(first posted 6/7/2013) It’s morning on a bright summer day in Iowa City in 1962. I may have fallen asleep with a Corvette brochure, but now they’re lost somewhere in the folds of my sheets. The fantasy is over, and its time to face a reality of rampant Rambler Classic wagons with wheezing sixes piloted by boozy but anything but sexy Moms. Instead of rolling in a ‘Vette to a fancy night club where a jazz band is playing, we’re off to Lake Macbride, and if we’re lucky, a stop at the Purple Cow drive-in for milkshakes or floats afterward. The distinctive pattern of Rambler upholstery seared into the backs of my thighs and the stain of artificial strawberry on my trunks will be the tell-tale of having crowded in with half a dozen other hot and sticky kids in the back seat. Why did I have to wake up and find you at the curb, Rambler Classic Wagon? I was so enjoying my fantasy memories.
These Rambler wagons were everywhere at the time, the choice of the younger families that were so busy birthing and brooding baby boomers. This picture, which includes a house that is much more Iowa then Oregon, takes me back to riding in my friend Chris’ identical family Classic wagon, wishing it was a Pontiac Bonneville Safari like the family across the street had.
Lets face it, Ramblers were about on the same pecking order of a passionate nine-year old piston head in 1962 as a ten year old Kia does today. These cars were the Kias of their time: the most frugal and pragmatic transportation in the land, if you needed more room than a VW. Eugene’s Kia dealer once was the Rambler dealer, and a Daewoo dealer in between. Rambler wisely turned away from trying to compete with the Big Three after a couple of disastrous years in 1954-1956, and identified a niche for frugal Midwesterners, no matter what part of the country they lived in.
And it worked like a charm, as plenty of folks were sick of the over-sized chrome-winged flash the big guys were serving up in the late fifties. In 1960, Rambler set new records for an independent, and in 1961, a recession year, Rambler was Number Three in the land! A truly remarkable accomplishment; kind of like Hyundai’s momentum a few years ago, but shooting all the way to third.
Of course it wouldn’t last. The Big Three threw their barrage of compacts and mid-sized cars at Rambler, the Studebaker Lark, and the imports, and it hit hard. Rambler’s heyday was brief and inglorious, inasmuch as the cars were rather dreadful bores, and unevenly styled (that’s being charitable), like the boxy 1961 American and this somewhat but only slightly better Classic. The Ambassador? That was truly a joke, trying to compete with the stylish and toned-down new ’61s from GM, especially the Pontiacs.
Obviously, a nine-year old isn’t thinking about the practical virtues of a Rambler. This Classic Cross Country was the Volvo 245 of its times, with a healthy sprinkle of chromium-laced fairy dust in two tones. It had practical big 15″ wheels when everyone was doing 14 and 13 inch mini-donuts. And AMC actually dropped the V8 option in the Classic line, which probably had everything to do with the fact that the ’62 Ambassador lost its larger platform and was now just a tarted-up Classic. That made all Classics dogs, because that six was a pretty modest affair.
The 195.6 cubic inch 127 (gross) hp engine had its origins in 1941, and was updated with an OHV head along the way. But it was an old school chuffer, with a tiny 3.13″ bore and a massive 4.25″ stroke. Plenty of low-end torque to haul the kids around with, but I remember seeing these struggling up in the Rocky Mountains, with the camping gear lashed to the standard luggage rack over that weird lowered rear roof section and three kids in the back. And was an aluminum-block version for a couple of years, in that brief US fad that resulted in lots of warped heads and the scratching heads of unhappy owners. Cast iron was here to stay, for another forty years or so.
Rambler’s accent on frugality extended to its famous reclining seats, which meant one didn’t really have to take a motel room. Although where everyone changed into their pajamas wasn’t fully explained. With the younger demographic, pajamas were not usually a part of taking advantage of the seats anyway. Mom, can I borrow your Rambler Friday night? Sure, but why don’t want to you take Dad’s Pontiac?
