1966 Rambler Classic 550 Sedan

American Motors had huge plans to get on GM, Ford and Chrysler throughout a fatter slice of the solution line during the next fifty percent of the 1960s, creating a sporty fastback and generating the Ambassador even bigger and ritzier. Since Kenosha-crafted sensible compacts marketed like outrageous underneath Rambler badging during the late nineteen fifties and nicely into the 1960s (inspiring a strike novelty song together the way), AMC held on to the Rambler marque right up until the 1969 model yr. From 1961 by means of 1966, the Rambler Common was AMC’s very low-priced midsize motor vehicle, thieving several a sale from its Large Three rivals. Here’s a last-yr-of-output Rambler Common 550 sedan, photographed in its last parking area in a San Francisco Bay Region self-support boneyard.

From the late 1930s by means of the early 1960s, most American family cars had straight-6 engines. Flatheads slowly gave way to pushrod sixes, with Chrysler creating its final U.S.-market place flathead cars in 1959 and AMC hanging on to the valve-in-block design on its cheapest Ramblers by means of 1962. The motor in this Junkyard Gem is the 199-cubic-inch AMC 6, rated at 128 horsepower. If this 6 appears to be like acquainted to you Jeep fanciers, that’s simply because it truly is the immediate ancestor of all those 258s and 4.0s applied in Jeeps from the early 1970s all the way by means of the 2006 model yr.

When you acquired an entry-amount midsize sedan in North The united states in 1966 (or 1946, for that make a difference), you nearly usually got the cheapest probable transmission setup to go with your straight-6 motor: a column-shifted a few-speed handbook, popularly recognised as the a few-on-the-tree. Ground-shifted a few- or 4-speeds expense a lot again then, and an automatic could incorporate ten{0764260a27b4b31ca71a8adf79c3ae299a61e6f062052eee3f0df84ce9b30ade} to the expense of a new motor vehicle.

The huge rust gap beneath the clutch pedal tells us that the weather conditions stripping in this motor vehicle dissolved decades ago, letting the California wintertime rains to fill up the footwells with water and rot the floors. The fenders glance reliable, although.

The 550 was the cheapest Rambler Common 4-doorway you could purchase in 1966, listing at a stingy $2,238 (that’s about $eighteen,945 in 2021 bucks). The two-doorway post 550 sedan expense just $2,189 that yr.

Meanwhile, your Ford seller would market you a new ’66 Fairlane 6 4-doorway sedan for $2,280, and you would get just a hundred and five horses out of that car’s 170-cube straight-6. Walk throughout the street to the Chevrolet showroom and you would obtain a new Chevelle 300 sedan with a $2,202 MSRP— 36 bucks less expensive than the Rambler 550 and with just eight much less horses. Potentially simply because the foundation motor in the 1966 Plymouth Belvedere I was a 225-cubic-inch Slant-six generating a mighty a hundred forty five horsepower, the cheapest probable Belvedere sedan that yr expense $2,315. To be genuine, I feel I’d have taken the Belvedere more than the Rambler, Chevelle or Fairlane, have been I sticking with zero-extras foundation sedans in 1966, just centered on the powertrains.

The final-model-yr Rambler Common was a good offer on a reliable motor vehicle, although, and this just one outlived most of its contemporaries by a number of decades. It is really fitting that this just one spends its last pre-crusher months parked just throughout the aisle from its descendant: an AMC Eagle.

What much better motor vehicle to use in a exam to review “localized” gasoline to the affordable stuff?

The Wise Breathtaking.