(EXPANDED FROM 2/6/2023)
A few years ago Curbside Classic reposted a comment from a guy named Rob who had a “soul-crushing experience” driving a 1959 Rambler American to high school hangouts (Niedermeyer, 2023).
In 1968 he was turned down for a date by a woman who instead went out with another guy who had “the keys to his parents’ far cooler 1966 Chevy wagon.” Rob concluded that the Rambler American “may have been a good car” but that he had never “known a car with a more negative image among driving age teens” (Niedermeyer, 2023).
Getting turned down for a date is a drag, but this instance raises the question: Did Rob actually dodge a bullet? The girl may have been popular, but she sounds like someone with a rather vapid case of classism. And so do any other classmates who shunned him solely because of his wheels.
I wonder whether the Rambler American was seen as so uncool partly because of the relative lack of even-weirder-looking imports in Rob’s neck of the woods. He went to high school in a small farming town in Wisconsin during the late-1960s.
What’s ironic about Rob’s complaint is that the 1958-60 Rambler American was arguably the closest that a postwar U.S. automaker ever came to offering a small car akin to the Volkswagen Beetle. As we have discussed here, the VW completely ignored Detroit’s styling conventions in favor of economy and utility.
John Heitmann wrote that the Beetle became a “status symbol of a different kind, for it told those around you that you held different values; values such as thrift, sensibility, honesty, practicality, and modesty that were traditional to American life” (2018, p. 160).
Heitmann went on to note that the VW “appealed to the highly-educated and those who had not bought into the culture of suits and ostentatious affluence. It was a statement that transcended time, perhaps going back to the Model T era, before longer, lower, and more colorful (and perhaps superficial) vehicles characterized American life” (2018, p. 160).
Automakers have tried to link cars to teen social status
I should acknowledge that it’s easier to say that Rob dodged a bullet because I am more than 40 years removed from the pain and suffering of being a teen.
It’s also true that bonding with one’s peers is a key part of teenage psychological development. So too is inaccurately sizing up the riskiness of situations, which can be both physical and emotional. Here it is important to consider how brain development impacts the ways that teens think and act.
“According to Dr. Gurinder Dabhia, teenagers have brains that are only 80 percent developed. This causes them to make big errors when it comes to assessing risk. If it seems like your teenager just isn’t thinking, well they aren’t — at least not like an adult. They still have a prefrontal cortex that isn’t fully developed. Not only does this make them try risky things, but it also makes them even more susceptible to peer pressure.” (Crossroads Health, 2018)
Over the years automakers have exploited teen psychology in a variety of ways. Consider, for example, advertising that suggested that you could increase your sex appeal by driving their sporty car.
In addition, marketing for late-60s an early-70s “muscle cars” tapped into peer pressure among males to compete with each other. The basic pitch was that buying a high-performance car would increase your status.
Heitmann noted that the music industry helped to make fast cars cool. For example, Jan and Dean sang about the “Little Old Lady from Pasadena” while the Beach Boys spun tales of the “Little Deuce Coupe” and “409” — the latter of which was about a big-block Chevy that could go 0-60 in less than five seconds (2018, p. 184).
Having all of that horsepower inevitably led to road races. They may have felt like good clean fun, but this was also a way of establishing the social pecking order. That is, the “winners” and “losers.”
Of course, a certain amount of risk went with car racing — which isn’t an ideal match with the teen brain. So in hindsight maybe Rob might feel grateful that his puttering little Rambler American wasn’t powerful enough to endanger his life.
The Jan and Dean song “Deadman’s Curve” showed the dangerous side of 1960s car culture. Heitmann concluded that “the automobile could both bring delight or destruction, and it was a capricious machine at best” (2018, p. 184).
My experience in Los Angeles was different from Rob’s
I have a hard time relating to Rob’s experience. The main reason why is because the culture of my high school was very different than the one he described. I attended a school in a Los Angeles suburb toward the middle of the 1970s.
