At Kenosha Harbor, 1958. And where might these Ramblers be going?
Image from the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Vintage Snapshots: 1958 Ramblers At Kenosha Harbor
– Posted on August 16, 2023
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IIRC these were the ‘American’ line, no ? .
Good looking and small, easy to drive .
-Nate
No, these were the full-size Classic model, I believe.
With a 108″ wheelbase, these were considered compacts back then, but perhaps closer to mid size in terms of their interior space.
I don’t think the ‘Classic’ model existed until the 1960’s. I think all station wagons in the late 50’s were either Cross Countrys or the longer wheelbase Ambassadors, and with their plain sides my guess is that the wagons in this pic would be the former.
Nice ’58 brochure at
https://www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/amc/58ram/58ram.html
Neat picture!
I looked into this a bit, and the ship, Traviata, was a Swedish ship operated by the Wallenius Line, and evidently picked up Ramblers in Kenosha for eventual distribution various European countries – mostly Sweden, but also Germany, Switzerland and Belgium and some other countries. Wallenius Line ships had been making this run since 1956, and picked up between 100 and 200 Ramblers each time. Usually the cargo involved just cars, but on at least one occasion, the Swedish ship brought a load of Allis-Chalmers forklifts to Europe as well.
The Swedish ships appear to have made this journey once or twice a year until at least 1967.
Interesting. AMC had a strong Belgian connection, and ended up being run by Belgian executives at Renault.
What’s with the label or cover on the gas flaps? If these were going to Europe, maybe it was a warning about low octane or something?
I went back and looked closer. Octane is a possibility, but also could limit the amount of gas in the tank?
Kenosha Evening News, 17 July 1958: No photos, but nice article about local WI folk of Swedish ancestry conversing with Swedish crew, etc. (Boat will soon be lengthened to take full advantage of St. Lawrence Seaway limits):
Kenosha Evening News, 3 November 1958: Similar trip, with a photo this time:
Text:
Wow, George, great info.
And we leaned that AMC’s export director was named Hudson!
Ships Nostalgia says that the Traviata, completed in 1955 by Kieler Howaldtswerke A.G., KIel for Rederi A/B Soya (Olof Wallenius, Stockholm), and her sister ship the Rigoletto are said to have been the first purpose-built car carriers.
Ninja’d by Eric 🙂
Sometime after, it was Wallenius who innovated the “Ro-Ro” shipping (Roll on-Roll off) where large folding ramps are cut into the side of the ship so they can swing down at ports and cars can be driven on and off under their own power rather than lifting them on board and unloading them by crane as seen here.
Think it’s safe to say they’re going for a “long ride”.
I worked the docks before I went work for AMC. I was told by the Kenosha Historical Society that they can in loaded with Nash Metropolitans and back out with Ramblers.
That makes sense. How many car carriers could haul cars both directions?
Love me those “Nash Metro’s”!!
First family car I remember was a 1950 Nash AMBASSADOR. Cost $3,100 .Great car. Family owned until 1959 with no problems. After final 57 NASH AMBASSADORS, only the 58 and 59 AMBASSADOR (by Rambler) held any interest for me. 59 was the better looking of the two. Visiting Kenosha years ago drove past Charlie Nash home. Too bad George Mason’s plan to combine Nash with Hudson, Packard, and Studebaker failed.
Metros imported, Ramblers exported – on same ship. That makes a lot of sense. I wonder how long this went on. Metropolitans sales ended in 1961, I think, but I doubt that the Traviata stopped shipping even-more-popular Ramblers to Europe. This was the heyday of AMC and from the time this photo was taken, until 1964, Rambler was making bank.
That ended with Abernathy.
“Too bad George Mason’s plan to combine Nash with Hudson, Packard, and Studebaker failed.” I wouldn’t have wanted Studebaker’s problems. South Bend sucked up every dollar Packard had and still couldn’t make a profit. Studebaker was a disaster looking for a sugar daddy. Any merger with AMC would have killed AMC. Rambler was a success and it didn’t need an old 1953 Studebaker posing as a Lark creeping on its success.
