(first posted 11/3/2013) As today is the last day of Independents’ Week, let’s look at another rare AMC. Jason Shafer showed us an amazing ’68 Ambassador sedan, but have any of you seen the elusive convertible? Offered only in ’67, the model only found 1,269 buyers despite quite an attractive look. This one was at the 2012 Maple City Cruise Night in Monmouth, IL.
Sadly I only got a single shot. I haven’t seen one since, and I’ve probably been to over 100 shows since August of ’12. This one looked to be a work in progress, with missing rocker trim–but the fasteners were still there. Despite that, it was quite a looker! I’d rather have some factory wheel covers and whitewalls though…
What a nice find,thanks Tom.It’s even near to one of my favourite car colours Mercury Black Cherry.
A friend has a 67 SST hardtop I havent even seen a ragtop now I know why.
This one was in the Kenosha Independence Day Parade.
If you’re going to find a rare Rambler, Kenosha is the place to find it
To my eyes, these always bore a striking resemblance to the previous year’s Pontiac A-bodies (Tempest/LeMans/GTO).
Yeah, now that you mention it,they do. This is just gorgeous. Wonder does it have a white top? That would be a perfect combo.
IMHO this is one of the best looking full size AMCs ever made with the ’65 Ambassador right behind it
+1,this site is slowly making me a full size fan.I’m more of a Pony/Compact/Woody fan but I like a lot of the full size cars here.
@ottomobill
Thank you for that pic. I saw one of these four years ago and had no idea what it was until now.
Ramblers get that a lot, I think
Agree 100% on the 1965 version. I had a convertible, Antigua Red with an aftermarket Haartz white top. Striking-looking car. (Photo not of my car, but very similar)
Also in agreement . The ’65 also handles well and with the 327 V8 4bbl is not a slowpoke. I learned to drive in a ’65 Ambassador between Portland and Lincoln City in 1966. 85 was a nice cruising speed on the stretch between Mcminville and Willamina.
Wasn’t there also an article on a ’67 Rebel ragtop in a neighborhood dealership posted here a few years back?
This?
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-capsule-1967-rambler-rebel-sst-convertible-rambler-tries-flexing-its-muscles-again-belatedly/
Most of the ’60s models from AMC were good-looking cars, nicely styled.
You know, I don’t recall seeing any of these in 67. Preoccupied and failing memory one supposes but there sure weren’t very many.
Your memory is fine; these were rare birds.
These cars might be called Abernethy’s Folly. They looked nice but were overpriced and had some nasty quality glitches because development was rushed, e.g., gas leaked from the fuel tank during hard braking, which led Consumers Reports to declare the Ambassador “Not Acceptable.” This from the folks who had given Ramblers pretty good rankings for many years.
I don’t care. You can call them derivative of Big 3 products, but I still say that the 67 – 69 AMC cars are attractive. Including my red ’68 Javelin SST 343. Saddest part about the failure of the company was that if quality was as good as the design, AMC wouldn’t have abandoned these beautiful orphans. The last cars they made which I cared about were The Machine (just for its outrageousness) and the Eagle 4WD line. Everything else was shark jumping.
I agree with you completely. These were the only cars on this body shell (at least the sedans) that were ever even remotely attractive. The 1970 restyle completely botched the lines of this car. I have always wondered what would have happened had AMC treated these like Chrysler treated the Valiant and Dart – maintain the classic styling and work on making the guts of the car durable and reliable. Oh well. I liked the coupes up through the 73 models, but they were certainly not stylish by then.
Concur, JP. In an effort to ‘freshen up’, why the talented Dick Teague & Co. went with the reverse barbell “Persian Cat” grillework and the beltline upsweep for ’70 and beyond is . . . well beyond sensibility.
Getting back to the uber-rare Ambassador ragtop, I’m rather partial to the ’67 Marlin (on the Ambassador wheelbase) and the Reber “Mariner” station wagon. Blue with di-noc white vinyl. Very nautical. Very original. I’d like to see the same concept on lets say, a Ford Flex . . . (or perhaps a “Country Squire” Ford Flex).
The ^67-’68 may have resembled ’66-’67 GM intermediates, but with design lead time the AMC were pretty well locked in by ’66, the Chrysler product intermediates of ’68-’69 were very close to AMC. I was a friend of most all of the dealers in town (I had a restoration/detail shop). But Wayne, the AMC (and long before that Nash/Rambler dealer) was a great guy who loved cars. After he had some of them awhile, I ended up with them. I had a matched pair of a ’67 Ambassador convert in white with blue top and interior, 343 and fully loaded, and a ’67 Marlin based on the Ambassador that year, gold and black with incredible gold brocade interior with two throw pillows in matching material.. When Wayne got it he decided to “Make it move” The 343 got 2x4bbls, hurst 4 speed, it was already fully loaded, he lowered it an inch and a half and that’s the way I got it. I kept both for years and have no clue why I sold them. I read about the fuel spillage on hard stops, Apparently there was a fix for it, I never experienced it. The quality on all the AMC cars I had was great, but I had the dealers cars, so it would be. After the ’67’s I had a 70 AMX and Pierre Cardan AMX (worlds of difference), I had a Hornet AMX which I liked, and the last a Matador Barcelona coupe. Sad to see AMC go, but glad AMC cars are welcome at Chrysler meets.
Yeah, there go those stupid aftermarket wheels screwing things up again. I just don’t understand.
I don’t mean to slam some mid-westerners, but why do they insist on screwing up their cars? The “boy racer’ Western Auto wheels look like crap and scream “double wide.” They may have been in vogue in 1979, but this is an extremely rare machine that deserves OEM wheels and tires or at least a close facsimile. Ditto with the silly mudflaps, “Phaeton” roofs, bug deflectors and so on. Yes, they may serve a purpose, but at what cost aesthetically?