I never noticed any car-related snobbery. That may have partly reflected the sheer diversity of cars driven in L.A., which was a haven for obscure imports, well-preserved older cars and customized vans. The latter tended to be decked out either with a surfer or a hippie vibe.
Our high school was big enough that the social pecking order was weak. That gave the place a “choose your own adventure” culture. I can’t remember a single prom queen or football jock, but I do remember the streakers.
So depending who you hung out with, a cool car could be anything from a brand-new Pontiac Firebird TransAm with its famous “Screaming chicken” hood decal to an old VW Microbus hand-painted with psychedelic colors.
Just as importantly, you could easily have friends in both camps. Thus, the pressure to conform was minimal. Simply having wheels was considered a positive thing.
Car snobbery fragmented along with American society
This essay essentially has only two data points, but it leads me to wonder whether car snobbery in high school could vary greatly by where you lived, what specific years you were a student, and what types of groups you hung out with.
When I first posted this essay I asked Indie Auto readers: What was your experience? As you can see below, readers navigated very different subcultures. In addition, a debate about what was a cool car illustrates how that term can be dominated by layer upon layer of subjective judgments — some deeply held.
Also see ‘VW Superbowl ad waxes nostalgic for the kind of cars it no longer makes’
That said, I do think we can offer at least a few factually-grounded conclusions. Perhaps most importantly, I think it fair to say that in the late-50s and early-60s the dominant views of what constituted a high-status car began to fragment as imports became increasingly popular and Detroit embarked on multiple waves of product proliferation.
This brings us back to Rob. He may have felt put upon by the cliques in his high school, but I suspect that if he had gone off to college in a bigger city he would have been treated differently even if he kept driving his 1959 Rambler American.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted on Feb. 6, 2023 and expanded on Jan. 27, 2025.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Crossroads Health; 2018. “Peer Pressure Can Impact Teen Development.” Posted May 17.
- Heitmann, John; 2018. The Automobile and American Life. 2nd ed. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- Niedermeyer, Paul; 2023. “Comment Classic: The Soul-Crushing 1959 Rambler American.” Curbside Classic. Posted Jan. 23.
BROCHURES & ADVERTISING:
- autohistorypreservationsociety.org: Ford Capri (1971); Oldsmobile (1969); Pontiac GTO (1968)
- Groove Guild: VW Super Bowl LVIII “An American Love Story” commercial (2024)
- oldcaradvertising.com: Plymouth Roadrunner (1969); Studebaker Lark (1959)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Pontiac Firebird (1969); Rambler American (1959, 1969)
Late 1960s large (5000 students) all boys school in Chicago. I was monitor in the student parking lot in 1966 to 1968. The parking lot was eclectic mostly downscale used cars. Looking back and considering the large percentage of “shoppies” in the school, there was a distinct lack of rodded cars or muscle cars. Go figure.
“What’s ironic about Rob’s complaint is that the 1958-60 Rambler American was arguably the closest that a postwar U.S. automaker ever came to offering a small car akin to the Volkswagen Beetle. As we have discussed here, the VW completely ignored Detroit’s styling conventions in favor of economy and utility.”
The Beetle was about economy, yes. And simplicity, low cost of ownership and being one with the driver, especially with the engine in the rear. But utility was absolutely traded off for style. Yes they were tall, but their short rear overhang, forward-sloping rear and rounded front are what gave them their enduring appeal… at the expense of utility.
VW offered vehicles with better interior packaging in the Sixties but none charmed the market like the Beetle did. It is an historic design exemplar, as is the Porsche 356. The ’58-60 Rambler American was something else entirely, part of a long list of uninspiring cars throughout history that couldn’t get redesigned soon enough.
Paul, I said the closest that a postwar U.S. automaker came. . . .” Of course the Rambler was originally designed to put stylishness ahead of efficiency. And of course its engineering was much cruder than the Beetle’s. My point was that by 1958-60, the American’s styling was hopelessly obsolete — and uncool — so like the VW it had to sell purely on its practical merits.
