After writing the vlogging story last week, my YouTube feed was inundated with videos about late-60s American Motors cars. And I had to admit that the Rebel and Ambassador two-door hardtops looked fairly good. That got me to thinking: Why didn’t they sell better?
This situation strikes me as a good example of how Detroit groupthink could sometimes backfire when an automaker — particularly an independent — followed it. A dominant assumption was that fresh styling was a key to sales success. That’s what AMC delivered in 1967, yet production for its mid-sized Rebel still dropped by 20 percent.
It’s true that the mid-sized field saw its production fall by 17 percent, so AMC only did slightly worse. It’s also true that the mid-sized offerings from Ford and Chrysler had steeper declines (34 and 28 percent, respectively). General Motors did the best with only a 5-percent drop — and, to be fair, it was much better positioned than AMC to exploit a growing muscle-car market.
Even so, the Rebel plausibly could have done at least somewhat better. Not only was its styling new, but it was as attractive as any of its competitors. Indeed, the 1967 senior AMC two-door hardtops were the first since the automaker was formed in 1954 that weren’t deficient in a quirky way (except for the Marlin).
Rebel shared the spotlight with the Ambassador
One could point out that the Rebel was at a disadvantage because for 1967 AMC shifted its focus to the Ambassador, which was repositioned as a low-priced, full-sized car. The Ambassador had fancier stylistic details, such as a longer hood and faux road lights on higher-end models. Yet output still declined by 12 percent.
That was better than the Big Three’s low-priced, full-sized cars, which were down by 16.5 percent. So AMC could consider the Ambassador’s sales to have represented at least a small victory because all of its competitors had been reskinned.
Also see ‘Was the 1966 Olds Cutlass Supreme the first mid-sized brougham model?’
That said, the Ambassador garnered under 63,000 units. Was that large enough volume to justify its own nameplate and styling changes that included a four-inch longer snout than the Rebel? Arguably not.
In addition, trying to sell the Ambassador as a full-sized car would prove to be a losing proposition — particularly as sales of luxurious mid-sized cars grew in the late-60s and early-70s. Here AMC missed the boat, particularly given that earlier Ambassadors helped pioneer this market niche (go here for further discussion).
Marlin was weakest link in AMC’s mid-sized lineup
The biggest loser AMC fielded on its mid-sized platform was the Marlin, which saw output fall by 44 percent to under 3,000 units. That was as low as sales of convertibles, which did so badly that they were phased out by the end of 1968.
The Marlin’s failure was the easiest of the AMCs to diagnose. Although its styling was considerably improved for 1967, its repositioning as a more luxury-oriented fastback didn’t work. The only mid-sized fastbacks that sold decently in the late-60s emphasized sportiness, such as the Ford Torino GT.
Ironically, the rationale for the Marlin was undercut by the quality of the Ambassador DPL two-door hardtop, whose semi-fastback shape had a nice balance between luxuriousness and sportiness.
Might the Marlin have sold better if it had kept the Rebel’s front end and was given sportier trim such as racing stripes? The problem with that idea is the car’s front end was arguably too squared off to work with a full fastback. A better approach may have been a fastback with an S-shape akin to the 1973 Hornet hatchback.
American Motors’ sales fell even further in 1968
The bottom line was that despite the high cost of the redesign of AMC’s mid-sized platform, total production was down 17.5 percent. That might not have been such a problem if the previous-year’s sales had been better. However, 1966 production was already down 45 percent from a 1963 high of almost 358,000 units. For 1967 it would fall to roughly 163,000 units.
Things got even worse for 1968 even though it was a better year for the U.S. auto industry. Total output for the mid-sized platform dropped 22 percent to under 134,000 units. That reflected declines by both the Ambassador (-13 percent) and Rebel (-21 percent) along with the discontinuance of the Marlin.
Also see ‘How American Motors abandoned its uniqueness in the second half of the 1960s’
Two-door models saw by far the largest output drop — 44 percent — compared to only 20 percent for wagons and 1 percent for four-door sedans. This may have partly reflected AMC thinning the ranks of its two-door models by dropping a pillared coupe and reducing the number of convertible models. However, the biggest factor may have been that each of the Big Three gave its mid-sized lineups flashy new styling whereas AMC made due with minor changes.