This 1961 Rambler was one year away from the end of the line for the 108″ wheelbase body, having first seen the light of day in 1956. Of course, it was a unibody, a fairly light one at that; even this wagon barely topped 3,000 lbs. The next year, the Classic got the handsome new body that we (mostly) praised here. It was long overdue; eight years was an eternity back then, and it was all-too obvious to me at the time that this ’61 was already a rolling antique. Enough Rambler ragging; I’m not nine anymore, but childhood impressions are hard to totally purge. And I’d be happy to drive this one out to the lake, and stop for a milkshake one the way home; just not with a half-dozen kids in the back, please.
I actually would find lots of fun driving this one around. Especially here in Honolulu, although the “H-1 parking lot” can be just that at (many) times, the low-end torque of the six means I’d just leave it in second gear and heave-ho the clutch in and out during crawling traffic. A surf rack bolted onto the existing one would be mondo handy, for boards, fishing poles and kayak. Funny thing is, the 108″ wheelbase would seem “large” these days . . . and Honolulu is known for a lot of very tight parking spaces. Never mind that there are LOTS of full sized pickups everywhere.
In the day, Motor Supply on Kapiolani Blvd. was the Rambler/AMC dealer. I distinctly remember paying them a visit once in 1982 when I was seriously considering getting a Jeep J-10 pickup truck. 4×4 – well equipped too with the 258 straight six and a then MSRP of about $8200.00 with options out the door (- 4.25% state tax, license and registration – which back then wasn’t all that much).
I love these cars because I was raised around so many of them. My father had two, our neighbor had two, my aunt and uncle had one and one of the things as common in my neighborhood besides having a little girl in the family named Cathy, Cindy, Susie or Debbie was having a Rambler wagon.
Ramblers weren’t modern. They weren’t sexy. They were as basic and honest transportation of that era as a Beetle. They were slow and the technology wasn’t as good as found in a 1955 Ford.
It was a good enough car to sit in factory parking lots. They were good enough as a second car that needed a third bench seat. Dorky and adorable.
Great piece. Fortunately, my parents were much too young, cool and hip to settle for a stodgy old Rambler, and picked up an Olds F-85 wagon that year. The picture is not ours, but put on a white roof and it could have been. Not just AMC was enamored of aluminum engines in those days.
As a kid I really liked the taillights shaped like red-hot irons. The rear actually now reminds me just a bit of the 60 Mercury wagon – with vertical instead of canted taillights. Also, looking at the front eyebrow area, it looks like the AMC designers thought about doing a 61 Plymouth-style Mothra face, but chickened out. And is that not the most complicated horn ring ever?
It must be my age, but every time I see one of those late 90s Volvo crossover wagons with the big “CROSS COUNTRY” lettering across the tailgate, I see one of these cars in my mind’s eye.
Oops – forgot my picture.
Motor Supply Company, Kapiolani Boulevard, Honolulu. it is, to this day, still selling tires, although the car business went ‘pau’ (over, done), in the latter part of the 90s (it was Cutter Pontiac/GMC/Chevrolet for awhile . . . )
This is around 1963 . . . .
Motor Supply Company in 1955 took over Hudson sales . . . . maybe the Wasp in the showroom has the “Jet” 212 Twin-H six??
Kapiloani Blvd., Honolulu.
The picture would certainly help . . . . . ’55 Hudson Wasp. Territorial car dealer !!
How about a promotional picture . . . . Fall of ’57 at Ala Moana Park . . . for the ’58 Edsel.
Ahh Diamond Head, how I long to eat Anahola Granola on top of you..
Nice lack of high rise hotels in that photo too. Unfortunately Edsel does not add to the ambiance there.
Err, back to the Rambler. I really like these, in a crazy 50’s 60’s styling mashup sort of way. Of course I wasn’t born when these came out, but I can imagine that they weren’t nearly as interesting when they were supposed to be contemporary.
What Edsel? I didn’t see any Edsel.
As a car mad tomboy in 60s Britain I saw many Ramblers,they were probably the most popular American car due to their relatively small size(compared to other Yanks) and restrained styling.Nearly all the Ramblers I saw were RHD.I thought they looked a bit staid compared to my parents’ Zephyr,Falcons,Dart and Valiant.
Ramblers seemed real popular in Marin back in the 60’s . . . . sort of like a Honda Civic or Accord would be today. Lots of these as ‘second cars’ to some of the affulent. I remember seeing lots of Cross-Country Classic and Ambassador wagons of the early ’60’s variety plying the streets of the North (S.F.) Bay Area. . . . .
