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Posts Tagged “

Rambler

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autorama

Ferrambo Wins 2008 Ridler Award At Detroit Autorama

After the 2008 Geneva Motor Show, we needed a little recoup time, but yesterday we were back on the beat at the 2008 Detroit Autorama. We're just going to lay the smack down right away, the winner of the 2008 Detroit Autorama Ridler Award was a car we saw last year in the building stages - a Ferrari-engined Nash Rambler dubbed "Ferrambo". The bright red lightning rod of holy-shit-that's-crazy stood out pretty strong amidst this years Great 8 as the hands down, batshit craziest entry and we love the Autorama judges for giving it the nod.

More »

7:30 AM on Mon Mar 10 2008
By Ben Wojdyla
8,702 views, 41 comments

Latest by ihateauditions: @Greg A.: You aren't the only one who liked it better with bare metal and five spokes. I love the bare metal version, but don't like the finished one much at all. more »

classic ad watch

A Hardtop For Cheapskates: 1967 AMC Rebel


Coil-spring seats! A six-banger engine! Molded acoustical headliner! A big gas tank! The hardhatted Kenosha gentleman in this ad wants you to know that the '67 AMC Rebel is the cheapest intermediate-sized hardtop in America. "Either we're charging too little, or the other guys are charging too much!" Now if only we could find an ad for the amazing '69 Rebel Machine...

12:30 PM on Wed Jan 16 2008
By Murilee Martin
1,166 views, 19 comments

news

What Were The Presidential Hopefuls' First Cars?

So all these folks who want to be President of the US of A, they get all long-winded about their big plans and all that, but what about the question we really care about? The AP asked a number of the hopefuls the question "What was your very first car?" Thus, we learn that Hillary Clinton started her driving life with a '63 Cutlass, MIke Huckabee had a Montego, Barack Obama had a Granada, and (winner of the Jalopnik Best Presidential Wannabe's First Car Award) Mitt Romney had a '63 Rambler Classic. [Associated Press]

8:00 AM on Tue Dec 11 2007
By Murilee Martin
972 views, 40 comments

Latest by Rod Standing: @Beelzebubba: @LTDScott: Celeb wagon = fun, but ONLY in reverse, on snow, when the PoPo is not around. Otherwise tragic. more »

down on the street

1965 Rambler American 220

How long has it been since we last saw an Alameda Rambler? Since July, that's how long... and that's just too long to be deprived of pre-AMC-nameplate Kenosha machinery! So here's a pretty clean '65 American to start our day. This car parks next to the '61, so we have to assume they're owned by the same person. More »

9:00 AM on Tue Nov 27 2007
By Murilee Martin
2,051 views, 36 comments

choose your eternity

Project Car Hell, Fastback Edition: Charger or Marlin?

You young whippersnappers with your turbo this and Japanese that... why, back when men were men, four-wheel drum brakes were Safe Enough, and it looked like we were winning the Vietnam War (i.e., pre-Tet Offensive), AMC and Chrysler came out with midsize sedans equipped with big engines, fastback rooflines, and lots of glass. And when you wanted forced induction back then, you didn't put no newfangledy turbowhatzits on the car- you cut a big goddamn hole in the hood and stuck a 6-71 on that thang! More »

5:00 PM on Wed Oct 17 2007
By Murilee Martin
3,030 views, 46 comments

Latest by FreeMan: I went fishin' cause the guy couldn't even be bothered to take the bike or tarp out of the picture. Heck, he couldn't even be bothered to take the camera out of the bag! (that's why it's all more »

classic ad watch

Live a Little, Drive a Rambler!

Apparently, Walt Disney had a deal with American Motors back in '55, allowing them to use a crypto-Mickey Mouse character in their ads. While this Nash ad isn't quite as twisted as the Disembodied Mickey Head Mitsubishi ad, it's still a bit strange to see a family of animated mice shilling for the Pacer's ancestor.

