Curbside Classic’s recent republishing of a Car and Driver hit piece on the 1964 Rambler American illustrates how much power car buff magazines could have in molding public opinion. Here we are, more than a half century later, yet numerous commentators accepted at face value the magazine’s overamped take.
For example, XR7Matt (2018) concluded that “I really do like the article, it’s fair and upfront.” He added that it “could have been a hatchet job but instead it thoroughly reviewed this car for a gearhead centered magazine, and probably diffused more prejudices with readers than it reenforced.”
Car and Driver had snarkily declared that the redesigned compact was a car for “unimaginative people to drive to unimaginative destinations on straight, smooth roads” (2004a, p. 62).
That quote sounds even worse when you add the previous line: “In its defense, we should say that nobody from Mr. Abernethy down to the lowest laborer ever expected people to try to have fun while driving the American” (Car and Driver, 2004a, p. 62; original italics). Roy Abernethy became the president of American Motors in 1962 when his predecessor, George Romney, successfully ran for governor of Michigan.
Don’t get me wrong — I am not suggesting that the 1964 American was a paragon of sportiness. Quite the contrary. However, the Rambler was arguably in the same ballpark as competing domestic compacts. Car and Driver’s negativity appears to have been heavily colored by Abernethy’s criticism of the horsepower race then engulfing the Big Three automakers. This was payback.
The redesigned Rambler American was the only compact in 1964 that had trendy curved side glass. However, more modern and powerful engines would have to wait until later. Click on image to see full ad (Old Car Advertisements).
Surprise! Rambler American was an economy car
Car and Driver’s take was considerably different from Motor Trend’s, which concluded that the American “should fill the bill for the man who wants reliable, economical transportation and isn’t much concerned with blazing performance” (McVay, 1963; p. 61).
Motor Trend did not shy away from noting weaknesses such as jumpy brakes and overly slow manual steering, but it also pointed out positives ignored by Car and Driver, such as unusually good off-road manners and dual master-cylinder brakes (1963; p. 61).
Motor Trend’s test car achieved 0-60 mph times of 18.6 seconds. That was slower than the 14.7 seconds recorded for a 1964 Dodge Dart GT with a 225 cubic-inch six, but faster than the 20 seconds for a 1963 Dart with the 170 c.i. engine (Wright, 1963).
One could dismiss Motor Trend’s more positive assessment because the magazine had a reputation for softball road tests. So let’s compare Car and Driver’s snearing dismissiveness to Road & Track’s conclusions about a strippo 1967 American:
“All in all, there are lots of good things to be said about the Rambler American 220. It is a good size for U.S. driving conditions (you don’t feel threatened by every full-sized Detroit sedan you see) and it isn’t going to be made obsolete by styling changes next fall. It’s not dirt cheap to operate (we averaged 18.6 mpg in our test car, compared to imports getting up to 30 mpg) but it is considerably livelier in performance than the more economical models and offers more space for both people and baggage” (Road & Track, 2004; p. 104).
Road & Track may very well have been describing the above Car and Driver road test when noting that as “enthusiasts we tend to forget that we’re a smug minority and that for a whole world of people there’s no social stigma attached to driving a ‘sensible’ car” (2004; p. 102).
In early 1967 the American’s prices were slashed to better compete against imported economy cars. However, AMC made no effort to appeal to prospective buyers of imports by spicing up low-end American models (Old Car Advertisements).
American Motors made two big mistakes
All that said, American Motors under Abernethy made two big mistakes. First, it failed to generate enough positive free media to help compensate for its much smaller marketing budget relative to its Big Three competitors. Pissing off enthusiast magazines with anti-racing screeds was not helpful.
Second, by failing to respond to legitimate criticisms of its cars, AMC lost out on a potentially lucrative opportunity. By the mid-60s the market for imported cars was beginning to take off again. Perhaps not so coincidentally, production of traditional compacts collapsed from over 2.1 million in 1962 to roughly 524,000 units in 1967.
A growing number of car buyers didn’t want a plain-vanilla domestic compact — they sought the sportier features of imported cars.
Even the humble Volkswagen Beetle was arguably more fun to drive than the likes of a Rambler American because it had bucket seats, a four-speed floor shifter, nimble handling and sure-footed brakes.
By 1964 all compacts offered top-end, two-door hardtops with at least some sporting pretensions. Pictured from top: Chevrolet Chevy II Nova SS, Ford Falcon Futura Sprint and Plymouth Valiant Signet (Old Car Brochures).
Most other U.S. compacts weren’t much sportier
American Motors was hardly the only domestic auto maker that missed the boat. With only a few exceptions such as the Chevrolet Corvair, the Big Three’s compacts did not try very hard to compete in the cheap-but-sporty market during the 1960s. They offered high-end models with such features as bucket seats, center consoles and floor shifters, but the cars still looked fairly sedate — and had roadworthiness that wasn’t all that much better.