Aside from the Studebaker Lark, I can’t think of another American small car of that era which paid so little regard to then-dominant styling conventions. For example, the original Ford Falcon and Chevrolet Chevy II may have been fairly utilitarian in their basic designs, but they still looked contemporary.
Steve, my point is that the Beetle in 1960 was selling on more than just its practical merits. Turns out it was one of the century’s great aesthetic designs. It may not have been Detroit styling but it was styling nonetheless, and still relevant.
The American was very Detroit in it’s 3-box layout, and a very poor version at that. I would put the ’60 Falcon closer to the Beetle because the Ford had much better styling than the American, and styling was part of the small car segment’s appeal. To see the Beetle as strictly a practical appliance is to misunderstand the wholeness of the Beetle… imho, of course!
Paul, I wasn’t arguing that the Beetle was only bought for practical reasons, but that it violated all of Detroit’s basic rules about styling at that time. Also note that VW advertising made a big point about how the Beetle was only changed to improve how it functioned rather than how it looked. That was the opposite of Detroit’s approach back then (go here for further discussion).
I also wasn’t arguing that the American looked better than the Falcon; quite the contrary. The Falcon was a simple design but it was entirely contemporary. That was the opposite of the American, whose basic look was almost a decade old (even older than the Studebaker Lark or Checker). Remember, at that point in time the annual model change was dominant, so continuing to produce such an old design was a violation of Detroit groupthink.
Paul Niedermeyer would probably have been much better off had he been driving a Beetle.
You know that I don’t like labels in the auto industry (or anywhere else, ftm) but if Groupthink must be used, the Rambler fits it perfectly because its 3-box proportions were clearly forced on it, Mason abandoning the fastback simply because the rest of Detroit was moving in that direction.
I doubt that Ferdinand Porsche would seen much similarity between his Beetle and the ’58 Rambler. He designed his car as a revolt to the front-engine, rear drive cars that Rambler represented. The only thing they had in common in 1958 was a somewhat similar price, which countless used cars of the day shared. Which gets to the heart of the American: it was nothing more than a new used car. The Beetle was rather more.
Paul, I’m starting to wonder whether you scanned the story too quickly to fully understand what it’s all about. For one thing, it wasn’t about Niedermeyer, but rather a Curbside Classic commentator. For another, you continue to wildly distort the comparison that I made between the Rambler and VW.
I see no need to repeat myself, so I’ll just suggest that your commentary illustrates the strawman fallacy. This “occurs when someone takes another person’s argument or point, distorts it or exaggerates it in some kind of extreme way, and then attacks the extreme distortion, as if that is really the claim the first person is making” (Excelsior University).
I appreciate your thoughts here at Indie Auto and also have no idea what else to say in response to your current string of comments.
Sorry, Steve. I failed to respond to your primary message and question, which is a very interesting one. I took a city bus to get to high school and often walked the two miles home, but sometimes took the bus or bummed a ride. There was such a mixed bag of vehicles in play in the late 70s/early 80s. I liked both the old and new. Most of us didn’t have much money so cars were mostly not part of the pecking order. What I disliked most was the baby blue Ford Fairmont that was used for driver’s ed. Garbage through and through. But for going out purposes, pretty much anything that rolled was good enough. There were some in school who drove hot cars but they and their cars were worlds apart from my little world. We lived in the city, they in the burbs. Now we are all one, high school reunions seeing to that. All’s well that ends well…
I attended a public high school in a Pennsylvania small town. I can’t recall any student who drove a brand-new car. The son of the local Dodge-Chrysler-Plymouth dealer was allowed to pick a brand-new Mopar for his personal car, but that was AFTER we had graduated from high school (this would have been 1980).
Students either drove their parents’ cars, or what they could afford by working at a part-time job. Muscle cars and pony cars from the 1ate 1960s and early 1970s were the most desirable, but just having your own car was the big deal, regardless of the make or model.
