“This nation’s car market has always supported a handful of what seem to be ‘protest cars.’ There were a lot more of them before World War II, but the post-war era has had it share: Studebaker, Nash, Hudson, Kaiser and then — dare we say it? — Volkswagen. These cars were sold to people who wanted to express their individuality by buying — perversely enough — cars that were often unjustifiable by most drivers’ standards.
Rambler grew out of the death and fusing-together of the corpses of Nash and Hudson. With Volkswagen, it is the only ‘protest car’ still in the pink of health. The Rambler had the blind luck to be unfashionably small at the dawning of an era when it became terribly in to have an unfashionably small automobile. It also had the great good fortune to have the energetic son of a couple of Mormon missionaries out hustling the masses in its behalf. Aside from these two advantages it was a pretty dreary car.”
— Car and Driver magazine, April 1964
RE:SOURCES
- Car and Driver; 2004. “Rambler American: An improved Rambler is nobody’s Car of the Year in ’64.” Car and Driver, April 1964. AMC Rambler Limited Edition Extra: 1956-1969. R. M. Clarke, editor. Brooklands Books: pp. 61-63.
Also see ‘Rambler pays price for not listening to Car and Driver magazine’
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