Another factor may have been new internal competition from the Javelin pony car. That undoubtedly siphoned away marketing dollars that the Rebel needed. Perhaps just as importantly, AMC tended to give the Javelin (and its two-seater sibling, the AMX) performance bits rather than the Rebel. And then in 1969 the Rebel SST was downgraded from a stand-alone sporty model to a dowdy custom model shared with the sedans and wagons.
A temporary leap forward in styling didn’t help AMC
I suspect that one reason why the 1967 redesign didn’t sell better was because of quality-control issues, such as a gas-tank leak that led Consumer Reports to give the Ambassador an embarrassing, “not acceptable” rating (go here for further discussion). And as AMC sales plunged into the red, some potential buyers may have worried about the automaker going out of business.
In addition, the automaker may have tried to make too many marketing changes too fast, such as moving the Ambassador into the full-sized field, turning the Marlin into a luxury personal coupe, phasing out the Rambler brand name, and killing the Classic nameplate in favor of the Rebel. On the latter point, when the Big Three automakers switched nameplates of their mid-sized entries, they tended to do so over a longer transition period (go here for further discussion).
I also suspect that the Rebel would have sold better over the next few years if the Ambassador had been downgraded to being once again a top-end model (rather than an entire line) and the Javelin had been merely a Plymouth Duster-style variant to the American that didn’t hoard all of AMC’s performance goodies.
NOTES:
Product specifications and production figures are from Flory (2005), Gunnell (2002) and the auto editors of Consumer Guide (1993, 2006).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 1993, 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2004. American Cars, 1960-1972. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised Fourth Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
ADVERTISEMENTS & BROCHURES:
- autohistorypreservationsociety.org: AMC Ambassador (1967)
- oldcaradvertising.com: AMC Ambassador (1967)
- oldcarbrochures.org: AMC Ambassador (1968); AMC Rebel (1967, 1968, 1969)
For me looking solely at designs there wasn’t enough to distinguish from offerings of Ford or Plymouth in similar price ranges. Minus the Marlin nothing from AMC stood out with the Marlin a standout for wrong reasons.
Just wondering, how many here actually own a 1967 (or so) Rebel or have owned one? I have a 1967 Rebel in the garage. I’ve owned it for over 30 years and can speak fairly authoritatively on what it’s like to own one.
It’s basically a pretty nice car, roomy and comfortable, looks pretty good, but not a lot of positive distinction between it and its Big 3 competition. About the only thing the Rebel offers that the others don’t is the reclining seat option. Also the overall quality does not really compare to the Ramblers of the early 1960s despite those older cars having even more outdated engineering. (Not that quality was all that great for the domestic industry as a whole back then.)
Although the torque tube was finally gone the car still had some unfortunate engineering holdbacks such as trunnions in the front suspension (which had no anti-drive geometry), the ancient Borg-Warner 3-speed automatic transmission, and vacuum windshield wipers. I believe the standard 3-speed manual transmission had a non-synchro first gear.
The wipers would be the most obvious item to car buyers of the time, and probably surprised some who never stopped to consider that their late 1960s auto would not come with electric wipers standard. (Most buyers probably never stopped to consider front suspension engineering and while no Torqueflite the Borg-Warner trans wasn’t all that bad. Ford had their own version of the BW slushbox and GM was still fooling around with 2-speed transmissions on many of their cars.
It was definitely a losing proposition to stretch the nose several inches and call it a “full sized” car, especially getting into the 1970s when the Big 3’s large cars became ridiculously bloated. Maybe a semi-luxury intermediate at best. The thing is though that with some refreshing of the outer sheet metal it could have been fairly competitive with GM’s “downsized” full-size cars of 1977, but all the company’s money was wasted on the Matador Coupe and Pacer, as well as some other misadventures.
Tony, you make some good points. I am going primarily by road tests. For example, Consumer Reports seemed to think that the Rebel’s best feature was its roominess. After the 1967 redesign, the Rebel had the most interior room and trunk space of any mid-sized car.
Consumer Reports was less impressed with the Rebel’s roadworthiness. However, by 1972-73 the Rebel’s replacement, the Matador, received pretty good reviews after AMC upgraded its mechanicals and manufacturing quality.
