Portland has its fair share of old Ramblers still cruising our streets, but this is 1961 American is kind unusual even here. A badge on the trunk indicates that this was a “Super” model, the mid-range trim version with a bit of bright accents and a somewhat nicer interior. And it’s even sporting the Flash-O-Matic transmission.
The 1961 was a major redesign of their smallest car.New(ish)on the outside, but still mostly a 1951 Rambler on the inside.
While this one needs some work, it’s nice to see it still around, and hopefully its owner keeps this little beauty on the road for many years to come.
It may say “Super” but that does not imply it had super performance, especially with the standard 90 hp flathead “Flying Scot” six. Optional was a 125 hp ohv version of the venerable 195.6 cubic inch six, with its small 3.13″ bore and mighty 4.25″ stroke.
This one has Rambler’s Flash-O-Matic automatic, built by Borg-Warner. And Rambler’s All-Season air conditioning was optional. Was the ’61 American the first compact with factory air? The ’61 Studebaker Lark offered a/c too, but it was an under dash unit unlike Rambler’s more integrated system.
Liked the previous year American, with its rounded curves. Never cared for the three box style.
Ugh, this is one car from 1961 that I just can’t get on board with. These always looked to me like they were styled somewhere in the Eastern Bloc.
I do love the name of that automatic transmission, though. Flash-O-Matic just sounds so fast! I suspect that the actual car was anything but. I believe that the Flash-O-Matic was the same basic transmission as the Ford-O-Matic of the 50s and the Studebaker Flight-O-Matic of 1956+. All of these were Borg Warner designs with only basic differences in whether starts were in first or second gear and differing shift quadrants.
Flash-O-Matic sounds more like a malfunction to me.
“Best be wearing welding goggles when you drive that thing kid, that’s a Flash-O-Matic!”
“Flash-O-Matic” could also describe a wardrobe malfunction….The type you could get arrested for!
Another Portland Flash-o-Matic, Mayor Bud Clark:
Now, THAT is funny! Of course, he denied everything and then decided not to run for re-election due to health reasons…the voters got sick of him!
Well, actually, Clark was re-elected in 1988 after defeating 11 candidates in the primary and beating former Chief of Police Ron Still in the general. Not a flash in the pan.
The Flash-O-Matic was the same basic tranny as Ford’s Cruise-O-Matic. Start in D² or D¹ or L. It was great in New England snow conditions. Put it in D¹ and you had the full three-speed gear range for most conditions. D² would lock out a first-gear start. (It also had the unintended advantage of using L to manually shift the transmission; upshift close to redline, then right back into L would trap the tranny in second. Upshift to D when high gear was desired.) My two automatic-equipped Ramblers in my lifetime had this transmission. (The 1965 Amby convertible had the TwinStick setup.)
There has been some discussion on other threads as to why an automatic transmission should ever start in second gear. I loved that feature in two more modern ’90s vintage computer operated ones. Both the Ford A4OD and GM 4L60E had that feature. I had those in the ’94 F150 and ’93 C1500 respectively. Lower starting torque helped get going in winter and deep sand conditions.
Edit: I commented here before reading more comments on this subject below, but this is my take on the subject anyway.
1992 Crown Vic wheels. I guess he doesn’t want the Ford oval showing and that is why there are no center caps.
The owner could always use the Mercury Grand Marquis center caps. Their “three hockeystick” logo is sufficiently obscure, few people would notice.
94 Grand Marquis Wheels,there just temporary.
I can not believe it, but when these were new I somehow never considered them in the same class, size-wise, with the Falcon, Valiant, and Corvair. But in my defense I was still under the age of 10.
As pleasant as these cars are, pictures of them always leave me with the impression that the body was originally styled for a mid-sized or even a “standard sized” car but at the last minute it was cut down to fit a (MUCH) smaller car.
The 1958-60 American was the 1953-55 Rambler without the skirted wheel openings. The body was very rounded in appearance, and looks wider at the bottom than at the top (near the beltline).
That look was very dated by 1959-60, so undoubtedly the mandate for the designers was to make the car look more “modern,” while using the same inner structure (to save tooling costs). This car has very wide, sharp “shoulders” at the beltline, which eliminates the roly-poly look of the previous car. But, as a result, the greenhouse looks as though it’s about one size too small for the rest of the body.
“The 1958-60 American was the 1953-55 Rambler….That look was very dated by 1959-60.”