For 1964 the American had the most modern styling of any compact, but it also had a disadvantage: It was the only car in its class aside from the Corvair that did not offer a V8-engine option. However, that may not have been as big of a deal as car enthusiasts might assume. As a case in point, only 13 percent of Chevy IIs were equipped with a V8 in 1964.
When so-called “pony cars” such as the Ford Mustang began appearing, they may have offered a much more stylish alternative to their utilitarian compact siblings, but in standard form they arguably weren’t much more roadworthy than a Rambler.
For example, Paul Niedermeyer (2013) noted that the Camaro had “lousy brakes, heavy or over-assisted steering, terminal understeer, rear axle hop under acceleration and braking, etc. But it had that long hood and big, cheap V8s.”
Car and Driver grudgingly acknowledged that the 1964 redesign was an improvement over the previous generation (pictured is a 1963 model). They also described the new American’s styling as attractive (Old Car Brochures).
This is why I would argue that the Rambler’s stodgy reputation was only partially deserved. Even before the brand started offering higher-performance models in 1966, you could increase an American’s roadworthiness by opting for a heavy-duty suspension. And while AMC stuck with archaic vacuum-powered windshield wipers for entirely too long, electric wipers were optional.
As a magazine that championed sporty cars, you’d think that Car and Driver would have road tested the most capable American. For example, its test car had a front bench seat whereas Motor Trend‘s car had buckets and a center console.
Rambler American ads in 1965 emphasized the availability of a more modern and powerful 232 cubic-inch six-cylinder engine. That improved 0-60 mph acceleration to 13.8 seconds (McVay, 1965). Click on image to see full ad (AACA).
Perhaps the p.r. folks at American Motors weren’t as strategic as they could have been in the which press cars they loaned out. By the same token, perhaps Car and Driver didn’t try hard enough to properly option its American because of the magazine’s stated antipathy toward Abernethy.
At the beginning of the American’s review, Car and Driver acknowledged, “We must be quite honest at this point and admit that we were all thoroughly prejudiced against American Motors’ Rambler before we ever set out to do this road test” (2004a, p. 61).
For 1966 the American received a facelift that was more successful in the rear than the front. The two-door sedan was too tall and boxy to be sporty because it shared a roofline with the four-door sedan rather than the two-door hardtop.
AMC didn’t need big engines to appeal to car buffs
American Motors arguably did not need to offer its own muscle cars in order to get on the good side of Car and Driver. Volkswagen was not in the doghouse for concentrating on small-engined economy cars. Instead of mouthing off, Abernethy could have instead offered a Europeanesque alternative to the likes of the Pontiac GTO.
It wouldn’t have taken all that much to turn the American into a capable sporty compact. For example, a 1966 road test by Car Life (2004) found the new top-of-line Rogue hardtop to be fairly competitive with other compacts such as the Chevy II SS and Dodge Dart GT.
By 1966 the American offered a floor-mounted four-speed transmission, a beefier suspension, front disc brakes and a small-block V8 engine. However, the car still suffered from rear-wheel lockup in braking. Road testers also found new glitches, such as a finicky shifter.
The 1967 American Rogue was priced like a pony car but looked dorky and was only an average performer. That’s too bad because the basic design was still relatively modern and had potential as a low-end sporty coupe (Old Car Brochures).
The Rogue never caught fire sales-wise. In 1966 AMC produced only 8,718 units — which fell to 5,050 the following year. Part of the problem was that the car was saddled with too much chrome trim and a weird two-tone paint scheme. But even if the styling had been sportier, the Rogue suffered from a more fundamental problem. In 1967 the hardtop’s list price was $2,426. That was only $35 less than a base Mustang.
In general, the American was priced fairly closely to Big Three compacts such as the Ford Falcon — at least before the price was cut in the middle of the 1967 model year.
AMC tried to beat the Big Three at their own game
Eventually AMC did give the American a truly sporty model — the 1969 Hurst SC/Rambler. Unfortunately, this was a hard-core muscle car, replete with a big-block 390 cubic-inch V8 and what may very well have been the most outrageous paint scheme of the 1960s. The sheer excessiveness of this car was presumably designed to utterly demolish the Rambler’s stodgy image.
Car and Drivers’ review of the SC/Rambler lauded it as “an extraordinarily low-priced street racer,” albeit with over-amped styling and unsophisticated handling (2004, p. 117). For all of its quirkiness, American Motors was now considered a card-carrying member of the high-performance tribe.
The 1969 Hurst SC/Rambler was a potent muscle car, but only 1,502 units were built (Old Car Brochures).
Joining the boy racer crowd didn’t help sales
The SC/Rambler was presumably intended to be a low-volume “halo car.” Thus, it would be unfair to complain that it sold less than 2,000 copies. More important is whether the car helped generate greater interest — and thus sales — for the automaker.
For 1969, less than 98,000 Americans left the factory. That was 3 percent higher than the previous year. However, this improvement was largely the result of a 60 percent increase in wagon sales.
Meanwhile, AMC as a whole produced roughly 283,000 cars in 1969. This was 106,000 fewer than in the stodgy old days of 1964. As a point of comparison, in 1969 Volkswagen sold more than 566,000 cars in the U.S., which was almost twice as many as five years earlier.
