I’ve always been fond of AMC. They’re like America’s lovable losers of the car industry, always seeming to be up against the ropes, coming up with clever solutions to problems while never actually, you know, completely figuring things out. But they had some pretty significant achievements in their Nash/Hudson past, like making the first really mass-produced unibody cars or being an early evangelist for fully reclining seats or keeping the torch of American compacts aflame.
In my head, I sort of think of Peak AMC as starting in the early ’70s and going into the ’80s; the 1950s and 1960s AMC is Rambler-era for me, and that feels different from the Gremlins, Hornets, and Pacers era, which amped up the weirdness. This 1969 brochure I stumbled upon is from the tail end of the Ramber-era – it was the last year of the Rambler name, even – but I think has some seeds of the glorious weirdness that AMC would blossom into in the ’70s.
It wasn’t all Ramblers, though. AMC had an attempt at a premium sedan, too, the Ambassador, and that’s a good place to start to talk about some odd brochure choices. You can see a hint of this up top, in that top graphic, where the text references “wood sides of the ’20s” because AMC had some weird 1920s fixation when it came to luxury. I think those dogs own that wagon, too.
They sort of explain this 1920s fetishization on this page, where they talk about LaSalles and Pierce-Arrows and Packards, suggesting that the Ambassador is the successor to those storied marques. They note the car’s “massive grille and bold, almost straight-line sides, only slightly sculptured” and while I get the big grille stuff, was having a minimum of sculpted sides a big deal for luxury car buyers?
And what the hell is up with that gray, funereal-seeming photo there? Those grayscale sculptures in that grassy field and the cement-gray car all add up to a sort of necropolitan kind of look that I don’t really understand in this context? What are they going for here?
They’re also excited to show the back seat there in a ’20s-style interior, for some reason. Were late ’60s car buyers really craving the look of interiors from almost 50 years prior?
They also had the Rebel line below the Ambassador, and there was a nice big Rebel wagon that you could take to… a muddy blasting area? What’s going on here, exactly? Look at this group of people:
We’ve got three hard-hatted workers, excavating or mining or something, something involving blasting and no radio transmitting. That one worker is also looking right at you like he wants to jump from that photo and stab you, over and over again. What’s his problem?
And who are the other people there? We have the winner of the local Eleanor Roosevelt lookalike contest there, and who may be her partner, rolling his eyes while sitting on the tailgate. Are they local politicians inspecting some new building site? Are they just woefully lost tourists who drove into deep mud and a blasting zone? Are they looking at those maps to figure out how to get the hell out of there?
The brochure also talks about AMC’s muscle car, the Javelin, yet chooses to focus on some unexpected traits of the car. Like how much glass area it had. Because that’s what people used to do with their muscle cars, people would pull their GTOs and Mustang Mach Is up next to one another and whip out tape measures to see who had the most glazed area. The winner would get the pink slip of the loser!
They also made special note of the Javelin’s “massive contour bumper” which, again, was exactly what every gearhead drooled over, massive bumpers with contours. It is a cool bumper, I’ll admit, and I like seeing AMC’s famous flap-type door handles called out, as these would see use on pretty much every AMC in the ’70s and ’80s.
For the Rambler part of this brochure, I think what I like best are these group photos of the imported cars the Rambler was competing with. They note that the Rambler had way more cylinders and power than most of the competition, but look how damn cute that Fiat in the front row is.
They did the same with the Rambler wagon and these imported wagons, which include a Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback and a Datsun and a Fiat and Toyota and maybe an Opel?
Oh, AMC. You give and give and give!
Images: AMC
There was a lot of Roaring Twenties nostalgia leading into the 70s, bracketed between Gay 90s nostalgia and 50s nostalgia, in the time-honored nostalgia multiverse.
I know you’ve commented on individual pieces, but have you ever done a piece on the fad around placing disembodied interior seats in nature or interiors? Imperial had a big phase of that. Heck, I’d write it for you.
Also, don’t sleep on “Another nice touch: an ashtray that slides in an out on ball bearings.”
The station wagon in the foreground of the last photo is a Ford Cortina. Of the group, the orange Datsun 510 was the wagon of choice.
I loved my squareback so it gets my vote
My TJ has the flap door handles. I’ve read that the TJ’s door handle was the last part held over from the AMC era.
And what the hell is up with that gray, funereal-seeming photo there?
Not sure, but that’s probably the first time I’ve seen a penis in a car ad, even if it’s just a statue.
Yes, in the 1960s full size car customers wanted their cars to look like living rooms. Hence all the plush upholstery.
That woman is smiling way too much for standing in the mud in heels.
I think the guy sitting on the tailgate is blind, given his glassed over eyeballs. He shouldn’t have been the navigator.
I bought a Levi’s branded T shirt Sat. with a Gremlin on the back.
Now I wonder if they may own the remains of AMC now. /s
Still looking for a Gremlin though.
Used to be you could get Levi’s on your Gremlin, now you get a Gremlin on your Levi’s.
In the last photo – I see the same build techniques used today in Russia to stamp out Lada Niva’s and UAZ “Breadloafs”. I had to do a double-take to be certain that AMC wasn’t showing a Lada wagon as an ‘import’ competitor. Great article. Hilarious that 60s era cars are still made in Russia.