That said, I don’t think the 1967 Rebel’s mechanicals were quite as bad as some folks now argue. The Borg-Warner automatic transmission wasn’t ideal, but was it much worse than the Chevelle’s PowerGlide? The hydraulic wipers were retro, but you could upgrade to electric. AMC continued to use trunnions for a few more years, but a properly optioned car could handle decently (and how many consumers even knew what trunnions were?). AMC was reportedly slower than other U.S. automakers to switch to synchro three-speed manual transmissions, but by 1967 how many Rebel buyers didn’t opt for an automatic or a four-speed?
My point is not to give AMC a free pass. Your experience with your Rebel would seem to align with that of Consumer Reports, which judged the car’s overall quality to be mediocre – which was quite a change from earlier in the decade, when senior Ramblers tended to rank well. I suspect that this hurt AMC’s reputation because its customer base had tended to be practical car buyers who didn’t particularly care about trendy styling.
So perhaps AMC’s big mistake of 1967 was to vainly try to win over more style-conscious Big Three buyers while alienating its traditional market.
In the 1960s and 1970s I owned three mid-60s AMC cars equipped with vacuum operated wipers. They were entirely adequate and I can’t believe that most car buyers would care very much. Electric wipers were on the extra-cost option list, along with dozens and dozens of other things that people expect to be standard equipment in the cars of 2025.
When I look at the 1967 Rebel, I see a perfectly acceptable car that doesn’t stand out in any way. In particular, I’m not seeing anything that will get anyone out of a Chevelle, F-85/Cutlass or Belvedere/Satellite.
It’s perhaps a testament to Dick Teague’s talent that it looks as good as a GM car of that era (although I believe that the 1967-68 Ambassador is the real gem). But if people wanted a GM intermediate, they could buy one of the four varieties offered by the various GM divisions. The retention of outdated engineering features certainly didn’t help AMC’s effort.
On Curbside Classics, in the comments for one of the stories, a poster listed the percentage of each intermediate line’s sales that consisted of two-doors – hardtops, coupes and convertibles. (This was for either the 1968 or 1969 model year.)
The figure for the Pontiac Tempest/LeMans/GTO was extremely high – around 75 percent, if I recall correctly. Meanwhile, the Rebel was the only the intermediate with four-door sedans and wagons that outsold the two-door versions.
AMC didn’t even offer a two-door in the Ambassador/Classic line until 1962, and then it was a homely two-door sedan. The 1963 line featured a nicely styled two-door, but it wasn’t a hardtop. The 1964 line finally added a handsome two-door hardtop, but, by that point, people looking for a hardtop coupe weren’t inclined to visit their AMC dealer.
AMC thus probably should have focused its efforts on making its sedans and wagons more attractive.
Geeber is absolutely correct on his points…If the average buyer is in the market for an intermediate car, he or she is likely going to shop a Chevelle / Malibu, Special / Skylark, Cutlass, Tempest / LeMans / GTO, Belvedere / GTX, Coronet / Charger, and Fairlane / Torino / Comet / Montego FIRST. The problem with the Ambassador and Rebel wasn’t the styling: It was the engineering details like the trunnions and windshield wipers, lack of dealer penetration and most importantly, a lack of marketing punch compared to G.M.’s four divisions with intermediates, Ford and Mercury. and Plymouth and Dodge. The 1968 model year turned up the heat competitively as A.M.C.’s rivals launched brilliantly restyled cars. Plus, A.M.C. had an identity problem as they weren’t really Ramblers anymore. This is the same trap Studebaker had ON THE STREET after 1956. Roy Abernathy’s leadership diminished the value of the Rambler brand name umbrella, a mistake that I do not believe George Romney would have made !
James, do you honestly think that your average mid-sized car buyer of that era even knew what trunnions were? Also note that if they didn’t want the standard windshield wipers, they could opt for electric wipers for a pretty small added charge.
After 1965, AMC had to at least make an attempt to capture owners of Big Three vehicles.
Imagine the owner of a 1964 Cutlass or 1965 Dodge Coronet visiting an AMC/Rambler dealer in 1967-69 and discovering that not every Rebel or even Ambassador on the lot had standard electric wipers. Or, even worse, taking it for granted that the cars were equipped with standard electric wipers at the time of purchase, and then discovering that the windshield wipers slowed down every time the car was accelerating up a hill or from a stop light.
That isn’t the sort of thing that generates good word-of-mouth from owners.