What if AMC had gone cheap but sporty?
Imagine if AMC had offered a compact coupe that split the difference in price between a typical top-end sporty model and the imports. Picture a decontented Rogue two-door hardtop that still included sporty features such as bucket seats, a floor shifter, disc brakes, quick-ratio steering and a tossable suspension. Add flip-out back windows, decent-looking racing stripes and a juiced up six-cylinder engine or a small-block V8.
Also imagine that AMC fixed the technical glitches. Market the car as the lowest-priced sporty coupe built in the United States. Such a car wouldn’t have made Car and Driver drool like it did over the GTO. However, road testers might have given the American a thumbs up rather than a raspberry. That might have helped improve AMC’s image in ways that generated meaningful sales.
The 1971 Ford Maverick Grabber offered a sportier look than the base model. The list price was fairly low for the time — $2,354, which was roughly $180 above the base model. However, bucket seats were optional (Old Car Brochures).
The car just described has some similarities to sporty versions of the Plymouth Duster and Ford Maverick. While considerably less stylish than the pony cars, they outsold every one of them beginning in 1970 (go here for further discussion).
In 1971 AMC belatedly offered a cheap-but-sporty compact with its Hornet SC/360. The car sold poorly so was replaced with an “X” package in 1972 (top image). In 1973 a much more stylish hatchback was introduced (Old Car Brochures).
Kaiser of Argentina pointed to another possibility
AMC could have also offered a higher-priced variant with a more European flavor than found on domestic sporty coupes. The template for such a car came from an unexpected place — Industrias Kaiser Argentina — or IKA. In 1966 they borrowed the American’s body and turned it into a potent grand touring coupe called the Torino (Wikipedia, 2020). Pininfarina did a surprisingly good job of making the car look like it came from Italy (Margeit, 2020).
AMC could have come out with something vaguely similar to the Torino for far less money than the automaker spent on the Javelin. For all that pony car’s charms, it likely did not sell well enough through its entire product cycle to earn a profit.
AMC produced only 55,000 Javelins in its peak year of 1968. That was slightly more than the base American two-door sedan. Go here for further discussion about why the Javelin was not terribly successful (Old Car Brochures).
In a way Abernethy was right — the average Joe didn’t need a veritable drag strip racer. In addition, Car and Driver’s review of the 1964 American did display an unfair bias.
Even so, the magazine’s road testers were essentially correct. The American was not a very fun car to drive, particularly compared to an import. If AMC had responded to that criticism without indulging in muscle-car madness, the automaker might not have had such a close brush with death in the late-60s.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted on Nov. 1, 2018 and expanded on Dec. 4, 2020, Feb. 8, 2023 and Oct. 18, 2024. In the 1964-67 list prices graph, the 1967 Rambler American does not show mid-year price cuts. Production figures for American Motors are from Gunnell (2002). Sales figures for Volkswagen are from Gunnell (2004).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
Car and Driver; 2004a. “Rambler American: An improved Rambler is nobody’s Car of the Year.” AMC Rambler Limited Edition Extra: 1956-1969. R. M. Clarke, editor. Brooklands Books: pp. 61-63.
——; 2004b. “AMC-Hurst SC/Rambler: American Motors takes its Clark Kent model into George Hurst’s phone booth and walks out with a Super Car.” May 1969. AMC Rambler Limited Edition Extra: 1956-1969. R. M. Clarke, editor. Brooklands Books: pp. 115-123.
Car Life; 2004. “All-American V8: Can an Over/Underdog Survive the Catcars?” August 1966. AMC Rambler Limited Edition Extra: 1956-1969. R. M. Clarke, editor. Brooklands Books: pp. 91-95.
Road & Track; Clarke, R.M.; 2004. “Rambler American 220: A sensible approach to sensible transportation.” August 1967. AMC Rambler Limited Edition Extra: 1956-69. R. M. Clarke, editor. Brooklands Books: pp. 102-104.
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23 Comments
No, the average Joe didn’t need a drag racer. The average Joe doesn’t need a class 2 pickup or a cavernous 8 seat SUV either. Yet here we are. The Americanized IKA Torino sounds interesting, but the upscale compact Hudson Jet ruined Hudson a decade before, something I am sure was fresh in some AMC execujtive minds.