The oldest car in the parking lot was a 1958 Studebaker Champion, followed by a 1963 Studebaker Lark four-door sedan. Hardly cool, but each was owned by the respective student who drove it, and that is what mattered. If either Studebaker had been the family car, THAT would have been “uncool” by 1978-80.
Interestingly, I can’t remember a single VW Beetle in the school parking lot. The only Japanese car was a 1975 Honda Civic hatchback driven by the step-daughter of a local doctor. Given how hard she drove that car, I’m still amazed that it was running by 1980!
Our driver education car was a 1978 Dodge Aspen four-door sedan. It was nothing to write home about. The principal of our high school was one of the first people to buy a Chevrolet Citation. He bought the five-door hatchback in May 1979, and had traded a 1975 Chevrolet Caprice Estate Wagon for it. One wonders how long it took him to regret that decision.
For me, I attended a late 1960s co-ed public high school in the very upscale area of Bethesda, Maryland. Like Kim M. said above, it was a large school. But in our case we had a very diverse student population. And did I say it was co-ed? Yeah, co-ed.
Students were not allowed to drive to/from school until 11th grade. My first car was a 1948 Packard eight, a real beauty with only 18,000 miles on it. Of course the jocks laughed, but more than a few ladies liked it. My next car for senior year was a supercharged 1957 Packard Clipper. Those same jocks didn’t laugh as hard once I raised the hood and showed off an immaculate Studebaker 289 with the big McColloch supercharger sitting on top of the engine. Towards the end of the school year I ended up trading the Clipper into the local Chrysler-Plymouth dealer on a near mint 1966 Plymouth Fury III convertible, bright red, with the rare Sonic Commando 440 V8. That car cost me a whopping $900. I recently found the Fury in central PA, but it’s severely rusted, including the frame, and too far gone for me at my age.
but the family car that attracted the most attention was my dad’s new Porsche 912 with 5-speed, in white. My parents were in Europe for a week, and after disconnecting the speedo cable [dad wrote the mileage down before they left!] I dared drive the Porsche to school one day. Not a single student had anything close to that Porsche in 1969, and they were pretty rare on the roads too.
Damn auto-correct; The engine in the Fury was a Sonoramic Comando, not a Sonic.
I graduated in 1983 in Citrus Heights California a bedroom community of Sacramento. I saw car snobbery, but nothing really bad. Most kids were driving their parents spare car, mine was a 1963 Dodge Dart 270 4-door. It was black and in near perfect condition. By my senior year I bought a 1965 Plymouth Sport Fury 383 for $650, I still have it. The only kids that made negative comments were guys I considered to be losers, so it never bothered me. One popular car with four girls at our high school was 1971-72 Cadillac Fleetwoods. Apparently their dads wanted them driving the biggest car they could find. Almost no cars newer than mid-70’s. Late 40’s Chevy/GMC trucks were the oldest vehicles.
When I was in high school driving, 1966-1969, Southport in Indianapolis, IN, the guy who had the coolest ride was senior (and later TV actor) Terry Lester, who was given a brand-new, fully optioned 1966 Mustang coupe for being selected as governor for Indiana Boy’s State. The late Mr. Lester was tall, lean, muscular, blonde, blue-eyed with a gorgeous face made for the soap operas in which he would later star. Yet Terry was one of the most outgoing, unaffected man I ever met. He even befriended a dorky dweeb like me. He was “Joe Cool”. Interestingly, there were very few hot cars driven by S.H.S. students, even though the township was considered relatively affluent. A few guys drove late 1950s and early 1960s Beetles. Perhaps the most interesting student- driven car was a green 1958 Morris Minor chauffeured by a very eclectic friend. The Morris came with a second 948-cc engine, so when the oil-burning got too excessive, the engines were swapped and the smokey engine rebuilt. My high school car was a 1960 Dodge Dart Seneca four-door sedan with a reliable 318 and Torqueflite. My younger sister and her cliche of friends called it “The Green Booger”. Her senior year while I was in college, she traded the Dodge for a silver 1968 Chevy Camaro with a 250-six and a three-on-the-floor. She and her friends did not wish to be seen in the Dart with the oxidized and fading green paint. The Camaro, on the other hand, had the class and style she sought. 55-years later and a total restoration complete with a new 350 crate engine in place of the six, my sister and her husband still have that Camaro !