While owners most likely didn’t know the difference between a trunnion and a ball joint, by the late 1960s even Consumer Reports was complaining about the handling and overall “feel” of the Rebel and Ambassador as compared to the Chrysler and GM competition.
The complaints about substandard handling weren’t just coming from the buff books that expected every car to handle like a BMW 2002 or even a Plymouth Barracuda Formula S.
I would imagine that potential AMC/Rambler buyers were more likely to read Consumer Reports than Car and Driver.
I’m not suggesting that AMC’s decontenting was irrelevant, but merely that we contemporary car enthusiasts tend to fixate on certain things that may not have actually been all that important back in the day to most potential car buyers. For example, in the late-60s American auto manufacturers decontented all but their higher-end cars in order to brag about low list prices. If you were a savvy car buyer you knew this so thought about what options to add. Each automaker or even brand had its own personality with regards to what it made you pay extra for.
Was someone not going to buy an AMC because they had to pay $18 more for electric wipers? AMC bean counters assumed not — and that’s not without some justification. The main problem I see is that AMC cars needed to distinguish themselves from the Big Three’s as more akin to the imports in their quality and practicality. One way to do that was to not nickel and dime customers on such things as wipers (or faster-ratio manual steering or beefed-up suspension, tires and brakes). So I’m agreeing with your larger point while putting some parameters on it.
By the same token, yes Consumer Reports was not so keen on the roadworthiness of the Rebel and Ambassador — and I think it was a huge mistake for Abernethy and then Chapin to not work harder to get a high ranking from that magazine (a behavior pattern that didn’t change until 1972, with the unveiling of the Buyer Protection Plan). However, if I recall correctly the 1968 Javelin did quite well against the Mustang despite its trunnions.
It’s not just nickel and diming. It’s also about grabbing a car off the lot vs ordering one. We live in an age where we have about 8 color choices, a grayish or blackish interior, and some combination of a trim package, comfort package, infotainment package, and fancy wheels. Now granted much of what we consider standard equipment was optional then, but a typical model would have several engine choices, two or three transmission choices, rear axle ratios (!), and let’s not get into several interior material choices, and dozens of paint/vinyl combos. You notice electric wipers on your lengthy options list your first thought is “don’t all cars have electric wipers?” And you start to wonder what else is on the options list that everyone else has standard. So say the dealer orders all the lot cars with the wipers, and you see the extra 18 on the sticker (close to a day’s net wages then) amd you do feel nickel and dimed.
At least now you can probably grab something off the lot with what you want one it.
So are you suggesting that the dealers and factory displayed consistently bad judgment in equipping cars that were out of sync with what buyers in given market wanted? I vaguely recall a buff magazine making a joke about dealers ordering weird equipment combos for early Javelins, but I assume that over time they got used to selling the cars with the equipment people actually wanted.
Let’s be real — back then there could be a profound difference between the equipment levels of cars as advertised and as actually built. For example, the Gremlin was initially offered with a two-seater version to get the price down into import territory. How many of those cars do you think actually made it to dealer lots?
I’m not saying they used bad judgement as such, but their product line required them to. I remember those loss leader Gremlins. An acquaintance of mine actually bought one. IIRC it was around the end of the model year and the dealer was just glad for someone to take it off their hands.
Actually I have no problem with the roadworthiness of my Rebel and I used to drive it over half the country. (These days though it’s mostly just local car shows where the reaction is usually “What the heck is that?”)
With heavy-duty springs and shocks plus decent radial tires the Rebel is not bad at all despite the poor geometry of the trunnion-based front suspension. Though I could see a typical soft-sprung model with skinny bias-ply tires not being all that great back when they were new.
I remember Rebel and Ambassador wagons being popular with painters and handymen when they were old, beat-up 2nd and 3rd-hand cars that could be picked up cheap and run ragged.
I’ll grant your trunnion point. Okay yes, you could order electric wipers and some bread and butter items at a small cost. However, this means ordering the car, filling out forms etc, and waiting a few weeks for delivery. So the customer heads over to Pete’s Pontiac City to see what they have. The salesman then tells you “my friend, ALL our Pontiacs have these features standard. Let’s go out to the lot and see what color you like. You can drive your new LeMans home in time to take the family out to dinner” Now= I don’t what trunnions are either. But if I have to pay extra for items that are standard on the big 3 equivalents, I’m going to file like I’m being nickel and dimed, and I’m going to wonder what AMC got cheap on that I can’t see and don’t know about.
