I can think of no car that filled so many holes in a manufacturer's lineup than the Rambler, and did so with such surprising longevity and success. It's an amazing story of living, dying and coming back from the dead that earned this automobile a revered standing in the annals of American car history.
The Rambler was introduced by Nash Motors in the early spring of 1950. It was the brainchild of Nash's president George Mason and became post-war America's first domestic compact. Mason knew there was a segment of the population that would respond to an economical automobile and Nash could make money with it in that segment.
Sitting on a 100-inch wheelbase, the Rambler mimicked the larger Nash senior cars in styling and refinement; most notably the skirted front and rear wheel wells. An odd look today, this design trend captured all the newness a war-weary nation dreamed. First offered only as a 2-door "convertible landau," it featured fixed roof rails and a retractable canvas top. 2-Door coupes, sedans and station wagons all soon followed.
The cars sold well, no doubt the starting price of $1,700 helped.
But the 1950s saw great turmoil in the domestic industry, and independents, such as Nash and Studebaker, were fearful of their future. With limited resources and the huge expense of designing new competitive cars, could they survive against the Big 3?
Driven by those odds, Nash Motors merged with Hudson in 1954 forming American Motors. It was an awkward arrangement, as the aging Hudson line duplicated the Nash line. The Hudson Jet, a competitor to the Rambler, had never sold well.
So the new company co-branded the trusty Nash Rambler with the Hudson logo, and the Hudson dealers would now have a successful compact to sell.
In 1955, the Rambler had a modest face lift and opened up the front wheel wells. An egg-crate grill also refreshed the appearance.
But by the end of 1955, sales of the Rambler had begun to decline. The design was over 5 years old, and newer cars from GM, Ford, and Chrysler made the innocent Rambler look dowdy and out of style. Big cars with heavy chrome were where it was at, and the economical Rambler was lost in the shuffle.
Sadly, the little car was discontinued. Many would miss it.
And our story would end as well, if a nasty economic recession hadn't come about. By 1958, the country's boom times began to vanish. Suddenly the march to "lower, wider and longer" cars fell on deaf ears, and the American public stopped buying it. Ford's Edsel arrived at
precisely the wrong time and was dead on arrival. Other large makes floundered.
But George Romney, now president of American Motors, made a surprise addition to the company's '58 line up and reintroduced the lowly Rambler as the "new"
Rambler American.
Reviving an obsolete design was unheard of in those days (and still is), but it made sense. Neither time nor money allowed for an all-new design.
AMC still had the original Nash tooling, and it had long since been paid for. This allowed the firm to field its import-fighter quickly and cheaply, which promised handsome profits even with low list prices.
And the size slotted in perfectly: a bit bigger than the top-selling foreigners, smaller and thriftier than anything offered by the Big Three. Its low price and good mileage made it a hit, again.
And for another 3 years, The Rambler American continued to sell well. But by 1961 even the management at American Motors realized their mini-gem needed a major overhaul.
But monies were still tight, so a clever restyling, under
AMC's styling Vice President Edmund E. Anderson in 1961, kept the aging design reasonably fresh, despite retaining the ancient underpinnings from the original Rambler. The 195.6
cid cast iron six was still standard.
Anderson's restyle resulted in a car that was shorter in its exterior dimensions with an overall length of 173.1 inches, but increased in its cargo capacity. Continuing to ride on the 100-inch wheelbase, the
American's new styling was more square (sometimes described as "breadbox") instead of round (or "bathtub"), and the visual connection with the original 1950 Nash model had finally disappeared.
The 1961 model sold well. So well, that a 2-door coupe with the look of a convertible was introduced 2 years later. But in the fast-paced world of automobile stying in the '60s, cars were completely redesigned every two or three years. It was decided that a completely new Rambler American would debut in 1964.
But this concludes a fascinating account of a car that,
essentially unchanged except for cosmetic makeovers, was on the showroom floor for over 13 years!
