Maybe this advertisement looked cool or happy-go-lucky to 1967 eyes, but to our eyes in 2014, it just comes off as creepy as hell. Like scenes from a period piece horror movie, the circus based Rambler "new cars" ad from the American Motors Company makes my skin crawl. And yet, what is a nightmare for us is probably full of hipster cred.
There's something to say about the rise and fall of American Motors. Personally, I think if hipsters could start reassembling old cars the way they've gone back to reassembling other classic American brands, American Motors would be that car brand. Whether we're discussing the college students by day, street performers by night along Austin's Sixth Street, or the former denizens of Atlanta's Decatur Social Club who meander aimlessly around Little Five Points, if I had to guess, the hipster cred extended to owning an AMC vehicle would be massive.
And a truly hipsterish hipster wouldn't be caught in an AMX. Or a Javelin. Maaaaaybe a Pacer, but even a Pacer is known for being a completely odd duck. No, the irony is, the Pacer (or even a Gremlin) would broadcast one's affinity for the unusual too strongly. No. True hipsterdom is going to require an AMC vehicle barely anyone cared about at the time and no one remembers now.
And that, my friends, is what makes the Rambler American the best possible vehicle for the true hipster. It wasn't distinctive when it originally appeared, it's completely forgettable because it's from a time which we largely associate with muscle cars, very few still exist, and almost no one would recognise one on the street. "My car is such an obscure classic, you probably have never even heard of it, right?"
Maybe this dude could get some upper class hipster to pay him way more than his resto-mod was worth:
Image via Public Domain, Video via YouTube.