The December 2023 issue of Collectible Automobile has a photo feature of a 1967 Rambler Rebel SST hardtop. As usual, the images are first rate and the accompanying text give a nuts-and-bolts overview of the car. The accompanying text by Jack Stewart also sketches the Rebel nameplate’s tragic fate, but even for a photo-oriented story it struck me as rather vapid.
For one thing, Stewart seems to assume that the Rebel’s 1967 redesign was more significant than it was. He says that the “handsome new body was four inches wider than the previous shell, ensuring generous interior room” (2023, p. 36).
The new look was only an updating of the 1963-66 platform, albeit with a reworking of the windshield and door frames. The increased width added no hip or shoulder room — it merely bloated out the body sides to make the cars look more imposing. However, interior space was increased by a two-inch wheelbase stretch behind the A-pillar. That added more legroom, but passenger-car volume increased by less than two cubic feet to 101.4.
Stewart didn’t mention what was arguably the more significant change, which was that trunk space was boosted by three cubic feet to 18.2. That was partly accomplished by increasing the height of the deck with a new coke-bottle shape that replaced the 1963-66’s more teardrop profile.
The extra trunk space fixed what had been the Rambler’s biggest weakness as a mid-sized family car, but it was still a good four cubic feet short of a 1959 model.
This illustrates how the Rebel had grown substantially bigger — around six inches in length and seven in width — than 1959 models but that the extra heft mostly did not translate into greater roominess. American Motors CEO Roy Abernethy was intent on reversing his predecessor George Romney’s crusade for more efficiently-designed cars.
Stewart doesn’t weigh in on why the Rebel failed
After running through the Rebel’s new features, Stewart concludes that a “redesigned model with so much going for it should have sold well, but Rebel sales actually declined 20 percent from 1966” (2023, p. 38).
That’s true, but the mid-sized field was down by 17 percent, so a 20-percent drop wasn’t terribly out of line. The problem was that the Big Three’s models were carried over from the previous year whereas American Motors had spent a fortune racing into production a new design in an effort to halt sliding sales.
Also see ‘AMC’s Roy Abernethy was confronted with three big threats in 1960s’
More ominous was that the Rebel four-door sedan — historically American Motors’ bread-and butter model — saw output fall 45 percent despite its now class-leading roominess. Wikipedia (2023) inaccurately states that this “was offset by the increase in Ambassador 4-door sedan sales.” The latter actually saw production fall by 30 percent. Not quite as bad, but still a meaningful drop.
The Rebels were more stylish — and in the case of the SST, sportier. The dowdiness of Romney’s Ramblers was replaced by trendiness that evoked General Motors cars. Even marketing tried to be more cool, eschewing nuts-and-bolts ads for splashy ones that shouted, “The Now Cars.”
Stewart notes that the 1967 Rebel benefitted from a new V8, a relatively new six, and a new rear suspension that finally ditched an archaic torque tube. The nameplate was also sort-of new. In 1966 the Rebel only referred to a top-of-line hardtop in the Classic lineup. Now the entire line was rebellious.
We might add that with all of the stylistic, marketing and engineering improvements, the 1967 senior Ramblers were arguably the most up-to-date cars that American Motors had ever produced. Since the automaker was founded in 1954, its cars had always been behind the times in one way or another.
Also see ‘Five questions about Aaron Severson’s take on American Motors’
Shouldn’t all that have turbocharged Rebel sales? Welp, the opposite happened — and Stewart doesn’t offer any ideas about why. For example, he doesn’t mention that the rush to production resulted in a spike in defects, such as a gas tank that leaked under hard braking for both the Rebel and its sibling, the Ambassador. Because of that defect, Consumer Reports gave the latter car an “unacceptable” rating (Beckenbaugh, 2014).
Stewart does mention that the Rebel’s sales continued to slide until the nameplate was replaced by the Matador in 1971. However, he doesn’t note that by 1969 Rebel sales had dropped so much that the Ambassador began to outsell it. This may have been partly because Abernethy’s successor, Roy D. Chapin Jr., continued to place more emphasis on the Ambassador, which he — like Abernethy — tried to sell as a full-sized car even though it was merely a stretched intermediate (go here for further discussion).
The Rebel SST’s trajectory shows AMC’s neglect
Another interesting fact that doesn’t show up in Stewart’s story was that the Rebel SST series was the brightest spot in American Motors’ 1967 lineup. Output almost doubled from 1966 to over 18,300 units compared the previous-year’s top-of-line sporty series. That was better than the Ambassador DPL, whose output only went up 13 percent to under 14,000 units.
The Rebel SST didn’t do quite so well in comparison to the Big Three’s sporty mid-sized cars. For example, the Chevrolet Chevelle SS series hit 63,000 units. The Ford Fairlane 500 XL almost reached 38,000 units. The Plymouth Satellite and GTX topped 30,000 units. And the Pontiac GTO fell just shy of 82,000 units. Even so, the Rebel SST did give American Motors a foothold in that market niche.