The problem, as I see it, was that no U.S. auto manufacturer offered a basic compact car with a solid engine, front disc-brakes, a better- than-average suspension, rack-and-pinion steering and an interior that was comfortably durable for five people. (On paper, an Americanized bigger version of the Ford Cortina might have filled the bill with Ford’s biggest Falcon six.) A Rambler American with these attributes, but without the trunnions (proper upper and lower control arms), and with the 232-cu.in. six and the 330-model trim level would have been a winner in 1964. As a long time Road & Track reader, I know publisher John R. Bond wanted us to drive Peugeot 403 / 404s, while Brock Yates and David E. Davis were pushing the 1964 Pontiac G.T.O. with a trick 389 (421 ?). I do not recall C & D advocating any real slightly above base compact car with an engine strong enough to withstand the punishment dished out by the average American driver on a mix of highways and city streets. Other than the 232 / 258 A.M.C. sixes, the best sixes were the Chrysler Slant Six, the 230 Chevrolet and the Ford 240. I know from personal experience, compact cars with these engines handled reasonably well, were durable and suited the driving for most average Americans. This is what I never understood in the Detroit thinking about compact cars: The ideal inexpensive car was originally the 1955 Chevrolet 210 Delray with Powerglide and the six. In 1962, it was the Chevy II Nova 400 with the 194 six, but in 1963, it was the Plymouth Valiant 200. Too bad the Rambler American was saddled with the smaller 195.6-cu.-in. A.M.C. flathead six and the trunnion front suspension when it hit the marketplace in the fall of 1963. (I understand that the O.H.V. version became available later that fall.) Why didn’t someone in any U.S. automaker realize that there was a need for an economical, reliable, good handling / braking compact that hit the sweet spot of expectations back in 1962-1965 ? Was that need filled by the original Mustang and Falcon in 1964 ? (Today, I would say that need is served by the Toyota Carolla and the Kia Soul.) Of course, in 1964, the U.S. automakers were advertising high-style, luxury and performance, not everyday basic but comfortable transportation. Romney understood the strategic niche for Rambler. Abernathy did not.
Is Studebaker being forgotten/ignored – AGAIN? Historians shouldn’t do that!
You want a ’63/’64 compact car with a) a “solid” V8 engine? Studebaker 259 or 289. 0r -a souped-up or supercharged 289 (or race-prepped supercharged 304.5 in ’64). Available in any Studebaker.
b) a disc brakes? Available in any Studebaker starting ’63. Standard on Avanti.
c) a better-than-average suspension? If by that you mean handling, Studebaker had optional H/D shocks and springs, and front and rear sway bars. The suspension was reliable and durable (Shell 4000 rally won twice! Earlier cars raced at Sebring and elsewhere) and just a few years ago a fully restored ’64 Lark “Marshal” (Studebaker’s police package model) bested the time of all the new Crown Vics in a police car handling/slalom driving contest to which it was invited.
d) a rack-and-pinion steering system. Well, you got me there!
e) a comfortable and durable space for five. If you’ve ever sat in a ’63/’64 “Lark-type”, you’d know that this was requirement was NO problem to say the least!
Studebaker had a “sporty” Daytona model with bucket seats and any or all of the above either standard or available from 1963 (4-speed T-10 manual as well). Even a fabric Skytop sunroof was available (’61-’63). But anything Studebaker did at the time was destined to be, unfortunately, short-lived and therefore easily forgotten by the public. Historians should not. So please forgive my reminders.
There may have been some detail “adjustments” in the availability of some things, but l believe that most of the hi-po stuff was available up to the conclusion of the model year.
The Stude foundry did not close until some time in mid-1964 – it stayed in production for a while to close out the model year engine requirements, make replacement parts to service customer’s cars already on the road and to make engines for the Zip Van USPS contract which was still on-going for a while after auto cessation in South Bend.
Good point. But how did Studebaker sales compare with Rambler’s through the early sixties? Here in Australia I saw more Studes than Ramblers back then…..
Stewdi, I’d agree that the Lark could be a more interesting car from 1962-64 than, say, the Rambler American when it came to sporty equipment. Egbert did some good things, e.g., offering disc brakes earlier than the competition.
However, remember that we’re talking about cheap and sporty alternatives to imports. Including the Lark in that category strikes me as a stretch. For one thing, the Lark line straddled the compact and mid-sized fields in size. Indeed, from 1962 onward Consumer Reports classified it as an intermediate. One could point to the shorter wheelbase of two-door models as an example of the Lark being a compact. The problem with that argument is that if you wanted decent power you pretty much needed to get a V8. Those Larks were meaningfully heavier than a comparably equipped Falcon, Chevy II or even a Dart. The 1964 R-3 Lark might have been a potent car, but I would classify it as a muscle car.
We would also do well to consider the Lark’s impact on the small sporty coupe field relative to other entries. Notice how the main car that I mentioned was the Corvair. This was because, prior to the Mustang, that was the best-selling sporty compact. And the Lark? I don’t get the sense from the production data I’ve seen that Egbert had enough time to build much of a following for sporty versions of the car.
So, no, I wasn’t forgetting Studebaker. I was making an editorial judgment. And that was based upon such considerations as the article was focused on the Rambler American. I was making only parenthetical comments about U.S. smaller cars in general, so I had to stick to highlights.
l absolutely agree that anyone going out to buy a Corvair, Mustang, Barracuda or Camaro would NOT be swayed by any American or Lark that they saw thru the front window of an AMC or Studebaker dealer on the way by. But James only said “a basic compact car”. So, that’s what I worked with.
And – a ’65 Mustang is 182 inches long. A ’62-’63 two door Lark is 184. A ’64 American is 181, l believe. A ’64 Cortina GT is 170.