Paul was 9 in ’61, and I was 13. Ramblers were total dorkdom and would have meant banishment from the seventh grade social clique I ran with. In ’62 my dad bought a Mercedes. OK, it was only a 190, but it did have a custom leather interior. And it drove like no American car of that era, especially anything from AMC. Ramblers were primitive with outdated styling.
My Dad bought a hearing aid beige Austin Allegro,I think that ups the game in the dorkdom league.To think he gives me flak for liking Mk4 Zephyrs/Zodiacs,Edsels and 70 Coronet/Superbees!
Interesting you say that. I always thought the Rambler of that generation looked positively futuristic, compared to the Ford or some GM offerings. And Chrysler…nobody’d be caught DEAD in a Warthog.
There were a lot of things wrong with a Rambler, but styling…was awkward, in some ways, but not bad. It adopted the low grill with headlights planted, early.
Dad’s Valiant was an Australian RHD, those early American Valiants and most Mopars from 61 were strange looking beasties,especially with the toilet seat
I recall as a kid going to Sunday mass at St. Raphael’s, one parishoner had a red ’61 Ambassador station wagon . . . . same color scheme as the classic here, but on the longer 117″ wheelbase and the “pointy” front end. Different, to be sure. Only ’61 Ambassador I ever recall seeing in the flesh in the day these would’ve been late model used cars.
Nice article, it reminded me of many rides in the cargo area of my friend’s 61 Rambler Classic wagon. His parents always drove the Rambler and not their 60 Impala wagon that I thought was a higher level of cool. They had the Rambler long after they sold the Impala.
The only thing I noticed about Ramblers as a kid was that most of them had crappy upholstery very early in life, which made me think of them as a cheap car.
I can attest. Ours had the reclining right-front bucket with the air-bladder pump-up-the-bottom setup. The upholstery on the seat bottom ripped open in less than two years.
I’ve NEVER seen a car seat wear out so quickly. Carpeting inside, likewise. It was tassels and wads inside of four years.
We had two of this era in our family. A great-uncle had a 1961 sedan, a Classic. Because of his counsel, my father bought a 1962 Classic Cross Country wagon.
The only difference was that the tombstone taillights were replaced with round pies, with quarter-slices out for backup lighting. And…the 1962 had turn signals under the headlights and a relief grille that came out in a shape reminiscent of the smaller American.
“The Miracle Car,” the 1962 was billed. In the end, six years later, it was a miracle if it started.
This was a car where it was easier to list what did NOT go wrong. Aluminum six? Replaced. Borg-Warner automatic? Would balk when cold. Would back up, and then start the first time, forward…think, out the drive, OK. In D to pull forward, OK.
At the light on the main street…get off the brake, step on the gas, and Borg Warner would say, Who, Me? It would take a minute of crunching through the buttons, to get it to respond.
This, almost like clockwork.
Driver’s door jammed open…when BRAND NEW. Older, the right fender rusted almost completely off. Thing was five years old at the time.
Wipers; ball on the Torque-Tube driveline…all failed. Gawd, what a piece of work…my old man came to hate AMC and all its subsidiaries with an irrational hatred bordering on madness.
He later settled into Chryslers…bought two Horizon-types and then the first minivan, his last car. He’d bought it the same month Chrysler announced they were buying AMC…but by then he didn’t really care. He knew he’d bought his last car.
IN FAIRNESS…it did have some redeeming values. Compared to the Ford interiors of the time, it was positively luxurious. The padded dash was unusual for the time; and the cowl was lower than I’d seen in any other car before the Gen2 Chrysler minivans came out. It was great, as a kid, to look forward and see out. Unlike the 1968 Ford that replaced it.
Was better on gas, too – but in 1960s America, that wasn’t that much of an issue.
I don’t recall anyone we knew in our family having had “issues” with their Ramblers. There were lots of them and were the “second car” of choice, especially for Moms and teenage girls (remember, this was suburban Northern California of the 60s) who didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t drive stick (VW bugs would have been verboten); so, lots of Rambler Americans and Classics abounded.
