American Motors head George Romney didn’t realize it at the time, but he was onto something when he okayed the production of the 1957 Rambler Rebel. This was intended as a limited-production model, perhaps primarily to generate more production for the automaker’s new 327-cubic-inch V8.
That engine was selling poorly because it was only available on AMC’s full-sized Nash Ambassador and Hudson Hornet, which were in their dying year. Despite the parenthetical quality of the Rebel, it anticipated both the American muscle car and grand-touring sedan.
Unfortunately, Romney was too narrowly focused on selling economy cars. After only 1,500 Rebels left the factory, the nameplate was downgraded in 1958 to a basic Rambler with a 250-cubic-inch V8. Gone were standard features such as heavy-duty suspension, high-capacity brakes, dual exhausts and a four-barrel carburetor.
The 1958-60 Rebel was the rough equivalent of the 1951-57 Studebaker Commander, which had offered overlapping trim levels as the Champion but was powered by a V8 rather than a six.
Rebel ads departed from Rambler’s utilitarian pitch
Marketing for the 1957 Rebel had a decidedly different tone than the usual Rambler schtick from that era, which emphasized utilitarian features in a rather dry, nuts-and-bolts manner. In contrast, the Rebel’s copy writers were allowed to wax poetic about the car’s performance capabilities:
“The mounting sound of unleashed power — a flash of burnished gold — and the Rambler Rebel is suddenly a streak of silver disappearing in the far distance. The amazing performance and agility of the Rebel is derived from a combination of maximum power with compact size and minimum weight. And yet, for the first time, this new kind of blazing performance is available in a six passenger automobile with all of the comfort and luxury found only in larger and heavier cars.”
The brochure went on to talk about how the Rebel “has the most horsepower per pound of any compact six passenger American automobile” with optional electronic fuel injection. A “close-coupled wheelbase and unique suspension for unequalled handling ease” and a “rock-solid single unit body construction to absorb the stresses imposed by the tremendous power of the 327 cubic inch V-8 powerplant.”
Below is another page from this brochure, which itemized the car’s high-performance features.
A cross between a muscle car and grand-touring sedan
Larry G. Mitchell (2000) has argued that the 1957 Rebel should be considered the first muscle car rather than the 1964 Pontiac GTO. That makes a certain amount of sense because the Rebel was the first mass-market smaller car which had a V8 engine over 300 cubic inches and other high-performance features. I would exclude from consideration the 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk because that was a personal coupe more akin to the four-seat Ford Thunderbird.
Also see ‘1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk: A match made in hell’
The Rebel also anticipated the American grand-touring sedan. The car’s marketing emphasized both performance and “luxurious comfort” for six passengers. The Rebel’s basic design was more like a Mercedes in its unusually compact and space-efficient body than a typical American four-door body style of that era.
Rebel was relatively costly for a low-priced brand
The Rebel offered high-end trim and an unusually complete list of standard equipment, such as power steering and brakes. The list price of $2,786 was below that of other halo models from low-priced brands: $31 less than a Chevrolet Nomad, $156 less than a Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner retractable convertible and $114 less than the Plymouth Fury.
Even so, the Rebel was priced a good $300-400 higher than top-end, four-door hardtops from Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth and well within the premium-priced field.
Within the American Motors’ 1957 lineup, the Rebel was the highest-priced Rambler, topping the Custom four-door hardtop wagon by $71 but $35 less than a base Ambassador or Hornet. And in 1958, when the Ambassador was switched to the smaller Rambler body, the most equivalent model — a top-end Custom four-door hardtop — listed for only $36 more.
Why didn’t AMC try to carry on Hudson’s legacy?
The biggest question I have about the Rebel is why it didn’t tap into Hudson’s enviable legacy of high-performance cars. For example, the Rebel could have been given a Hudson nameplate, such as the Jet, Wasp, Italia or — ideally — the Hornet.
