Junkyard Gem: 1965 Rambler Ambassador 990 Convertible
By the center Nineteen Sixties, George Romney had left the helm of American Motors to turn into governor of Michigan and firm president Roy Abernethy had determined that AMC wanted to compete extra straight in opposition to GM, Ford and Chrysler. To ensure that the Kenosha producer shaped from the 1954 merger of Nash and Hudson to do this, a real full-size automotive needed to be created to steal gross sales from the Impala, Galaxie and Monaco. With a wheelbase stretch and a restyling by Dick Teague, the Rambler Ambassador grew to become that automotive for the 1965 mannequin 12 months. This is a once-snazzy soft-top Ambassador from that 12 months, discovered at a family-owned yard simply south of the Denver metropolis limits.
I’ve documented fairly a couple of classic machines at Colorado Auto & Elements in this collection over the previous 12 months, together with a 1954 Plymouth Belvedere, a 1969 Walker Energy Truck, a 1974 Ford F-250, a 1960 Triumph TR3A, a 1947 Dodge Customized Membership Coupe, a 1969 AMC Rambler 440, a 1951 Studebaker Champion, a 1959 Princess DM4 limousine and a few dozen first-generation Mustangs and Cougars. This Ambassador is now parked between a Chevelle and a Mustang.
The Ambassador 990 convertible wasn’t the most costly new ’65 Rambler you would purchase, as a result of the Ambassador wagon and the sporty new Marlin value a bit extra. Nonetheless, its $2,955 price ticket ($29,907 in 2024 {dollars}) was on the steep aspect for Rambler buyers accustomed to penny-pinching Classics and Individuals.
This automotive would have value rather more than the bottom MSRP, although, as a result of it was constructed with AMC’s greatest automotive engine on the time: a 327-cubic-inch V8 rated at 250 horsepower. No, it is not associated to the Chevrolet 327 small-block; parts-counter staffers spent many a long time coping with that complicated identify mixup (to be truthful to AMC, their 327 was first).
Kaiser-Jeep, not but bought by AMC, purchased AMC 327s to be used in its vehicles in the course of the mid-to-late Nineteen Sixties and known as them 327 Vigilantes.
The bottom engine within the 1965 Ambassador was the 232-cubic-inch “Torque-Command” straight-six, the 4.0-liter descendants of which have been nonetheless being bolted into new Jeep Wranglers in 2006.
The bottom transmission within the 1965 Ambassador was a three-speed column-shift guide, however this automotive has the elective three-speed computerized with “Flash-O-Matic” shifter on the middle console. In the event you needed a manufacturing unit radio in your new ’65 Ambassador, you would add “Duo-Coustic” or “Vibra-Tone” rear audio system.
AMC bought slightly below 65,000 Ambassadors for the 1965 mannequin 12 months, together with wagons. In the meantime, Chevrolet bought higher than one million of its full-size Biscaynes, Bel Airs and Impalas that 12 months (and GM’s Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick bought loads of their very own variations of these automobiles as properly). As for Ford and Chrysler, there is not any must rub it in by itemizing their huge gross sales numbers for large automobiles that 12 months. The Ambassador wasn’t a lot larger than the competitors’s midsize automobiles on the time, which was a consider its sluggish gross sales.
American Motors had its ups and downs after 1965, however the normal story arc was that the Detroit Massive Three used their better assets to proceed grinding down their Wisconsin competitor till Chrysler lastly purchased what was left in 1987.
The final mannequin 12 months for the Rambler marque was 1968, after which all of AMC’s U.S.-market automobiles obtained American Motors Company badging. The Rambler identify lived on for yet another 12 months, because the mannequin identify on the previous Rambler American for 1969: the AMC Rambler.
This automotive can be price respectable cash if restored, however the physique is on the rusty aspect and the inside has been uncovered to the weather for a few years, making such a restoration a really pricey proposition.
The “Smart Spectaculars” promoting marketing campaign was on the puzzling aspect.