For JustPassinThru: I believe those late 50’s/early 60s B-W automatic Ramblers had an electronically controlled pushbutton automatic; not mechanical, like Mopar, hence the same problem with contacts the period Mercuries had (’57 and ’58 – Mercury dumped their pushbuttons for 59 . . .as did Edsel for ’58 only . . . .
At a party, in 1971, I mentioned to a friend I was looking for a car, a friend of the host overheard me, and mentioned he had a car for sale. He’d driven it to the party, so we went out to look at it. A blue 1960 Rambler wagon, 6 Cyl, 3 spd with O/D. It ran, the (AM) radio worked, and the heater was fantastic (important consideration in a Northern Illinois winter, add in that the wagon had no rear window). When I asked the critical question “How much?”, I got back “Ummmm…. is $3.00 ok?” NOT 300, but $3, of course I said yes, and paid for it, but couldn’t take it right then, as he had to get home, and I had a friends car I had to take home. The next day I went to pick it up (slightly hungover, big surprise there was alcohol involved). I pulled up and he came out with a hangdog look on his face and told me his ‘old lady’ wouldn’t let him sell it for $3, and he handed me back my money. I asked how much it would take to buy it, and he told me “She says if I can’t get at least $10 for it, no deal!”. So I tossed in another $7.
I picked up a tailgate window at the boneyard and when I went to put it in, the rear window mechanism wouldn’t roll down. I was pondering what could be wrong when the seller pulled into the gas station I was working at, and saw me working on the car. I asked what happened to the rear window, and he told me that one day it wouldn’t roll down, so his buddy offered to fix it. To get the tailgate open, he decided to separate the window from the tailgate. His ‘tool’ of choice???? A bb gun along the bottom edge! Needless to say, that destroyed the window. When I’d try to roll down the rear window mechanism, the handle would just spin. Then a ‘Eureka!’ moment, I unlocked the handle, and of course all was fine. Did I mention the seller wasn’t the shiniest lugnut on the rim?
Car lasted over a year, probably would still be running if a friend of my brother hadn’t shut it off when it was hot, while my brother was running cold water into it.
I wonder where the happy family using their Rambler as a motel changed into their night clothes. At the side of the road? Did they run the engine all night to have the heater work? Who needs a toilet and a shower in the morning.
They would be perfect for campground travel, even now. I guess all the thigh bolsters & head rests in current cars would make ‘dual use’ a little more difficult, but my inner Scot still loves the idea.
I’ve done some travelling in Australia & NZ over the years, and am impressed by the numbers of well-provisioned & inexpensive campgrounds in many towns of even a thousand people. Makes it much easier to just ‘get in the car and go’, a style of travel that still seems popular there.
I remember in the early to mid 60’s seeing several Ramblers broken down on the road. One of the front wheels would partially disconnect from the suspension and plant a front corner on the pavement. We were a GM family and would really laugh when we saw one of those.
The ’61 and earlier had cheap stamped upper and lower control arms that would eventually crack. I had a ’61 Classic back in the ’90s that looked and ran fine (3spd, no OD, little wheezer six), but one day I was driving home from work and the steering basically stopped working. Somehow I got it into a gas station where the lower arm let loose completely and the right front wheel folded up into the wheel well. I remember seeing a wagon as a kid where the same thing had happened. In ’62 and beyond they went to a stronger 1-piece control arm setup.
Thanks! A 50 year old mystery is solved.
By the time I came into this world and was old enough to notice the cars (early 70s), these Rambler wagons were all horrible rustbuckets on their last legs. One neighbor hung on with hers until about 1976. Now, that’d dedication.
Many of these went to the hills and woolands of coastal Northern California. West Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. These were organic cockroaches amongst the oaks, redwoods, and pakalolo groves, I’m sure well into the ’80s. These begat Volvo station wagons with wooden bumpers which begat Subaru Foresters.
I was 9 in 1987 when the four door sedan version of a 1961 Rambler came into our lives. My dad was a machinist and wanted a beater to get to work in. He found the Rambler cheap as it had not run in years. Getting the gas tank boiled out and a valve job put it running again. He drove it for five years or so before the Aluminum block gave out. One of the cylinders had a pretty big hole in it. I still wish we had it.