The details we sweat in the world of automotive history both give us drive and drive us mad.
Yeah, a lot of our conversations come down to what boundaries you put around them. Commentators often have different ones than I would (which is entirely okay). When I write about a compact that is cheap and sporty enough to compete with imports, I’m not being literal. A compact car with a six or eight can’t be directly comparable to a typical four-cylinder import. It’s a size bigger. Indeed, I’ve criticized AMC for pretending that the Gremlin could be categorized as a subcompact (go here for further discussion).
That said, a U.S. compact could have been configured to have good handling, reasonable performance from a six, and a price meaningfully lower than the pony cars — or the high-end compacts such as the Nova SS, Falcon Futura Sprint or Dart GT. That might have appealed to at least some folks who ended up with an import. We really didn’t see those kind of models until the early-70s with sporty iterations of the Maverick, Duster and Hornet (and even they weren’t that exciting because they tended to be too decontented in key ways, such as not offering a four-speed manual with a hotter six).
It really is too bad that Egbert came to Studebaker so late in the game — and had so little resources to work with. He had some European sensibilities about car design that could have gained traction.
Okay, it’s got cop tire, cop suspension, and cop brakes. But does the cigarette lighter work? The article did say “basic compact” This I would look at as something off the lot. Your hypothetical Lark would require some serious perusing of the options book and talks with the dealer. You’re leaning heavily on the police package. I don’t know, but I doubt the other manufacturers offered such packages in their compacts.
AMC certainly could have done better.
Aside from the styling, what else was there to differentiate the American from the other compacts? While we can look down on vacuum wipers and trunnion front ends, I get the feeling there weren’t enough positive differences in the American’s favour. Rather then “Ours is better!”, they came across as an almost-pathetic “Me too!”.
It makes you wonder whether AMC understood the compact market at all. Offering the same driving experience in a smaller package worked when they had no opposition, but once the Big 3 got involved, they really needed a point of difference. They needed something noticeably better.
How about going upmarket a wee bit, in engineering terms?
Surely it wouldn’t have been too hard to rework the suspension and steering to better the roadability of the domestic opposition? I’m not saying they should have gone full-Euro, just something more connected-feeling than a Falcon, with more direct steering. And decent brakes – standard power discs and wider tyres, standard in all models, rather than chasing the lowest price. Just the thing for the dawn of the Nader era. Make it a safety-related selling point, “Ours keeps your family safer!” – then watch the feathers fly!
That was a though I had. Start positioning AMC as an American Volvo. I couldn’t get sales figures for for 1960s, but modern US sales seem to run about 100k per year, although Volvo seems to be now just another import. Volvo was able to eke out a living as a niche car up until the 90s. However this included worldwide sales. Unfortunately, I don’t think it would work.
I’ve found the word used to describe the old Rambler front ends, but no clear description of what it exactly is. I came to the same conclusion as you did. I thought it was an American usage (sorry, no pun intended).
Ah the trunnion front end, neither fish nor fowl. It had a lower ball joint and a bearing under the spring pocket, allowing the rotation of the spindle. Very antiquated and dates to the early days of independent front suspension. It took AMC many years to update their front suspensions.
I had 8 1964-1969 Rambler Americans over the years and I found them to be good looking, extremely durable, and a pleasure to drive. My 1964 American 440 Hardtop with it’s 195.6 OHV engine and automatic transmission would run comfortably 90 MPH all day long, even if it wasn’t quick from a dead stop. I’ll never understand all the talk about poor brakes, as Rambler used the same Bendix drum brakes used on the Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Dart. As long as the brakes are properly serviced, they stop on a dime. The little Americans are also very good in snow.
My Hornet’s brakes stopped the car – but the pedal pressure was very high. No, they were not power assisted, obviously.
In the spring when l got my Studebaker out of winter storage, l just about put my passengers through the windshield of the Stude because it needed much less pressure (and it was not power assisted either) but l was used to the Hornet’s brakes!
My parents bought a basic Rambler coupe in 1969. Dull metallic gray. So under-powered it was scary to drive. Cheap was the word here.
Inside door handle broke in my sisters hand, she was 4’10” 95lbs. Plastic all over and it wasn’t solid. Always figured it was one of the reasons the car company went under.
I find it hard to criticize the SC/Rambler too much because not only was it intended as a limited-edition halo model, it was a last-gasp effort to get some attention for the American, which was about to be replaced by the Hornet. So, its only real purpose was as another attempt to demonstrate that AMC was shedding its frumpy image, in that case by making an absurdly OTT hot rod out of arguably their frumpiest product, and its deliberately clownish presentation (painting “AIR” on the hood scoop?) was clearly intended to be tongue-in-cheek in the same manner as the Road Runner.