The lovely Volvo Amazon was to my eye the natural update to the previous generation of the Rambler American. It rode the look for another ten years!
The Volvo looks much better-proportioned.
And the 3-window side view of the 1961 4-door Rambler American may have influenced the 1966 Volvo 144 …
I wouldn’t turn down one of these Ramblers if the price was right, but I’d still prefer the 58-60 version.
Happy Motoring, Mark
I always hated the look of these squared-off Americans, but truth be told – they were roomy as sin inside given their diminutive outside dimensions. My dad’s mom had one of these; Gramp bought it in spring of 1961 to replace her aging Willys Aero. (That had to be close to ten years old.) Nan drove that car after Gramp died in 1966, rather than keep his 1955 Statesman…kept it until she died in 1989, matter of fact. That little Rambler was immortal.
These were anything but roomy, most of all in width. Due to its basic body dimensions dating back to 1951 and those huge “shoulders”, it was exceptionally narrow inside. You must have been young and small at the time.
The dash shows kissing-cousin similarity with the contemporary Falcon dash.
Rambler designed their dash three years before the Falcon hit the showrooms. Perhaps things were the other way around…
Egad! I had to check twice but that is the original grille! I thought they all had the horizontal bars but it’s there in the advert, and it’s online elsewhere.
I must say, as the amount of articles grows it’s difficult to research something FOR Curbside Classic without using something FROM Curbside Classic. Eventually we may just become one big circular reference.
At any rate, this one looks like it needs some disinfectant. I prefer the Tiki Rambler, anybody know if that one is still on the road in Eugene?
Isn’t that grille material terrific? Wouldn’t you have been proud to design it? 🙂
Or maybe they found it in stock at some stamping company.
I was thinking that someone with a piece of paper and a drafting board had to draw all those little rectangles. ZZzzzz.
The strange thing is, is that between those rectangles are a lot of bowties very similar to Chevrolet ‘s trademark emblem. Had GM cried trademark infringement I’m sure that they would have won. When you see the bowties, the rectangles disappear.
I thought the same thing about the grille. At first, I assumed someone had replaced the original grille with a metal insert pattern like those found on 1950s home radiator covers — that’s what the pattern reminds me of:
It looks as though someone at AMC saw the “Fashion-Aire Dynastar Grille” featured on the 1958 Buick, and told the designers to draw up a cheap knock-off for the Rambler American.
Yes; thank you. That’s what I was seeing, but couldn’t put my finger on.
I assume the Tiki Rambler is still around; my photo from May, 2017
Falcon dash for comparison:
The Falcon dash is a far more sophisticated design. That example is a 1963 with a different instrument cluster and the full chromey trim. It is a cheapo version of what you might find in a Thunderbird. All Rambler dashboards in that era were second rate designs until maybe the Javelin.
The 1961 Rambler American advertisement has a gentleman who looks like Mitt Romney!
And oddly enough, the statue in the background looks like it should be in a Studebaker Lark ad.
Another case where the 4 door version is better looking than the 2 door one. Not really saying much, tho…
The really awkward-looking Rambler was the 2-door station wagon with its jumble of straight and angled roof pillars.
Ooof… that’s bad. Really bad.
I always thought the convertible version of these was the only one that looked decent. I owned a ’61 American years ago and it was like driving something engineered in the 1940s – because it was.
Didn’t the alien family in Third Rock from the Sun have a Rambler convertible? Seems like they often ended the show with them sitting in it and musing over life on Earth.
Yes, the aliens in “3rd Rock From the Sun” materialized on Earth in a Rambler convertible much like the red one in the above photo and the car figured pretty prominently in the show.
I’ve seen a few doors tied shut like the passenger door on this one, but never with a padlock (?) like that. Is this secure insecurity, or insecure security?
Its a Rambler version of an anti-Theft device =;-}
Makes sense since it’s likely someone wanting to steal a Rambler wouldn’t be able to figure it out.
Well I think it looks fine, especially compared to the tortured sheet metal of a Valiant or Lancer.
And the restyle gave it a bit of family resemblance to the Classic.
What, no pushbuttons for the slush-o-matic? So only the Classic and the Ambassador had the truly modern way to shift?
When the late Dick Teague interviewed with AMC in 1959, the first model he saw in the styling studio was this car. In his words, “I saw it, and I almost kept on walking.”
This car has a goofy sort of charm. At one of the Carlisle shows last year, someone was offering a 1963 American 440-H hardtop for sale. It was running, but very worn. It was still tempting.