Again, your assumption seems to be that the cars on the lot at AMC dealers weren’t equipped with electric wipers. I think it fair to suggest that there were dealers smart enough to order cars in sync with their customer preferences (in other words, every car a dealer bought wasn’t a loss leader). And even if not, have you looked up how little extra electric wipers cost as an option? It was peanuts. Beyond all that, I suspect that there were few — if any — people who would end up buying another brand specifically because of electric wipers.
Bottom line: AMC had a lot bigger issues that resulted in weak sales than the type of wipers which came standard.
In the sixties it was routine to order your car rather than accepting only what was on the lot – and the lots had far fewer cars. People selected from a long list of mostly inexpensive options at Pontiac dealers just as they did at AMC dealers. My dad chose his options and ordered a Rambler, a Classic, and two Ambassadors.
I’ve got to say that 68 SST pictured is a very attractive car, much better than the 67 IMO. If I were picking a car from the era, I’d be heading straight to Dodge for a highly contented 67 Coronet.
I would propose that the failure of AMC intermediates to catch on had nothing to do with trunnions or transmissions, nor with vacuum or electric wipers. Not even styling or dealer networks.
I would submit that it’s due to the human tug-of-war: we crave belonging and uniqueness in equal, often conflicting, measure.
Here’s the paradox in plain terms: We want to be different because being unique gives us identity, purpose, and distinction. It tells us we’re not just a face in the crowd—we matter in some individual way. We want to be noticed, remembered, seen.
We want to be the same because belonging to a group gives us safety, affirmation, and connection. It tells us we’re not alone. Shared values, habits, clothes, slang—it all signals, “I’m one of you.”
But these two instincts pull in opposite directions. The more different we are, the more we risk exclusion. The more we conform, the more we risk invisibility.
Social psychologists call this optimal distinctiveness theory—we seek a sweet spot between too much sameness and too much difference. We want to stand out just enough to be special, but not so much that we get cast out. In a culture that praises “individualism,” we’re encouraged to be “authentic”—but only within accepted parameters. Step too far off the norm, and suddenly you’re “weird,” not “cool.” So we chase uniqueness that still fits inside the boundaries of group acceptance.
We’re herd animals with egos. We want to belong to the tribe, but we also want the tribe to notice us dancing at the edge. And most of the time, we’re just trying to find where that edge is without falling off.
In automotive terms, we want to drive something special—not the same thing sitting in the neighbor’s driveway. But we don’t want to be the only one on the block with an Edsel. Or a Yugo. Or maybe even an AMC. We don’t want to stand out for the wrong reasons—only the right ones. So we go with a unique color, or a graphics package, or an interior option. Enough to set us apart from the crowd, without casting us out of it.
Sure, there are exceptions. VW changed the American auto market thanks to folks who didn’t follow the crowd. AMC survived because of customers who weren’t opposed to “thinking outside the box.” Until they didn’t. They must have known their customers were outliers—or they wouldn’t have committed resources to the Gremlin, the Pacer, and the Matador coupe, all clearly answers to questions nobody was asking. They bet the farm on those folks who marched to a different beat.
But most people just wanted a car like everybody else’s—just in a different color to set them apart. Unique in the herd, not in a pasture by themselves.
That’s a reasonable theory. As time when on Teague was apparently one of the biggest champions within AMC of coming out with truly different designs such as the Gremlin and Pacer. What’s interesting about the Rebel is that it went in the opposite direction of trying to be more like GM cars. Which raises the question: If you were inclined to buy a GM car, why would you be drawn to go with a Rebel instead? Because it had newer styling? A few inches more shoulder room and a bigger trunk?
I always thought the 67 Rebel, all models, was one of the best styled cars AMC ever built and it looked as good as the competition. I thought it had an Oldsmobile look especially the wagons. Consumer Reports over the years usually said AMC cars didn’t have the refinement of the Big 3. It was mentioned in the article but not emphasized enough that people in 1966 and 67 really thought AMC was about to go out of business just as Studebaker did in March 1966. And that was a big reason AMC sales were down.
I hope that the AMC board gave Abernathy the bum’s rush out of the door when they forced him out.