2:00 PM on Thu Aug 16 2007
By Murilee Martin
255 views, 5 comments

Latest by athodyd: @Skydiver: I don't know about that but for some reason the pseudo-UPA Gerald-McBoing-Boing character design makes her look ten times more whorish. Another innovation from American Motors! Gotta love that turn radius too. Were streets wider back then or did parking more »

classic ad watch

The Water, She's A-Rising! Get The AMC Wagon!

Those of us old enough to recall a childhood of road trips spent battling with un-seatbelted siblings in the cargo area of a Detroit station wagon ("We can pull over right here if you kids can't stop fighting back there!") might have some vivid mental pictures of the gory conflicts resulting from packing tigers, geese, and camels into the back of a '67 Ambassador wagon. But hey, AMC said their wagons make good Arks, so who are we to argue? The Rambler name was still being dropped in 1968 for vehicles labeled as AMCs, interestingly enough.

4:45 PM on Wed Aug 8 2007
By Murilee Martin
372 views, 12 comments

Latest by Mike Spinelli: Funny how the concept of rambling had such a positive connotation in the days before mass cocaine and Starbucks. Now it would be like, "GO! Would you GO already?!!" more »

choose your eternity

Project Car Hell: Buicked Packard or Rough Rambler?

The $495 Mercedes 230S won yesterday's Project Car Hell poll, beating the VW Type 3 by a decisive margin. It has come to our attention that some of you are confused about exactly what it is we're voting on in the Project Car Hell series- is it the car you'd most want as a project, or the one you most fear? Well, the answer is: yes! Vote for the project you'd have to be a total idiot to take on, but that would also be the most fun when finished. If you could ever finish it, that is... More »

7:00 PM on Thu Jul 26 2007
By Murilee Martin
1,501 views, 34 comments

Latest by thechoop: Pull the BB 455 and trash the rest of the Puke-ard. Hoping of course the engine is not blown. more »

1961 Rambler American
I'm going to go with a fine patriotic machine this Fourth of July, a car literally named American. This little Kenosha coupe lives in Alameda's West End.

23 comments

something we learned today

John North Willys, Automotive Pioneer

We once had a French roommate into hot rods and sportbikes. Given that he'd become an American citizen whose nation of birth had been liberated by men driving vehicles manufactured by a company founded and shepherded by one John North Willys, we always thought his prediliction toward referring to the company as "Willis" was oddly, well, French. But it turns out that he was actually correct all along, which is one of the myriad things we learned today from an interesting piece about the man whose most lasting legacies are the Gasser and the Jeep. – Davey G. Johnson More »

12:00 AM on Fri May 18 2007
By Davey G. Johnson
339 views, 6 comments

Latest by Turboner: This thread gives me the Willys. more »

retro

Half-Price Day Junkyard Day

Uttering the phrase half price anywhere near the word junkyard sends a couple of the Jalops driving with toolbox toward the self-service junkyard like so many moths to a streetlight on a summer night. One of the larger self-service yards in California had a statewide half price sale a while back and we were there in NoCal and SoCal. Bumbeck headed down out of the hills into hot and dusty Sun Valley while Martin ventured out onto the mean streets of Hayward from Alameda. Out of the thousands of cars being picked apart we've chosen ten that qualify to enter into the pantheon of Jalopnik half-price day junkyard specials. Our selections in blazing full color after the jump. More »

Feature

2:30 PM on Thu Mar 29 2007
By Mike Bumbeck
5,512 views, 15 comments

Latest by chdir: Hello more »

retro

Did You Hear About the Prancing Rambler?