My other comment got eaten, I guess because I had a link to the Test del Ayer reprint of a 1967 road test in the Argentinian magazine Parabrisas, but I think the American potential of the IKA Torino would have been limited. The Torino was better-looking than the American on which it was based, but it shared a lot of the same flaws — Parabrisas complained about the suspension and the windshield wipers! — and even the hot 380W model (which was the only early version that really qualified as a GT) was not quite as quick as the U.S. Rambler Rogue 290. (The regular Torino had 145 or 155 hp, like a Rambler with the 232 six.) As Pontiac found with the Sprint OHC engine, the market for U.S. cars with hot sixes was modest at that point, and the 380W engine’s three Weber 45 DCOE carburetors were not a recipe for economy either in initial purchase price or in fuel economy.
It went over differently in South America because by Argentinian standards, the American/Torino and Falcon were both considered quite large and expensive cars, not cheap economy compacts.
I find it hard to believe that all of the Big 4 missed out on _why_ the VW was popular. Build quality and (at least ’til the mid ’70s as was my impression of family experiences with VW and their German vs USA cars) customer service which resulted in a problem being fixed properly and not treating them like morons – again, VW until ‘the mid 70s. Who knew acting like the customer came somewhere other than last would be a viable sales tactic? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Japanese caught on and they took off like a rocket just as VW lost the plot. Hungry companies try harder….so why didn’t AMC? They were treating the symptoms of customer dissatisfaction with styling, performance upgrades, etc. while ignoring the root cause of it all which was the mindset that the customer will always be there. AMC of all the Big 4 should have known that the customer would NOT always be there.
The best thing AMC could have done was entrench themselves as the only Made-In-USA choice in the growing non-truck 4wd vehicle niche market and improve their product quality to steal sales from those with declining quality. I might have wanted one by Summer 1992 when I bought my first new vehicle, a pewter gray non-turbo ’91 Subaru Loyale they must have sold to me at cost just to get it off the lot before the ’93s arrived. If only Renault hadn’t killed AMC…
No, the average Joe didn’t need a drag racer. The average Joe doesn’t need a class 2 pickup or a cavernous 8 seat SUV either. Yet here we are. The Americanized IKA Torino sounds interesting, but the upscale compact Hudson Jet ruined Hudson a decade before, something I am sure was fresh in some AMC execujtive minds.
The problem, as I see it, was that no U.S. auto manufacturer offered a basic compact car with a solid engine, front disc-brakes, a better- than-average suspension, rack-and-pinion steering and an interior that was comfortably durable for five people. (On paper, an Americanized bigger version of the Ford Cortina might have filled the bill with Ford’s biggest Falcon six.) A Rambler American with these attributes, but without the trunnions (proper upper and lower control arms), and with the 232-cu.in. six and the 330-model trim level would have been a winner in 1964. As a long time Road & Track reader, I know publisher John R. Bond wanted us to drive Peugeot 403 / 404s, while Brock Yates and David E. Davis were pushing the 1964 Pontiac G.T.O. with a trick 389 (421 ?). I do not recall C & D advocating any real slightly above base compact car with an engine strong enough to withstand the punishment dished out by the average American driver on a mix of highways and city streets. Other than the 232 / 258 A.M.C. sixes, the best sixes were the Chrysler Slant Six, the 230 Chevrolet and the Ford 240. I know from personal experience, compact cars with these engines handled reasonably well, were durable and suited the driving for most average Americans. This is what I never understood in the Detroit thinking about compact cars: The ideal inexpensive car was originally the 1955 Chevrolet 210 Delray with Powerglide and the six. In 1962, it was the Chevy II Nova 400 with the 194 six, but in 1963, it was the Plymouth Valiant 200. Too bad the Rambler American was saddled with the smaller 195.6-cu.-in. A.M.C. flathead six and the trunnion front suspension when it hit the marketplace in the fall of 1963. (I understand that the O.H.V. version became available later that fall.) Why didn’t someone in any U.S. automaker realize that there was a need for an economical, reliable, good handling / braking compact that hit the sweet spot of expectations back in 1962-1965 ? Was that need filled by the original Mustang and Falcon in 1964 ? (Today, I would say that need is served by the Toyota Carolla and the Kia Soul.) Of course, in 1964, the U.S. automakers were advertising high-style, luxury and performance, not everyday basic but comfortable transportation. Romney understood the strategic niche for Rambler. Abernathy did not.
Is Studebaker being forgotten/ignored – AGAIN? Historians shouldn’t do that!
You want a ’63/’64 compact car with a) a “solid” V8 engine? Studebaker 259 or 289. 0r -a souped-up or supercharged 289 (or race-prepped supercharged 304.5 in ’64). Available in any Studebaker.
b) a disc brakes? Available in any Studebaker starting ’63. Standard on Avanti.
c) a better-than-average suspension? If by that you mean handling, Studebaker had optional H/D shocks and springs, and front and rear sway bars. The suspension was reliable and durable (Shell 4000 rally won twice! Earlier cars raced at Sebring and elsewhere) and just a few years ago a fully restored ’64 Lark “Marshal” (Studebaker’s police package model) bested the time of all the new Crown Vics in a police car handling/slalom driving contest to which it was invited.
d) a rack-and-pinion steering system. Well, you got me there!
e) a comfortable and durable space for five. If you’ve ever sat in a ’63/’64 “Lark-type”, you’d know that this was requirement was NO problem to say the least!