One can only imagine the surprise – among both dealers and potential customers – when this homely car was replaced by Teague’s very handsome 1964 American in the fall of 1963.
“Goofy sort of charm” is a nice way to describe the 1961 Rambler American. Not quite as appealing in the same outrageous way as a 1961 Plymouth, but close. JP mentioned it looking like something from an Eastern Bloc country, and that’s a good description, sort of an American Trabant. All that’s missing is belching clouds of blue smoke from a diminutive two-stroke engine and a wood stick to check the fuel level.
Locating an original survivor with not only the Flash-O-Matic but the rare integral A/C (and in working order) would be quite a find and a great addition at any weekend car show.
BTW, did anyone else notice the way the passenger door is secured with what looks like a yellow bungee cord knotted around the B-pillar? I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.
You can laugh about the grill, but turn it on its side and it’s the new Continental!
What they did not get right until the complete redo was the cramped front seats, especially the driver’s area. There was simply no room between one’s left arm and the door, or just enough to steer as long as you didn’t go elbows-out. The Metropolitans were even worse in that department. The other thing the two shared was the ponderous dynamics; unlike those agile cars that seem to become smaller when underway, both the American and the Metro feel like some wallowing old Buick, even at around-town speeds.
The later ’50s Ramblers were much more comfortable to drive, and relatively nimble. The USAF radar station that was my first assignment had two 1957 (I think) station wagons that I could check out for errands into Bartlesville – I was Base Draftsman and could always find some excuse to go for drafting or art supplies – and I enjoyed driving them for the most part. Their only real vice was the column-shift’s linkage sometimes getting itself tangled up, usually when I was attempting some such fancy-ass maneuver as a double-clutch downshift. That was easy to fix, except that it meant reaching down into a very hot engine compartment on a blistering Oklahoma day and getting greasy grime from the wrist up.
I well remember the ‘Sleeping Scotsman’ flathead enigne in these sturdy little snoozers .
-Nate
2nd photo I know the artists alqays make a car look longer and lower than the actual thing….However, The 6 window roofline and squarish body has a look Volvo may well have taken note of.
I saw one of these way back in high school. Same faded white paint. It was rare enough and strange enough that it appealed to me. I remember that it didn’t have the power that my 1600 single port Ghia had going uphill. Decent ride, unremarkable handling, okay brakes. I think he was asking $400 for it and I didn’t have it yet despite my McJob and it was gone by the time I’d saved up the money.
The grille pattern reminds me slightly of the Borden “Elsie Stix’ ice cream sticks from the 1970s.
Forget the Flash-O-Matic. The coolest American of this generation would be one with the Twin E-stick.
Wow, never knew that there was a Rambler version of a floor-lever activated, multi-gear overdrive. The only other one I knew of was the later Colt Turbo 4+3 (the Corvette version was activated by a button integrated into the top of the shift knob).
That shift console is deceptive, too. The slot for the shift lever looks narrow enough that one would think it’s for an automatic.
I’ve driven Ramblers with the twin-stick setup and as you would imagine from the photo there is very little side-to-side movement in that shifter. Almost more of a nudge to the left or right to select the proper gear.
What makes it look even more like an automatic is the redundant overdrive button on the top of the knob.
45 years ago, I saw one of these twin-sticks in an aqua-green metallic two-door at a Route-1, hole-in-the-wall used car lot. The (’63 I think) Rambler also had bucket-seats, a dual master cylinder and a 1V Holley carb with a see-through glass float cover. That sporty interior contrasted sharply with the exterior ‘old-lady’ styling!
The place got cleared out for urban-renewal a few months later. No idea what happened to the Rambler, or any of the other treasures parked there.
Happy Motoring, Mark
My future Mother in law had a white 1961 convertible with red interior. For some reason, my future wife had it at school. After a party six of us in 3 separate cars, drove from Columbus, Ohio to Toledo in a snowstorm.
The Rambler had the flat head, automatic and vacuumn wipers. I had to flog it to keep up with the others, as I did not know exactly where we were going. If I gave it any gas, the wipers stopped. I swear the heater controls were Kelvinator knobs.
Dull, slow , antiquated and homely when compared to an electric wiper, 3 speed, pushbutton Torqueflite automatic, “leaning tower of power” equipped slant 6 Valiant.
But fast compared to a 144 cubic inch, 80? horsepower Falcon or Comet with their 2-speed automatic and vacuum wipers!
The flathead 196 was old, but surprisingly good.