I have a 1960 Rambler Wagon with the flathead 195.6 cu. in. and had a 1962 Rambler Classic Cross Country Wagon w/ the overhead valve version of the motor, both with 1bbl. carbs. The flathead coupled with a 3spd manual w/ OD. gets around just fine around town and parking and turning w/ ease! That car always starts up, even if it sits for a few months in the garage without taking it out. [Thanks for battery tenders.] Very reliable engine but at 90hp I’m not going to win any drag races but it does cruise nicely at 70mph and with the overdrive 30mpg is not hard to acheive. On level ground keeping btwn 55 and 60 the best I got was just over 34 mpg! With a 20 gal. tank that’s almost 700 miles before refueling. The ’62 Classic had the push button automatic and I got 18 city and 21 on the hwy. on a tired engine. Ugly in its day some critics have said but the style can kinda grow on you and I got many thumbs up driving around in the ’62. If there’s anything to say about Ramblers is that they are very, very, reliable engines and economical to maintain and drive, just not super fast or quick. For that pick up some early Detroit iron, maybe a Corvette, Mustang, or something different like an AMX.
I can remember seeing some older Nissan Armadas when they first
came out.Could there be a more blatant copy of these then the Armadas?
Bob
Interesting that these were so popular in NorCal back in the day. Since moving to the Bay I think I would have seen more around…plenty of old stuff around, maybe the CC effect’s magic will take hold….
The reclining seat was false advertising. My folks got a ’60 four-door with the recliners but oddly without the split bench, which would have been a real advantage. Dad was tall and Mom was short, and they always battled about the seat adjustment.
I was skinny and flexible, capable of sleeping anywhere, but one try was enough with that “recliner”. The back had a hard pivot rod at the base that could seriously damage your spine if you relaxed onto it.
False advertising? The split seat were optional, as the 1960 brochure makes quite clear.
I do remember when these were plentiful–long, long ago.
Paul, here’s some mid-1959 footage at the American Motors factory in Kenosha, WI—much of the product being wagons more-or-less like today’s ’61: https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVA947K1Q7B5MRCRMFLWHWJ0IUB5-SMALL-CAR-BOOM-IN-THE-USA/query/wisconsin
Hey, I have a memory of one of these wagons from when I was about nine, too: I was seated on the right side of either mom’s ’78 Caprice or dad’s ’77 Cutlass as we drove along on a major road, probably I-25. One of these was entering the roadway to our right, so I could see the driver as he worked the car to get up enough speed to join the traffic stream. I saw him yank the shift lever down from up high to down low, and that puzzled me; as far as I knew, a shift lever on the steering column meant an automatic transmission, up high meant Park, and down low meant L1. What was the matter with this guy’s car, I wondered. Some years later I learned what a three-onna-tree is, and then I understood the mind-mvie that memory had become: the guy was shifting from 2nd to 3rd.
…at least, I’m fairly sure it was one of these wagons.
As gearhead with the misfortune to have Rambler loving parents, I once suffered the added insult of being pulled over by our neighbor, a Wisconsin State Trooper. He saw me loading a case of beer in the trunk of our Rambler American. It was a friendly stop and I knew better than to lie. He confiscated my beer and pretty much ruined my Friday night party plans. Said my Dad could claim the beer at his house. Such was small town law enforcement.
Knowing I was a new driver, he asked me how I liked being able to wheel the family Rambler around town. I mumbled something about how the car was so slow that no one needed to worry about me speeding in it. He laughed and said he knew what I meant.
His ride? See photo. Imagine spending your entire work day wheeling one of those around. At least his Ambassador had a V8. Rumor was they were actually pretty fast – in a flying brick sort of way.
I love these cars and this is why.
This car gave me my first road trip. I was six years old and was considered old enough to take along on an excursion between our home in Chicago and a Bible camp in Michigan. I was very excited. Just my older brother and I, and our parents. Just like the days before all the other kids showed up. It was an all day trip and instead of being in bed by sunset, I was traveling alone with my parents after having dropped my brother off at Camp.
I had the back seats to myself for the first time in memory. I had the freedom to climb over the back seat into the wagon where my mom left a sleeping bag and a pillow. I was small enough to lay completely flat. I was left with the sounds of my parents enjoying their time alone, the hum of the tires on the highway, and the drum of the air passing around us.