Also see ‘1948 Hudson ‘step-down’ was a brilliant car with tragic flaws’
The sporty model could have also carried on Hudson features such the “Dual-Safety” brakes (Langworth, 1993) and adapted “Twin-H Power” to AMC’s new V8. The latter feature could have been excellent branding as well as a more reliable way to increase performance than the abandoned electronic fuel injection.
Romney had quite rightly decided to discontinue the Nash and Hudson brand names, so if the Hornet nameplate had been maintained it would have made sense to refer to it as “by Rambler” in much the same way as the Ambassador was when that nameplate was moved to the Rambler body.
Perhaps the biggest marketing challenge was that in the 1957 model year the Hudson brand was dying but not quite dead. And since the Rebel had been introduced in mid-year anyway, might it have been better to wait until 1958, when the Rambler’s front end was given much better styling?
Hornet could have squeezed more value from merger
Offering a sporty model — let’s call it the Hornet — might have also kept AMC from making the mistake of giving the Ambassador an ill-proportioned, nine-inch-longer wheelbase. Both the Hornet and Ambassador would have logically shared the same front-end sheetmetal, and a sporty model would have looked better with a wheelbase that was stretched no more than four inches from the regular Rambler, which had a 108-inch wheelbase.
It’s hard to see how a sporty model could have sold in more than small numbers during the late-50s recession. Even so, a Rambler-based Hornet would have generated higher profits while squeezing more value out of the Hudson brand. The 1954 merger between Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson may have benefitted the stockholders for the latter automaker, but Nash had arguably received little from the combine aside from an expanded dealer network.
Perhaps a Rambler-based Hornet could have been the seed that AMC used to slowly grow a presence in what would someday be called the muscle car and grand-touring sedan markets.
NOTES:
Production figures are from the Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975 (Gunnell, 2002).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Langworth, Richard M.; 1993. Hudson 1946-1957: The Classic Postwar Years. Motorbooks International, Osceola, WI.
- Mitchell, Larry G.; 2000. AMC Muscle Cars. MBI Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- wildaboutcarsonline.com (Automotive History Preservation Society): Plymouth (1957); Rambler (1957, 1958)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Rambler (1958)
This is an interesting perspective, but I do not know if it would have made any difference. The concept of the Rambler Rebel was sound, but the branding was wrong. The same car with the Hornet moniker would have perhaps been a better marketing identity. The big news for 1958 for A.M.C. was the 1958 restyle of the 1956-7 Rambler, eliminating the remnants of 1956-7 Airflyte front-end styling, which was clumsy at best.
When AMC models was sold in Australia, the name Rambler stayed a bit longer and the Hornet was badged as a Rambler Down Under.
http://www.oldcarbrochures.org/Australia/Australian-Motor-Industries/1970-Rambler-Hornet-Brochure/index.html
I agree, it’s an interesting perspective. The Ambassador name also had cachet and perhaps aligned better with Rambler’s more pedestrian body. Maybe the lesson is to go all the way, such as buying the Packard name to create an American response to Mercedes-Benz. The Predictor model name would have now taken on additional meaning. (Curbside Classic host website).
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/comment-image/478630.jpg
Yeah, the Airflyte design seemed dated for 1957. A 1958 Hornet on the new Classic chassis would have been great, especially since this was an “out with the old, in with the new” year, essentially rebooting AMC. I don’t think the Rebel could be considered the first muscle car as no other company picked up on the idea. After the GTO came out in 1964, two years later every make with a mid-size car had a muscle car.
It’s a shame that AMC abandoned the true Rebel after only one year. With continued development, it could evolved into a very nice, high-performance version of the Rambler.
The problem with christening it with the Hornet moniker was that the “old” Hudson Hornet was still around during the 1957 model year. When the Rebel debuted, the fate of both the Hudson and Nash nameplates was up in the air. The decision to discontinue the Hudson and Nash nameplates was supposedly made in the summer of 1957 – or after the Rebel had debuted.