The OHV 196 had a little more uumph. Both gave good gas mileage. In acceleration and mpgs they would run circles around the Fords, the standard Corvair, and don’t forget the 4 cylinder Chevy II! (I agree the slant 6 and Torque flight was the best compact car powertrain at the time.)
WHAT was the rationale behind these Borg-Warner derived automatic transmissions (AMC, Ford, Studebaker) that made them have that bog slow creep away standing start in second gear…unless you floored the gas pedal for a first gear start?
Why-would-they-do-this???
The 3-speed Borg Warner Flash-0-matic used all 3 forward gears in most applications. It was up to the driver to select D1 for 1st gear start in a Rambler/AMC. For some reason, in 65-66, AMC made the console shifted “Shift Command” start in 2nd gear when it was behind the 287 or 327 V8. (Shifter read: P R N D 2 1). That was not true with the ’67 and later Borg Warners.
I think in the Ambassador in particular, AMC marketing people thought a single shift (2nd gear start, to 3rd upshift) was somehow the sign of a smoother, more luxurious vehicle. Why they would try to imitate GM’s PowerGlide and Super Turbine 300 two-speeds, I have no idea.
In the snowbelt, a default second gear start wouldn’t be so bad during inclement weather.
I certainly agree. Had a very nice 65 Ambassador 990H, top of the line. The performance was rather disappointing because of the second gear starts, which was not the point of that strong 327. I began referring to it as an “old man’s car” (not so amusing now). As stated elsewhere, I suspect the one shift paradigm relates back to the 30s, when it seems that the capacity to remain in high gear indicated quality.
In the early Ford and Studebaker applications it was felt that the 1-2 upshift was not smooth enough. And the torque converter kind of mimicked a first gear for starts anyhow. Later versions (at least in the less powerful cars) went to a first gear start. And as pointed out above first was always there if you really needed it.
I think this was discussed on a recent CC about GM’s PowerGlide, but I would be willing to wager that this sort of logic went a long way to justifying the lengthy availability of the PowerGlide long after 2-speed automatics had been abandoned by Ford and Chrysler (well, mostly, except for the short-lived Maverick 2-speed). If so, I can’t really say it was all that bad thinking, either.
There was never a 2-speed Maverick, the Semi-Auto was a 3-speed.
This little ‘bread-box’ Rambler has some trim added around the wheels and rockers…not factory; but shows it was someone’s pride and joy! The front bumper is also non-stock, and appears to be from the larger Rambler Classic!
Good catch on the front bumper. Makeshift bumper bolts and a different color lower valance with missing turn signals indicate it must have sustained some front end damage at some point. Not exactly a concours restoration but a cool survivor (for an old Rambler) that surely sees daily duty.
The styling of this particular car reminds me very much of the 1962 UK Ford Cortina (Mark 1) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Ford_Cortina_KTO959E.jpg/280px-Ford_Cortina_KTO959E.jpg
Yeah it looks exactly like a MK1 Cortina but the Rambler landed on the market first so maybe the Ford is the clone,
That grille makes the car. The 62s and 63s just didn’t have that kind of detail !
Does the driver of the featured car use hand signals to indicate a turn ?
I’ve grown to love these, but the 58-60 is my favorite.
I have the X-Ray comparison brochures for the American of this period. Selling against the longer and more stylish Falcon, Corvair and Valiant took some creative marketing, but they did have dual master cylinders, reclining seats as an option, aluminum trimmed window frames, 15″ wheels and tight turning circles.
Spoiler alert: In the X Ray brochure the Americans won.
Good to see seat belts have been installed in it. My 63 Valiant had, at some point, aftermarket belts installed before I got it and I have never failed to use them. [Nor any since I began driving].
The best styling description of these bread-box Rambler was made by an English fellow that worked as a clay modeler that was with Dick Teague when he came to AMC. Upon seeing this styling, Teague reported he said “My god Dick, it looks like a ruddy ordinance vehicle!”
The symmetrical dashboard layout was done no doubt to facilitate RHD conversions for those overseas markets.
We had a number of successful AMC dealers within a twenty mile circle, this area was lousy with these goofy little Ramblers!
Wow,this is MY car!I mean im the Owner,its a 61,OHV,door latch is broken from.a previous theft attempt…Its Felony Flattz for God sakes,The only hood in the country u can Get your AMC EAGLE,and RAMBLER AMERICAN stolen,only to be found days later unharmed and Ouuta Gas.