Now and then, an enterprising hot-rod head suddenly thinks, "What if I put a freakin' Ferrari motor in this thing?" Many of Los Jalopniks have had this thought, but this visionary with a buttload of taste and a surprisingly-correct sense of perfect went the extra mile and acted on it, having the mill from a wrecked 360 Modena dropped into the back of a Rambler wagon. We think it looks perfect as it stands; as if an enterprising teenager with fab skills hit the junkyard, found a T-boned amalgam of Enzo's finest and applied it to his own ride. Word to the builder and owner: keep that vibe. [Thanks to Haller for the tip.] – Davey G. Johnson More »

12:15 AM on Thu Mar 29 2007
By Davey G. Johnson
2,317 views, 15 comments

Latest by Route66Rambler: Beep Beep, Little Ferrambler! mike more »

retro

More Kenosha Iron: The 1965-66 AMC Marlin

Sometimes mistaken for an early Dodge Charger, the fastback AMC Rambler Marlin hit the street in 1965, a year before the Dodge. Based on the Rambler Classic, most Marlins had 270-horse 327 V8s and all had seats that folded down to form a bed (a feature that must have come in handy on a hot drive-in date to a Russ Meyer triple-feature). Sadly, the Marlin faced stiff competition from Detroit iron with bigger engines and fatter marketing budgets and failed to sell well; in 1967, the Marlin nameplate was shifted to a fastback version of the Ambassador, in an unsuccessful attempt to compete with fastback Galaxies and Impalas. The real disappointment: Renault didn't make a version of the Marlin in South America. – Murilee Martin More »

2:30 PM on Mon Feb 26 2007
By Murilee Martin
1,410 views, 2 comments

Latest by SpudMills: The Marlin always struck me as the coolest ugly car ever made. more »

retro

Rambler Rogue? No, Renault Torino!

One of the cars in the above illustration is a '79 Renault Torino, while the other is a '65 Rambler American. Notice any similarities? The story of the Renault Torino isn't just the usual case of a US automaker selling the tooling for an obsolete model to a South American manufacturer, nor was it a simple re-badging of a US model for license-building abroad. No, the Torino is the result of an early chapter in the twisty tale of the Renault-AMC story, which resulted in a unique-to-Argentina vehicle, based on the Rambler American Rogue but with body redesigned by Pininfarina and a Kaiser-designed engine under the hood. The Torino became a legend in Argentina, selling like crazy and having a fair bit of racing success, including a major N rburgring triumph in 1969. Torino production halted in 1982, a dark year for car freaks in Argentina. – Murilee Martin More »

2:44 PM on Fri Feb 23 2007
By Murilee Martin
2,773 views, 9 comments

Latest by hitech: Im in Phoenix Az and I have a Renault Torino 380w 1969 , "el sueno del pibe" , like to see pictures just let me know at partsaz@aol.com Thanks more »

news

Mitt Romney Likes Cars, Reads Automotive News

Mitt Romney, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, just declared he's running for president. What's this got to do with cars? Well, Mitt declared his intentions right here in Metro Detroit — and to be precise, he did it in Dearborn at The Henry Ford museum. His declaration of candidacy speech is just rife with auto-love for the Rambler and a certain Keith Crain-produced auto daily:
"I chose this site for a number of reasons. It's filled with cars and memories. Dad and I loved cars. Most kids read the sports box scores. Dad and I read Automotive News. We came here together, him teaching me about cars that were built before my time...The Rambler automobile he championed was the first American car designed and marketed for economy and mileage. He dubbed it a compact car, a car that would slay the gas-guzzling dinosaurs. It transformed the industry."
Wait, the Rambler? Oh right, your dad was George Romney, who ran AMC until he became Governor of Michigan. But Mitt obviously didn't learn from Poppa George, or else he'd know to say he reads the "Auto Insider" team at the Detroit News and not Automotive News. Nolan Finley's totally not gonna endorse his ass now. – Ray Wert More »

1:04 PM on Tue Feb 13 2007
By Ray Wert
116 views, 5 comments

Latest by wohho: Another reason he announced in Detroit: He reminds everyone of the sleaziest car salesman they've ever met. Mitt's been spending a lot of time in the D lately. An uberconservative friend of mine heard him speak last week at the more »