Folks often tend to remember Car & Driver as cynical and anti-Detroit; actually that was all-too often not the case. Case in point: the AMC-Hurst SC/Rambler: they were a lot more positive than I was at the time. I saw this one-trick pony for what it was: a classic PR-mobile, created for the sole purpose of trying to rehabilitate the image of Ramblers (and AMCs, by extension) as cars for spinster librarians and crotchety old men. It was blatantly obvious that this Rambler wrapped in American colors and a hood scoop that looked like it was a HVAC system ducting plenum was trying desperately to outdo the madly successful Plymouth Road Runner, which had arrived in 1968.
The results were highly predictable: while Plymouth sold 85K RRs in 1969, AMC sold all of 1512 “Scramblers”. Given the fact that its $2998 price undoubtedly didn’t cover the cost of sending Rambler Rogue coupes to Hurst’s facility to make the necessary modifications and paint job, I suppose its production numbers were bound to be limited, as AMC had only so much to lose on each one. But hey; C/D was sucked in, although they admitted its handling sucked.
Reading some of these old C/D reviews is actually a bit tedious; they were so full of themselves with their clever wordsmithing, but it gets too long and windy. It was a different time; folks craved things to read, so the longer the articles the better. Nowadays it’s the exact polar opposite. Frankly, I think I prefer the latter. There’s not much meat in this first page, but plenty of trimmings. Let’s get on with it…
Like the hood scoop. In case some of those spinster librarians wondered what it was for, AMC made sure to inform them properly.
The red, white and blue theme got carried away with itself, no more than with the striped headrests that could be seen from the outside, but open the door and what awaits one? Very drab and cheap black vinyl; not the nice kind found in the Rogue coupe, but the kind that came in the low-end sedans or wagons. Trying a bit too hard to emulate the Road Runner.
C/D tries to be clever and humorous with their observations, but it does not hold up to the test of time: “Elderly ladies in the back of limousines interrupted their pinochle games and lifted lorgnettes to their eyes to stare in wonderment at its passage…Wellesely girls working on their doctorates in Chinatown ogled and simpered at the driver”. Can you cram some more sexist/racist stereotypes in there?
They come down to earth some by admitting this is not a proper well-rounded performance car; it may go semi-reasonably quick down the quarter mile, but its handling is mediocre.
As to its actual performance, the hot rod Rambler did not quite live up to its billing, and was a bit slower than the 383 Super Bee that C/D had tested as well as the 396 Nova and Fairlane Cobra. Still, pretty quick for a Rambler.
C/D correctly speculates that AMC likely wasn’t making any money on the SC/Rambler (undoubtedly so) and points out that its purpose is to get attention and get guys to come in and buy a 343 cubic inch Rogue. Just one problem with that: the 343 wasn’t available on the American/Rogue; the hottest engine was the 225 hp 290 V8. And the 1969 Rogue looked so…1963. So no, this was not an effective halo car; I suppose they might go for a Javelin or AMX, but then why not make an SC version of those?
Instead, AMC went on to make a Rebel machine in 1970. Which of course was just essentially a recap of the SC/Rambler. And about equally effective in selling Rebels in any quantity to the kind of buyers that were buying Road Runners, SS396s and GTOs.
Yes, these make my jaded old lips smile a bit, but it’s mostly in irony. But then irony is the only way to deal with them; I hope nobody took them seriously.
Some cars are cool. Others try to be cool, and fail because one of the rules of a cool car is that if you have to try to be cool, you’re not cool. AMC always fell into the trap of making the second kind. The Duster 340 was cool. Cars like the SC/Rambler and the Rebel Machine tried too hard and as a result were not cool. I guess such a thing is inevitable when your cars are workmanlike but undistinguished designs. You can tweak these designs, but all you can do is try to overcome the weaknesses.
The irony is that AMC actually had a prototype ‘cool’ musclecar, but then declined to put it into production. When it became apparent that the 1968 Road Runner was going to be a hit, AMC’s original answer was quite a bit different from the loudly striped 1970 Rebel Machine. The 1969 Machine prototype was a strippo painted flat-black with steelies and small Machine decals of two gear images.
But they must have fallen into the same trap as Pontiac with GTO Judge and decided more profit could be had with a higher price mostly due to a bunch of flashy paint and stiping, i.e., a 1970 Rebel version of the SC/Rambler, with the same, predictable lackluster sales. It didn’t help that 1970 was the year when the big auto insurance musclecar surcharges began hitting home.
This would make a great sleeper car. Must removes, the paint detail on the hood and the hood scoop. Leave the red on the sides and the cool blue on the wheels. Has all the right stuff inside and under the hood. Love the conservative body style.