My experience in high school was from ’69-’73 at a well regarded co ed Catholic school. I was one of the misfits but I had a few friends likewise, misfits. I suppose if you were in one of the status clicks there might have been some hierarchy established, but it seems that the cool kids were the cool kids, what kind of car they drove didn’t matter. A couple of kids drove new cars that their parents bought them, some drove cars that they bought for themselves. There were some Camaros and one girl in my class occasionally drove her parents Mercedes Pagoda coupe. I started riding motorcycles as a sophomore, and traded up to bigger bikes every year after that. I ended up with a Kawasaki Mach Three as a senior. Still didn’t get any girls. College was much better.
It’s awful hard to make out in the back seat of a Kawasaki.
I’m the guy who was the parking lot monitor. The oldest car was a 1950 or so Plymouth, and a split window VW with the semaphore turn signal. As far as 1960s Wisconsin goes, the popular car for kids was a beat up station wagon with the top cut off behind the B pillar and a piece of plywood behind the front seat.
I went to a very affluent public high school in San Diego in the mid 70s. Lots of my classmates got new cars upon turning 16, Capris, Pintos, Vegas (LOL) were the most common. One girl got a new Corvette. I got none of the above, a decidedly uncool clapped out 65 Pontiac Tempest. Sure, I felt inferior to my peers in that car, but it was of little consequence compared to the sweet freedom I felt by simply having a car. My world had greatly expanded and I wasn’t going to let car envy get the better of me. In the fall of my senior year, the Pontiac met its demise while I was sitting at a traffic light. A guy in a uninsured Plymouth Road Runner rear ended me. My replacement car was a 68 VW, more socially acceptable among my peers, but still far from what the kids from wealthier families got. Both of those cars were a great learning experience, I had to keep them on the road and I did. I still wrench on my own cars today.
From what I saw on Oldcarbrochures, that phenomenom also reached Australia as we check these brochures showing a 1972 Holden Torana and a 1971 VH Aussie Charger.
https://oldcarbrochures.org/Australia/Holden/1972-Holden-Torana/index.html
https://oldcarbrochures.org/Australia/Chrysler/Chrysler/1971%20Valiant%20VH%20Charger%20-%20Australia/index.html
Little Old Lady from Pasadena was a Jan and Dean song, not sung by the Beach Boys.
Joe, thank you for the correction; I have modified the text.
I was lucky (or unlucky) enough to go to two different high schools in two very different states in the mid-seventies. The small town in California where I started high school only had a handful of students who drove their own cars. I’m sure there were more, but I remember four. A 1957 Ford Skyliner, a 1953 Cadillac sedan, an early 60s Karmann Ghia, and a 1970 Volvo sedan.
The foreign to domestic rate probably reflected the general automotive population of the state. All four were envied by those of us who walked to school and only had the use of the family car for significant events.
Moving to Texas for my senior year provided a completely different automotive landscape. Nearly everyone in high school drove their own vehicle, though there were more pickup trucks than cars. The vast majority were 5-10 year old used trucks and cars of all different shapes and makes. My 1960 Ford Fairlane 500 represented the oldest, if I recall. Certainly the most stylish.
Then there was that one kid. Every high school had one. Wealthy parents. Only child. Drove a new Corvette. I know he secretly lusted after the horizontal fins at the back and the Mileage Maker Six under the hood of the Fairlane 500. I never let on that I sensed his jealousy.
Frankly I think the girl was afraid of the reclining seats found in the Rambler!
Stephen, you offer a reasonable scenario that Rob may not have considered. It’s an example of how we humans can fixate on an assumption that may end up not being true.