Perhaps Romney didn’t wait until the 1958 model year to introduce the Rebel because he was desperate for something to garner attention in 1957? Remember that the Rambler body itself was already a year old for the 1957 model year, and in those days GM had conditioned everyone – buyers and the buff books alike – to expect something “new” with each model year.
Interestingly, what became the 1958 Ambassador was originally to be offered in badge-engineered Hudson and Nash versions. The Nash version was to be called the Ambassador, while there are photos of the Hudson prototype sporting the “Rebel” name.
As for the 1958 Ambassador that AMC did offer – it was a cheap way to garner a few extra sales without spending too much money. Extending the wheelbase behind the A-pillar may have made more sense from a styling and practicality standpoint (the car could offer more interior room than a regular Rambler), but AMC was perilously close to insolvency when these plans were being made. (Romney had fought off a hostile takeover attempt by noted corporate raider Louise Wolfson during 1957.)
It’s my understanding that extending the wheelbase ahead of the A-pillar is cheaper from both a tooling and manufacturing standpoint than making the extension in the passenger cabin itself. Romney didn’t have enough money to do it any other way.
Geeber, I wasn’t suggesting that AMC extend the passenger cabin. My beef is that the Ambassador’s snout extension was entirely too long. If money was that tight AMC could have gotten away with no wheelbase extension; the Ambassador did fine once it shared the same front sheetmetal with the Classic from 1962-64.
There were ways that AMC could have used the Hornet nameplate in 1957, depending upon when project development began. For example, in 1957 Hudson no longer offered two nameplates — the Wasp and Hornet — but only the latter in Super and Custom trim. They could have dropped the Hornet and elevated the series nomenclature to that of nameplates (e.g., Hudson Custom). Or they could have kept the full-sized Hornet and called a Rambler-based sporty model something like the Hornet II.
I get your point about AMC trying to give the 1957 line more sizzle. However, at the beginning of the model year the Rambler did receive some meaningful changes, such as a V8 and less weird trim on higher-priced models. And, according to Romney’s biography, sales did start to perk up in the latter part of the model year. So my guess is that the problem wasn’t Rambler sales so much as boosting production of the 327 V8. They might have actually sold more cars if they had offered that engine option on a regular Rambler.
The reason AMC extended the wheelbase of the Rambler to create the Ambassador is most likely rooted in the reason it created the Ambassador in the first place. AMC historian John Conde has said it was because AMC executives didn’t want to be seen driving plebian compacts. I’m suspicious of that one – much like the old story that Chrysler downsized its 1962 Dodge and Plymouth based on what William Newberg overheard at a garden party.
My guess is that while AMC dealers and board members were not unhappy to see the Hudson and Nash names put to rest, they were uncomfortable with the company completely abandoning the medium-price segment. A cheap way to maintain a presence in that segment was to keep the old Ambassador name, and slap it on a fancier Rambler.
Romney likely approved the wheelbase extension because, in 1957, even he wasn’t completely immune from the “more expensive car = bigger car” line of thought.
As for the Rebel itself – the main sin here was abandoning it for 1958. The car had received decent press when it debuted, and really did live up to the hype. A refined and restyled version for 1958 would have been a very good “halo” car for AMC. It also could have prevented AMC from gaining an image as the purveyor of cars for tightwads and senior citizens – an image that haunted the company when the Big Three invaded its turf with compacts, intermediates and first-generation pony cars.
Such a sad face on the 1956-57 Ramblers; the change for 1958 was a good one, although soon to become outdated (headlights would move into the grille, but at the outboard locations).
Other sad faces were seen on the 1960 Ford Falcon and 1961 Dodge full-size line.
IIRC the hot cars of the day tended to be mid priced cars with the short wheelbase model with the long wheelbase engine. Drop the V8 into the Classic body, slap the Ambassador grill on it, and people would understand exactly what it was.
Those 1957 Rebels must have been successful in NASCAR.
Well, no.
As Greg Zyla puts it, the parent company would have nothing to do with that. It went against company dogma.