Vintage Review: 1969 AMC-Hurst SC/Rambler – AMC Pulls A Fast One On Us

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.