I have no idea how this happened, but it did. The pictures are there to prove it. There was a break in the space-time continuum and a pink Rambler wagon appeared, seemingly straight out of Havana. The weirdest body variant from the unlikeliest ‘50s American carmaker, dressed in the most cliché of hues and nowhere near the usual concours condition – something was very, very off.
But the glitch in the matrix was a good one, for once. OK, so the twin exhaust does hint at something a bit fishy going on in the engine bay, but everything else looks positively barn-fabulous.
It’s impossible not to love the original Rambler. Small American cars are fascinating, but whether we’re talking pre-war Willys, the Crosley or the Henry J., they’re usually more than a little weird. The Rambler wasn’t: it was deliberately designed as a miniature Nash Airflyte, so it fit within the larger Nash range quite snugly. And the Metropolitan fit in the Rambler. Like Russian nesting dolls, but in bathtub Nash form.
There was demand for a family-sized Rambler, as the original 100-in. wheelbase two-door models were a bit cramped in the back. Nash obliged in 1954 with the 108-in. wheelbase 4-door sedan and Cross Country wagon. The bathtub shape’s number one champion, Nash CEO George Mason, died that year, so the ’55 models (above) got a wider front track and wheel openings. Also, Ramblers were now to be sold under the Hudson brand alongside Nash, but both marques would be retired pretty soon anyway. As was the original Rambler, which was replaced by a slightly larger second-generation model for 1956. But the old dies were kept and AMC improbably (but astutely) resurrected the 100-in. Rambler in 1958, giving the old Nash design another three years in the limelight.
The shape of these Cross Country Ramblers is just amazing. Instead of trying desperately to hide the fact that they used the same stampings as the sedan, à la Volvo, the Nash designers leaned into it. “See? We added this mismatched bit to the back end, just so we could add value but still keep the price down,” this seems to say. The very idea of a small American car is reverse psychology anyway, so why not play this “deliberately cheap” gambit to the max?
This, plus the car’s overall condition, colour and location – not merely cross country, but cross Pacific – had me wiping my eyes in disbelief as the lady driver hit the gas when the light turned green. I had definitely encountered the CC Highlight Zone.
Related posts:
Vintage Snapshot: 1955 Rambler Wagon On Its Way To Las Vegas, by Rich Baron
Photo Album Outtake: 1950 Nash Rambler Landau, by Ed Stembridge
Vintage Ad: “She Drives A Rambler”, And No, She “Wasn’t Lavishly Spending Her Husband’s Money”, by PN
Cars Of A Lifetime: A Rambler in Relief, by Barry Koch
I get that the stampings were resurrected in 58, but why did the “frame” not seem to match the body?
Always seemed like the rear wheels were a few inches too forward, or the wheelbase was shortened and nobody checked with the body team…
These were unibody cars, and the first version had fully concealed rear wheels. The ’58 rear wheel opening that was created clearly seems to start too far back, and my guess is that the underlying unibody had a critical structural element there that they could not remove. It’s truly hard to imagine that Ed Andersen would have done that unless it was somehow necessary, but I certainly can’t vouch for that.
Maybe restyling ate the budget for a new tailshaft
It has nothing to do with the tail shaft.
Not wanting to change the rear door pressings?
There were no rear door pressings; it was only a 2-door until 1960. We are talking of the little 100″ wb American.
Hence why I framed “frame” in quotes. See what I did there?
The results certainly looked odd. Like an old man wearing Depends; nothing lines up properly.
I did, and assumed you likely knew it was a unibody. But that’s precisely why they likely did what they did; if it had a separate frame it would have been a non-issue.
To my eyes, this is a well preserved survivor car. I wouldn’t change a thing. Finding it in Japan only adds to the allure of whatever might be the history of this particular Rambler.
I do wonder how this must look through the prism of Japanese expectations of car appearance. Are observers more likely to be delighted by the unusual sight or offended by the less than pristine condition?
The Japanese are very sophisticated car connoisseurs, and their ability to appreciate an original car, especially one as unusual and cool as this Rambler wagon, is undoubtedly very real.
As soon as I laid eyes on that first photo, my immediate thought was, “Dr. Seuss”.
It looks very much like something he’d have drawn. I’d almost hate to see this restored to original condition. It’s so perfect just as it is. Positively Seuss-icle.
The short older lady reaching up to the steering wheel completes the perfect time capsule. She was the archetypal Rambler driver.
“We added this mismatched bit to the back end”
previewing the re-used rear doors on the Volvo 140/240 wagons!
Ramblers were really Volvos before Volvo. Without the safety features but with the excellent climate control system, and seats that could be folded into a bed!
It’s spectacular, I remember seeing the junkyard one a few years back and circling it a few times before shooting it, realizing it would be extremely unlikely to ever see one on the street or even a show. And yet in Tokyo, there’s apparently the Japanese Mary Kay division’s top sales professional of the year 1955 wheeling around in her prize.
This may be the equivalent of the JPC-spotted tan Espada in the Indiana Wal-Mart parking lot of a decade or so ago…
Not surprised to see this show up in Japan. They know a gem when they see one. I love these.
The bathtub shape’s number one champion, Nash CEO George Mason, died that year, so the ’55 models (above) got a wider front track and wheel openings.
You repeated an oft cited myth that I definitively debunked in my ’55 Cross Country CC: “But as is the case with a number of automotive legends and myths, like the “garden party” story about the 1962 Dodge/Plymouth downsizing, there’s a bit of a timing and logic issue with this one that no one seems to have considered until now. George Mason died unexpectedly on October 8, 1954 from an acute illness. And the new 1955 Ramblers, with exposed front wheels and a wider front track, were shown to the public on…November 23.” So obviously this change in the tooling was well under way before Mason died.
fixed the text — arigato
Some Nissan SUVs had a very similar roof shape as these Rambler wagons, even though they weren’t based on a sedan.
BTW, Ramblers in the ’50s weren’t actually cheap. The base price of this wagon was higher than that of a Chevy 4-door wagon. They were chic, had a higher-income/education buyer demographic, and had an image not unlike some of the nicer imports; this was the Volvo wagon of its times.
Ramblers became truly more “cheap” in price and image after 1960 when the Big 3 compacts arrived, looking more modern. Rambler’s ’50s buyers moved on to bigger and better things, leaving the brand floundering.
As to the wagon’s roofline, while it was clearly a cost saving measure to reuse the sedan’s roof and door stampings, it also made them look less utilitarian and more distinctive and even a bit sporty/chic flair. Other wagons head a taller than normal roof to accommodate a third seat, but Rambler didn’t bother; they turned a limitation into something a bit different.
I too like this survivor in spite of it’s (IMO) odd mash up styling .
It looks like someone began to rub out the original paint then got tired .
Also looks like missing full size wheel covers .
A dummy exhaust tip wasn’t unusual in the mid 1950’s, Studebaker did it at the factory .
-Nate
Looks to me like the right side doors and part of the fender had a later respray as a result of an accident.
Good catch, nothing that surfaces in Japan surprises me, I see what has turned up used in New Zealand over the years, later found to be the only one and re-exported but surviving original NZ assembly cars are the rarest of American brands now, the right side of that car had a partial respray sometime in its past and the paint hasnt lasted as well as the original factory finish the blend is still visible.
The streets appear , oddly, traffic free. Is this “typical”? Was the poor, ole “Rambler”,noisy?
The ‘grafted on’ appearance of the hatch area of this Rambler is a lot more apparent than the same area on the Volvo 240 Wagon.