The biggest tragedy of the Rebel SST was that after a promising first year, American Motors let the car die on the vine. For 1968 the series was eclipsed by AMC’s new pony car, the Javelin. And in 1969 the Rebel SST nomenclature was downgraded from a sporty model to a custom-trim family car. Slightly facelifted styling made the Rebel look almost as dowdy as the Ramblers of yore.
In 1969 output for the entire Rebel line fell to around 60,000 units, a remarkable collapse from the 204,000 cars produced in 1965. This occurred during the same time period when the mid-sized field grew by almost 27 percent, surpassing 2.4 million in 1969.
Only in 1970 did the Rebel get a sporty model again — the Machine. Unfortunately, the car’s outrageous graphics and hood scoop seemed to be intended to get attention rather than to sell a lot of cars. And by 1970 the muscle-car market had imploded anyway.
Total Rebel output for 1970 sank to around 50,000 units — half the level of 1967. This was the same year that total mid-sized car production surpassed that of full-sized, low-priced cars for the first time.
Also see ‘Counterfactuals and whether AMC had a chance of survival’
In desperation, the Rebel was given a facelift and renamed the Matador in 1971. Output fell again — to roughly 43,000 units. AMC had become a hopelessly marginal player in the very field that the automaker had once pioneered.
AMC’s collapse in the mid-sized field didn’t begin with the redesigned 1967 Rebel, but here is where it picked up momentum. The moral to this story is that just because a car has lots of new features doesn’t mean it will sell well.
NOTES:
Production figures are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006) and Gunnell (2002). Specifications from those authors as well as Automobile Catalog (2023) and Consumer Reports (1963, 1970). For 1967 the Rebel SST and Ambassador DPL gained convertibles that were previously classified as lower-level models (Rebel 770 and Ambassador 990, respectively). They are included in production comparisons between 1966-67.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Automobile Catalog; 2023. “Full detailed specifications listing and photo gallery.” Accessed Sept. 13.
- Beckenbaugh, Greg; 2014. “Curbside Classic: 1968 Ambassador SST — Borrowing Is A Deadly Sin.” Curbside Classic. Posted April 30.
- Consumer Reports; 1963. “Basic Body Dimensions.” April issue: pp. 164-165.
- ——; 1970. “Basic body dimensions.” Auto Buying Issue, pp. 221-223.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Stewart, Jack; 2023. “Photo Feature: 1967 Rambler Rebel SST Hardtop Coupe.” Collectible Automobile. December issue: pp. 36-39.
- Wikipedia; 2023. “AMC Rebel.” Page last modified Sept. 1.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: AMC Ambassador (1967); Rambler Classic/Rebel (1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970)
Look, I have every “Collectible Automobile” issue since the magazine’s debut on newsstands in the mid-1980s. The magazine is a glossy, but rather non-critical review of models, options and distinctive features offered by manufacturers and cottage industry coachbuilders / customizers since the beginning, which I am certain that readers of this blog are painfully aware. I have exchanged letters with the editors and the publisher over the years asking them to provide a few more technical details like chassis / suspension photos and diagrams as well as more specifics on unique engine / transmissions, etc., all of which were firmly rejected as not what the magazine’s target readers wanted (which were mainly crisp pictures, model year differences and maybe styling department clays and Die-Noc mock-ups). The most negative article I have read in the magazine was the recent article on the 1978-1979 Buick Century Aeroback coupes and sedans, and like most of their articles, the editors pull their punches. Critical analysis must not sell subscriptions and magazines, although “MotorSport” and “Car and Driver” seem to thrive nicely !
The tragedy of American Motors was the lost focus after George Romney left in 1962. I believe Romney would have focused on a new Classic architecture for 1967 or 1968, with a new American for 1970. It is not that the Rebel in 1967 was really a bad car, it was just out of date and fashion by the fall of 1967 when compared to the 1968 intermediates that were unveiled by G.M., Ford and Chrysler…and the American was under pressure with the new 1968 Chevy Nova ! I am surprised that nobody at A.M.C. seemed to learn the one big lesson that the failure of Studebaker raised: Failure to keep the core product(s) competitive in the marketplace ultimately result in the core product(s) becoming exponentially further behind as time passes. As George Santayana wrote in 1905, in his essay. “The Age of Reason”, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Perhaps that is why this blog and its contributors are so important. I wonder if any automotive honchos read “Indie Auto”? They should.
Romney’s plan was for the ’63 Classic/Ambassador platform to run 6 years, so the replacement would have come in ’69, with the American following in ’70. But that plan presumed similar volumes to the ’56-’62 generation.
Even aside from Abernathy’s deviation from the plan, that outcome seems unlikely to me. The effect of direct competition from the big 3 would have intruded regardless. And AMC had reliability issues with the new 6 cylinder engines instigated under Romney’s watch that would in any event have dented its reputation for high resale value.
I tend to think the best strategy would have been to avoid direct competition by exploiting gaps between the market segments pursued by the big 3. So a model in between the compact and intermediate classes with an in between price, and a model in between the intermediate and full size classes with an in between price.