Studebaker had a “sporty” Daytona model with bucket seats and any or all of the above either standard or available from 1963 (4-speed T-10 manual as well). Even a fabric Skytop sunroof was available (’61-’63). But anything Studebaker did at the time was destined to be, unfortunately, short-lived and therefore easily forgotten by the public. Historians should not. So please forgive my reminders.
Stewdi, how much of the high-performance equipment was still available on newly-built Studebakers after the closure of South Bend in December 1963?
There may have been some detail “adjustments” in the availability of some things, but l believe that most of the hi-po stuff was available up to the conclusion of the model year.
The Stude foundry did not close until some time in mid-1964 – it stayed in production for a while to close out the model year engine requirements, make replacement parts to service customer’s cars already on the road and to make engines for the Zip Van USPS contract which was still on-going for a while after auto cessation in South Bend.
Good point. But how did Studebaker sales compare with Rambler’s through the early sixties? Here in Australia I saw more Studes than Ramblers back then…..
A small addition to my small “reminder” on Feb 11th: the ’63 to ’66 Lark had THE BEST instrument panel of ANY compact.
Stewdi, I’d agree that the Lark could be a more interesting car from 1962-64 than, say, the Rambler American when it came to sporty equipment. Egbert did some good things, e.g., offering disc brakes earlier than the competition.
However, remember that we’re talking about cheap and sporty alternatives to imports. Including the Lark in that category strikes me as a stretch. For one thing, the Lark line straddled the compact and mid-sized fields in size. Indeed, from 1962 onward Consumer Reports classified it as an intermediate. One could point to the shorter wheelbase of two-door models as an example of the Lark being a compact. The problem with that argument is that if you wanted decent power you pretty much needed to get a V8. Those Larks were meaningfully heavier than a comparably equipped Falcon, Chevy II or even a Dart. The 1964 R-3 Lark might have been a potent car, but I would classify it as a muscle car.
We would also do well to consider the Lark’s impact on the small sporty coupe field relative to other entries. Notice how the main car that I mentioned was the Corvair. This was because, prior to the Mustang, that was the best-selling sporty compact. And the Lark? I don’t get the sense from the production data I’ve seen that Egbert had enough time to build much of a following for sporty versions of the car.
So, no, I wasn’t forgetting Studebaker. I was making an editorial judgment. And that was based upon such considerations as the article was focused on the Rambler American. I was making only parenthetical comments about U.S. smaller cars in general, so I had to stick to highlights.
l absolutely agree that anyone going out to buy a Corvair, Mustang, Barracuda or Camaro would NOT be swayed by any American or Lark that they saw thru the front window of an AMC or Studebaker dealer on the way by. But James only said “a basic compact car”. So, that’s what I worked with.
And – a ’65 Mustang is 182 inches long. A ’62-’63 two door Lark is 184. A ’64 American is 181, l believe. A ’64 Cortina GT is 170.
The details we sweat in the world of automotive history both give us drive and drive us mad.
Yeah, a lot of our conversations come down to what boundaries you put around them. Commentators often have different ones than I would (which is entirely okay). When I write about a compact that is cheap and sporty enough to compete with imports, I’m not being literal. A compact car with a six or eight can’t be directly comparable to a typical four-cylinder import. It’s a size bigger. Indeed, I’ve criticized AMC for pretending that the Gremlin could be categorized as a subcompact (go here for further discussion).
That said, a U.S. compact could have been configured to have good handling, reasonable performance from a six, and a price meaningfully lower than the pony cars — or the high-end compacts such as the Nova SS, Falcon Futura Sprint or Dart GT. That might have appealed to at least some folks who ended up with an import. We really didn’t see those kind of models until the early-70s with sporty iterations of the Maverick, Duster and Hornet (and even they weren’t that exciting because they tended to be too decontented in key ways, such as not offering a four-speed manual with a hotter six).
It really is too bad that Egbert came to Studebaker so late in the game — and had so little resources to work with. He had some European sensibilities about car design that could have gained traction.
Okay, it’s got cop tire, cop suspension, and cop brakes. But does the cigarette lighter work? The article did say “basic compact” This I would look at as something off the lot. Your hypothetical Lark would require some serious perusing of the options book and talks with the dealer. You’re leaning heavily on the police package. I don’t know, but I doubt the other manufacturers offered such packages in their compacts.
AMC certainly could have done better.
Aside from the styling, what else was there to differentiate the American from the other compacts? While we can look down on vacuum wipers and trunnion front ends, I get the feeling there weren’t enough positive differences in the American’s favour. Rather then “Ours is better!”, they came across as an almost-pathetic “Me too!”.
It makes you wonder whether AMC understood the compact market at all. Offering the same driving experience in a smaller package worked when they had no opposition, but once the Big 3 got involved, they really needed a point of difference. They needed something noticeably better.
How about going upmarket a wee bit, in engineering terms?