The adventure of driving out of the City and into the open fields along Lake Michigan was intoxicating. It was summer and the windows of the Rambler were open. The rich musk of the rich Midwestern soil, the foliage growing wild along the highway, and the clean scent of the Lake created powerful memories. It was an epiphany.
I remember visually tracing the chromed trim of the little fins over the back fenders, and how the asphalt blurred under us. I traced with my finger tips the car around me, dreamily imagining other places I could escape to in the back of that wagon. As night fell, I saw for the first time how the cars riding in the lanes next to us appeared in the dark, with bright red tail lights of differing shapes and sizes.
The Rambler was manual, with a column shifter my mother could never master. Being raised in the city, she, like my grandmothers, hadn’t learned to drive until recently. Working a clutch and manually shifting was something she never did learn to do. So with its frugal six cylinder and transmission, the wagon got great mileage on the trip. Yet we still needed to stop for gas, use the restrooms, walk, and orient ourselves.
It was at a Michigan filling station that I was first handed my own personal snack. Not to share, my own. Along with a bottled fruit drink. I felt as though I was being handed a fortune. The snack was cheese waffles. Not a sweet flavor, but a dry crunch with a sharp tang of cheddar. I love them to this day.
Although I have so many memories of my first road trip, like any six year old awake past their bedtime – I don’t remember arriving home. Consequently, this trip never had a conclusion, and it awakens every time I see a Rambler Cross Country wagon. I’ve traveled around the world and throughout every 50 US states. I’ve driven incredible vehicles. I believe all that lifetime love of traveling started with that silly little Rambler wagon.
I’m a lucky guy.
I absolutely loved reading this. This perfectly encapsulates, probably for many of us, the allure of having taken road trips when young.
Incredible writeup VanillaDude, and made me harken back to my own early roadtrip memories in a series of wagons. Our first family road trip in the US was in our rusty brown ’82 Civic Wagon (“5-Speed” badge on the back) in 1992 or 1993. Drove from Ithaca NY to Cape Cod at the recommendation of a friend, my first trip out to the Ocean. I was frankly to young to remember much aside from my dad using one of those bead seat covers to help his hurting back, and a few fleeting memories from being on the beach. One family story that came out of it: my dad pulled off the interstate to run to the bushes to relieve himself. Comes back to a state trooper pulled up behind us to check if everything is okay. He was not amused with our reason to stop and advised my dad that this was not acceptable protocol in the US.
My Parents actually had two of these, first a ’61, bought in Compton, Ca, the 2nd a ’63
probably bought somewhere around Pittsburgh, PA. The ’61 replaced my Dad’s first car out of college, a ’56 Plymouth Plaza 2 door sedan, and was their first Automatic car, as well as the first of many wagons they would own up until 1984.
My Mother still doesn’t drive standard transmission well (though she did learn to drive on a semi-automatic ’51 Chrysler Windsor, she was never comfortable with shifting gears), so that’s probably why the automatic, plus the two young kids (I’m a twin) the wagon was pretty practical. We have pictures of us driving back from California to Pennsylvania (we flew out to CA when we moved there in 1959)…my sister sitting on a kids pot with her Huckleberry Hound sweatshirt on….another using the glass window on the tailgate as a table eating lunch on the road (even today, my Mother is big on picnic lunches on the road, though it can be tough to find picnic tables on some routes).
I’m not sure why they bought the ’63 so soon after buying the ’61..and my Father who’s the only one who would know (my Mother is not a car person) is gone, one of the questions I never got around to asking him. He did trade cars pretty frequently but two years was pretty soon even for him. The ’63 was almost the same as the ’61….6 cylinder automatic wagon with stainless roof rack and AM radio. The ’63 only lasted 2 years too, but it was in an accident while we were moving from Maryland to Vermont (my Parents moved a lot in their younger years, though they’ve stayed put in their last house they’ve been in 37 years, by far the longest time). He bought a ’65 Olds F85 wagon (with the 330 V8…our first V8, but otherwise similarly equipped to the Ramblers…even the color (all of them green…but my Father is Irish, so that’s no surprise).