in their day it was just a Rambler nobody seemed to complain about having one, my inspection guy had a US import wagon all the fruit V8 car someone went mad with the option list new, it was quite something and a time capsule.
Yeah I like them its that rear styling, new on Hillmans in 59. They new Hillman version lived across the street from this toddler who traffic watched, I saw it every day.