Well said VanillaDude.
That plan died with George M. himself, it might have been interesting had he not died when he did.
Interesting, perhaps, but I can’t imagine the eventual outcome being anything other than what happened with Studebaker-Packard, i.e., shuttered factories.
About the only difference would have been badge-engineered Nashs and Studebakers, and not much else (other than what actually happened, i.e., Avanti and Hawk GT).
You wouldn’t see this scene anywhere in the present day with modern cars, excepting maybe some remote third world or arctic port. I wonder when loading cars one-at-a-time with a crane was completely replaced with Roll-on/Roll-off ships. Now if you are shipping one or just a few cars, they just put the car(s) into a shipping container and load that.
One of those probably ended up at Bock Rambler in Massachusetts, where my grandmother purchased a top end two tone Rambler wagon as a wedding present for my mother and second husband. Push button auto which broke in 1960. Moved onto a 1960 dark green Rambler wagon. Never any issues as long as we had it.
Our Governor was driving a ’58 Rambler at the time. A buddy and I were walking around the Capitol Square in Madison one late afternoon when he (Gaylord Nelson, IIRC) drove out from the Capitol and waved to us! “Buying” future VOTES!! 🙂
I had no idea these were being exported via ship out of Kenosha until seeing this. GOOD information from Wisconsin’s Industrial past. Wisconsin may have been known as the “Dairy State”, but the amount of industrial products that flowed from the State-and still does-is quite impressive. DFO
My inspection guy has one of those V8 automatic AC power glass its still LHD and unlike to have come here new like that but a nice car.
Around 1977, while on lunch break from the nearby high school, watched a crane operator loading a lone, windowed Econoline, get it swinging and banged it a few times against the side of the opening to the hold. Crane operators had to be skilled to do this.
My sister and I were born in ’58, but we came home from the hospital in my Dad’s 1956 Plymouth Plaza, no options (well, maybe a heater, but no radio) flathead 6 and manual. He’d bought it before he met my Mother, and in combination with my sister and my arrival, that influenced the next purchase, a few years later, of a new ’61 Rambler Classic wagon (one with the “chevron” taillights) in Compton, CA. We’d since moved from Beverly, Ma where we were born to California…my Dad who changed jobs frequently back then, as his job was in transistor fabrication (he was a chemist) he had to live physically near the production and changed companies frequently as there was quite a bit of flux in companies early on. Anyhow, the Rambler had an automatic with the 6, something that he repeated in 1963, where again he bought another Classic wagon new….why so soon wish I’d asked him, he tended not to hold onto cars too long, but 2 years was short even for him, but I think maybe the ’61 got sandblasted on the way back from California (we’d moved to Pennsylvania in the meantime) and rather than getting it prepped and painted, he just bought another car in an attempt to avoid rust onset I guess. Turned out not to be a good idea, by June ’65 we were moving from yet another location (Catonsville, Md.) and staying in a motel after having vacated our home there moving to Burlington Vt, my Dad was crossing route 40 after being waved on by another driver, only to have the Rambler clobbered by a car in the other lane in the same direction. Guess it didn’t have safety glass; my grandmother who was staying with us was picking shards of glass out of his skin in our motel room afterward.
That was our last Rambler, last AMC car, and I guess last compact for “main” family car…my Dad bought a new ’65 Olds F85 wagon at Val Preda’s in South Burlington, which he picked us up in (we stayed with grandparents). We never lived within 200 miles of my Grandparents my whole life, my parents having moved away after they got married, but we did visit, probably 100 times over the years. We had the F85 through ’69, when my father traded it in on a new ’69 Country Squire, moving up to full size wagon for the first time.
Sweeden, huh? Maybe in trade for Volvos or Saabs? Ramblers were similarly sized I guess, it makes sense, though the Sweedish cars were much more popular than Ramblers from what I could tell once we’d moved up to Burlington, anyhow.