Surely it wouldn’t have been too hard to rework the suspension and steering to better the roadability of the domestic opposition? I’m not saying they should have gone full-Euro, just something more connected-feeling than a Falcon, with more direct steering. And decent brakes – standard power discs and wider tyres, standard in all models, rather than chasing the lowest price. Just the thing for the dawn of the Nader era. Make it a safety-related selling point, “Ours keeps your family safer!” – then watch the feathers fly!
That was a though I had. Start positioning AMC as an American Volvo. I couldn’t get sales figures for for 1960s, but modern US sales seem to run about 100k per year, although Volvo seems to be now just another import. Volvo was able to eke out a living as a niche car up until the 90s. However this included worldwide sales. Unfortunately, I don’t think it would work.
By “trunnion” do you mean “king pin”? Even my English 22 volume automotive encyclopedia has no entry for “Trunnion”!
I’ve found the word used to describe the old Rambler front ends, but no clear description of what it exactly is. I came to the same conclusion as you did. I thought it was an American usage (sorry, no pun intended).
Ah the trunnion front end, neither fish nor fowl. It had a lower ball joint and a bearing under the spring pocket, allowing the rotation of the spindle. Very antiquated and dates to the early days of independent front suspension. It took AMC many years to update their front suspensions.
Here is a video that shows a trunnion being rebuilt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55Exi8v0LzQ . I hope the link works for you.
I had 8 1964-1969 Rambler Americans over the years and I found them to be good looking, extremely durable, and a pleasure to drive. My 1964 American 440 Hardtop with it’s 195.6 OHV engine and automatic transmission would run comfortably 90 MPH all day long, even if it wasn’t quick from a dead stop. I’ll never understand all the talk about poor brakes, as Rambler used the same Bendix drum brakes used on the Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Dart. As long as the brakes are properly serviced, they stop on a dime. The little Americans are also very good in snow.
My Hornet’s brakes stopped the car – but the pedal pressure was very high. No, they were not power assisted, obviously.
In the spring when l got my Studebaker out of winter storage, l just about put my passengers through the windshield of the Stude because it needed much less pressure (and it was not power assisted either) but l was used to the Hornet’s brakes!
My parents bought a basic Rambler coupe in 1969. Dull metallic gray. So under-powered it was scary to drive. Cheap was the word here.
Inside door handle broke in my sisters hand, she was 4’10” 95lbs. Plastic all over and it wasn’t solid. Always figured it was one of the reasons the car company went under.
I find it hard to criticize the SC/Rambler too much because not only was it intended as a limited-edition halo model, it was a last-gasp effort to get some attention for the American, which was about to be replaced by the Hornet. So, its only real purpose was as another attempt to demonstrate that AMC was shedding its frumpy image, in that case by making an absurdly OTT hot rod out of arguably their frumpiest product, and its deliberately clownish presentation (painting “AIR” on the hood scoop?) was clearly intended to be tongue-in-cheek in the same manner as the Road Runner.
My other comment got eaten, I guess because I had a link to the Test del Ayer reprint of a 1967 road test in the Argentinian magazine Parabrisas, but I think the American potential of the IKA Torino would have been limited. The Torino was better-looking than the American on which it was based, but it shared a lot of the same flaws — Parabrisas complained about the suspension and the windshield wipers! — and even the hot 380W model (which was the only early version that really qualified as a GT) was not quite as quick as the U.S. Rambler Rogue 290. (The regular Torino had 145 or 155 hp, like a Rambler with the 232 six.) As Pontiac found with the Sprint OHC engine, the market for U.S. cars with hot sixes was modest at that point, and the 380W engine’s three Weber 45 DCOE carburetors were not a recipe for economy either in initial purchase price or in fuel economy.
It went over differently in South America because by Argentinian standards, the American/Torino and Falcon were both considered quite large and expensive cars, not cheap economy compacts.
I find it hard to believe that all of the Big 4 missed out on _why_ the VW was popular. Build quality and (at least ’til the mid ’70s as was my impression of family experiences with VW and their German vs USA cars) customer service which resulted in a problem being fixed properly and not treating them like morons – again, VW until ‘the mid 70s. Who knew acting like the customer came somewhere other than last would be a viable sales tactic? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Japanese caught on and they took off like a rocket just as VW lost the plot. Hungry companies try harder….so why didn’t AMC? They were treating the symptoms of customer dissatisfaction with styling, performance upgrades, etc. while ignoring the root cause of it all which was the mindset that the customer will always be there. AMC of all the Big 4 should have known that the customer would NOT always be there.
The best thing AMC could have done was entrench themselves as the only Made-In-USA choice in the growing non-truck 4wd vehicle niche market and improve their product quality to steal sales from those with declining quality. I might have wanted one by Summer 1992 when I bought my first new vehicle, a pewter gray non-turbo ’91 Subaru Loyale they must have sold to me at cost just to get it off the lot before the ’93s arrived. If only Renault hadn’t killed AMC…
Imagine American Motors did not exist in 1960 and try to make the business case for its creation.