I’d drive it…….today.
Never much followed AMC back in the day. They were always on the periphery. Wonder about build quality. LAPD ordered a bunch of Matadors in the early 70’s and made those their fleet cars. None of my friends or their families had ’em. Don’t know much more.
A conservative/dated design like this, is probably best presented as a sleeper alternative. Not, loud, and silly graphics. As an underdog, and the genuine challenger. The 1967 Rebel Machine concept, that JP Cavanaugh spoke of here before, would have been a better marketing direction. As Chrysler for example, worked successfully with the Dodge Omni GLH and GLHS.
AMC often did some great work with the buy American approach, but they carried it too far at times.
They also did a 1971 Matador Machine but it wasn’t successeful either and there few example who survived to this day.
https://www.motortrend.com/features/amc-machine-madness-1970-rebel-and-1971-matador-hit-the-streets/
https://www.streetmusclemag.com/features/car-features/muscle-cars-you-should-know-1971-amc-matador-machine/
Don’t believe I’ve ever seen the “S/C” in actual “real world”. As for the “Machine”, I can think of two/three.
The hood graphics look like some parody. Split bench seats, really? BTW is it just a perspective trick or is the driver’s seat wider?
I think I would like this car without the hood scoop – apparently a repurposed roof vent – and the “390 cu in air” lettering. It’s definitely trying too hard, and that’s where you fail. The paint scheme works ok to my eye. The headrests do nothing to hide the cheap interior, however. The Rebel Machine is a lot closer to what you’d want; maybe it’s still pushing a little too hard, but not over the top.
As for the C&D review, I can’t be bothered to read most of it. Maybe they figured they had two kinds of people buying the mag: the guy who’d just look at the pictures and skip straight to the charts, and the guy on the bus/train/plane who’d actually read it all. Still, it’s painful. It’s like a college paper that’s short on actual material, so the writer embellishes with meaningless fluff to meet the length requirement. I like reading long, engrossing articles, but it requires talent to take two pages worth of facts and stretch it out to five pages while making it it better reading in the process. I’m thinking of writers like Peter Egan, who could write a column about puttering around on one of his cars and taking it for a short drive and be more interesting than the average writer taking on the juiciest of material. Of course, it’s the opposite problem today: car mags are dying, and push visual impact and catchy headlines rather than relying on sound writing and story-telling – things that are lost on many readers anyway. But still, the lesson remains: when you run out of good material, wrap it up. Whimsy and hyperbolic metaphors are great – used sparingly – but just tedious if overused.
I found the SC/Rambler’s unorthodox hood sccop interesting, if not aesthetically pleasing, and have wondered if it’s actually effective.
Musclecar hood scoops typically did two things: they let some hot underhood air escape, and they increased noise from an unsilenced air cleaner. Most of them were just for looks and did little to increase horsepower or performance. As one might have expected, Chrysler did most of the research on what worked and what didn’t, and found that the problem with hood scoops is they were typically too close to the hood and needed to get above the hood’s boundary layer of air to work. The two best examples were the big, honking scoop on top of the fiberglass, lift-off hood of the 1969 Road Runner/Super Bee 440-6v. The other one that worked well was the scoop for the 340-6v engine of the 1970 Challenger T/A. Both of those got high enough from the hood’s surface to have some effect.
This is where I wonder if the odd-shaped SC/Rambler scoop followed the same principle. It certainly appears that way by getting the opening high enough off of the hood to be of some actual performance benefit. It just isn’t shaped very well.
Others that I ‘think’ worked were the cowl-induction scoops that Chevrolet used on the 1969 Camaro Z/28 and the 1970-72 Chevelle SS cars that had a vacuum operated flap at the rear.
Likewise, the late sixties’ Olds 442 W-30 option had a couple of scoops mounted low underneath the front bumper that might have improved performance somewhat. The big issue with those was snow that would clog them in the winter and most owners quickly learned to remove the intakes in those conditions.
Looks like a clown car in the circus. Anyone who values their career really takes a chance on designs like this. Yes, there are other examples of exuberance (“The Judge” comes to mind) however this really does push the envelope.
I’m going against the overall grain of the
hatchet jobnegativity and say I like this car, it’s kinda’ cool, as is the Rebel Machine. Were they prolific and commercially successful as their competition? No. So what. It’s fun and interesting automotive history, which need not be judged from the perspective of late day car biz financial analysis. No need to break out your elephant guns on a rare species.I’m glad for any of these I’ve got to see as survivors/restored, and even got a chance to ride in one about a dozen years ago.