+1. Such a gorgeous car…and these things had some very intricate & heavy full mag-type wheelcovers that are works of art unto themselves.
I’d let it pass for now (then), hoping that it gets (would get) its original look in the future. It’s a restoration and as such, many of the parts may have been missing, and made of Unobtainium. Besides, it obviously isn’t (or wasn’t, at original writing) finished yet and the rest of the work looks good.
^This. Unless it’s a Mustang, Camaro, or Tri-5, the likelihood of finding repo trim parts for just about anything else could be a long (and potentially expensive) endeavor. With an orphan brand like AMC, well, unobtanium is the word that springs immediately to mind.
Ironically, due to a quirk in how the brand was liquidated, a lot of Studebaker OEM stuff is, apparently, still available.
So, unless it’s of the lowest possible quality, I usually give this kind of stuff a pass. I hate aftermarket steering wheels with a passion but when those old wheels start deteriorating, well, you do what you have to do.
With an orphan brand like AMC, well, unobtanium is the word that springs immediately to mind.
Made worse by Iacocca. Confirmed to me by one of the former AMC styling guys who attend the local AMC meet: after taking over AMC, Iacocca ordered all the old AMC parts stock tossed in a landfill. Rumor mill has it a couple of forward thinking people went to their local AMC dealer as soon as the Chrysler buyout was announced and bought up all the old parts stock. At the AMC meet each year, there is very little NOS stuff. Mostly pretty sad bits culled from junkyards. I did learn, from the owner of a very spiffy 70 Javelin, that reproduction AMC vinyl upholstery is available. AMC used a textured vinyl that was more comfortable that the big three stuff. He pointed out his car has original AMC vinyl but the one next to it had the reproduction stuff. The texture didn’t look quite right, but at least there is something available.
Iacocca’s decision to dump all of the old AMC parts was a cold, hard business decision, based entirely on the limited return the company would have seen from the process of selling-off the parts like Studebaker. There just wasn’t enough money in it for Iacocca to mess with it. I actually wonder if Iacocca gave it any thought, at all. Maybe he asked his staff if anyone wanted to take it on, and he couldn’t find anyone willing.
It sucks for AMC guys who sure would have liked to have been able to get those old OEM parts, but that’s just business.
For all we know, it might have been bought by someone who is bringing it back to stock.
Well, technically not mid-western, but the Gulf coast of central and south Florida is a hotbed of relocated folks from the upper mid-west, and they do have some different tastes versus a lot of the rest of the nation. Brougham still lives, whether it works stylistically on the car or not, and the unbridled lust for cheap mags on any car to make it look “racier” still wears on. Personally, I don’t mind. The wheels are period on the pictured car, and as others have so well stated, AMC NOS is pure unobtainium at its purest form. Better to see a car still being loved and used rather than being 100% correct. Plus, the 100% correct crowd needs to think that no car is really 100% after it leaves the factory and gets driven. Any replaced part, including wear parts, would technically mean the car is restored to new condition, thus no longer original. Let the owner enjoy it as he likes, and you enjoy yours as you see fit.
Here is a beauty of the same era…. this one isn’t a kit… big block .
My favorite year for the Ambassador. Then the 65.
The ’67 models had the advantage of finally losing the antiquated torque-tube setup in favor of a GM-type coil rear suspension with open driveline. Trunnion front suspension and vacuum wipers were unfortunate carryovers from the earlier Ramblers. I remember Tom McCahill giving the ’67 Rebel a very favorable review.
There was really no difference between the ’67 Rebel and Ambassador aside from additional useless wheelbase added forward of the cowl in the latter. The ’67 Rebel was still badged as Rambler, but the Ambassador was not.
These were good-looking cars. It’s hard to believe the hideous 1970s models were built on the same platform.
“The 67 Rebel was still badged as a Rambler, but the Ambassador was not.”
This was one of AMC’S big marketing blunders in my opinion. Until 1957 their cars were either Nashes or Hudson’s, with Rambler being just a model. In 1958, Nash and Hudson both went away and Rambler became a make unto itself carrying the Ambassador name as its premier offering. By 1970, Rambler was gone and all models were AMC’S. Way too much change in a 13 year period. Buyers were confused. I remember people telling me that AMC stood for “All Motor Companies”, meaning that they were built from GM, Ford, and Chrysler spare parts. I am not making this up. Stupid runs deep.
I heard it as “All Makes Combined”.
I like the hardtop roofline on the 1966 Ambassador and Classic better than the roofline of their 1965 counterparts. The elimination of the slightly wrapped rear back window was a nice improvement on the cars.
I like the hardtop roofline on the 1966 Ambassador and Classic better than the roofline of their 1965 counterparts.
The roof with the wrapped rear window was a carry over from 63. The 66 roof was in keeping with the crisper mid 60s style, and, since the senior platform was all new for 67, that 66 roof, like the 58 Studebaker hardtop roof was a lot of money spent for little gain.
This example was found by the side of the road west of Lansing last year.
I think the roof really has a 65 Ford LTD vibe from this angle.
vs the 65 roof.
I believe I saw that 1965 Ambassador way back in 1996, at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the automobile in Detroit. I talked to someone driving a car exactly like that one. I believe it was all-original, and had been bought by his father.
Even if the 1966 roofline only lasted one year, it was still a big improvement over the previous year’s roofline, in my opinion. It also makes the 1966 Ambassador and Classic hardtop coupes two cars that really look better with a vinyl roof.