Coulda been a Rebel!

COULDA BEEN A REBEL!

Contributor Max encountered a film shoot on the island of Manhattan recently. Waiting for its cue was this sweet little jukebox:

Every car from the '50s should be a shade of aqua!
This is a 1957 Rambler De Luxe 6 in Bermuda Green. This was the lowest trim level, most economical car Rambler produced in '57. In fact the Rambler 6 boasted the highest MPG of any domestic car that year.
*In New York State you can register your classic ride with a matching set of license plates as long as they're from the same year as the car. Since the ride is wearing 1958 plates it must not have been titled until the turn of the calendar year. This is definitely a '57 as opposed to '58 though as the newer cars had quad headlights. 

This car is in perfect shape! Every inch looks like it just drove off the dealership floor. Those are the poverty caps you got if you went for the cheapest car they make.

The huge wraparound back window made visibility some of the best in the business. Dig that R gas cap! Boo hiss on the 1980s-era rear deck speakers.

This car was smartly designed in that it is a unibody. Unlike a traditional body on frame the unibody incorporates the metal shell into its structural makeup. The result is increased rigidity and (they claim) safety. Side impact crashes were helped by the door pillar being a part of the overall frame. The rocker panels were referred as Battleship Box Girders! Sounds safe anyways.

Everyone's always talking about the '57 Chevy but there was a hardtop version of this exact ride called the Rebel that was the fastest American production car that year! The Rebel was a lightweight 6 pillarless body outfitted with a 327 V8. Every one of them had a gold accented side trim piece and metallic paint. Being a big block in a mid size body meant that the Rebel makes a good claim to be the very first muscle car (I know you Buick Skylark and Olds 88 fans will say different but those were huge cars).
I love the unique frumpiness of the '50s Ramblers. To have a single car that claims highest gas mileage and top speed for the year depending on the engine alone is remarkable. The fact that there are no fins and barely any chrome made this perhaps the most subtle car for 1957 as well. To have a base model grocery getter in such spectacular shape after 60 years is just insane. Hats off Rambler!

A fish somehow caught between larva and pupa stage

A FISH CAUGHT BETWEEN LARVA AND PUPA STAGE

Contributor Max stumbled upon a record shattering 3 Ramblers over a 2 day span recently. All are rare by definition but this one takes the cake:

This is a vary late 1965 or very early 1966 Rambler Marlin in two-tone Caballero Medium Tan Poly with Frost White accents. The colors and wheels weren't around until '66 but the word RAMBLER was only on the Marlin for '65. There are no hard and fast rules when regarding the independent Rambler/AMC company from Kenosha, Wisconsin so the vintage blurring isn't terribly rare.
*While we're up front dig the body color spanning the center horizontal grill bar.

Behold the optional and rare Turbo Cast wheels painted in the body colors.
Rambler/AMC launched the Marlin in '65 as a mid size fastback personal luxury car to compete with the Mustang and Barracuda. Styling was unique as with all AMC products.

Here is the awesome and odd body on full display. Those massive rear side windows roll down making this a true hardtop. In an arrangement I don't remember seeing before the accent color wraps around the window opening in a boomerang shape. The corrugated chrome rocker panel seems to have only been added to a percentage of '66 Marlins.

The Marlin is weird! That center panel is all the trunk lid you get even though the trunk capacity includes the space behind the taillights. The incredible sexist copy in the sales brochure brags about the trunk space as something sure to calm "wives in a dither". They actually go through step-by-step instructions on how to manipulate your wife into accepting such a sporty looking car using imagery like protection for her patent leather heels while she's ferrying cub scouts around. It's worth a read as a period piece on relaxed everyday misogyny in the mid '60s.
That word RAMBLER under the trunk lid disappeared officially for 1966 as Rambler became AMC fully. This ride straddles the fence.

Check out this awesome Marlin emblem!

The Marlin was only around for 3 years. The final year of 1967 saw a much larger Marlin, then based on the full size Ambassador series with stacked quad headlights. While all Marlins are rare the '67 saw only 2,545 total built.
I love the Marlin and have only seen a couple over the years. For me this is the beginning of AMC going bonkers in their styling. Just a few years after this car was built legends like the Gremlin and Matador X would arrive, bringing with them Levis interiors. AMC released a special line of station wagons in 1967 that were like nothing from the other automakers. Here is a link to an article describing them in detail. Sales material featured a model holding a pistol and wearing an eye patch!
Given the chance I would own a Marlin in a flash. If you see one grab it!

L.A. Rob comes through with a mottled Rambler

CROSS COUNTRY ACROSS THE COUNTRY

L.A. Rob isn't an elitist; no matter how many Ferraris he spots on a weekly basis he's always happy to snap some pics of a multicolored Hooptie should he happen upon one in the wild. He actually sent me these pics a while back, but it wasn't until I was sent a pic of the same car by another friend in Cali that I was reminded of this trove. Check out this Ramblin' beast!

What we have here is a 1961 Rambler Classic Cross Country. The basic car itself was introduced this year as the Classic, with the wagon being given the additional moniker Cross Country. Engine choices were limited to an inline 6 cylinder or a small V8.

Hey this thing has been around and seen some serious sunshine. I'm talking about the sort of sun that strips a car of its paint, warps the dashboard uncontrollably, and destroys the parts of the seats that are exposed. In California cars die from the top down as opposed to the salty, wintry East.
The original color on this Rambler is Berkeley Blue Poly, but it seems to have picked up an Alamo Beige door along the way.

From this rear quarter angle we get a sense of how quirky this design is. The station wagon roof section  and rear posts were basically added on to the standard 4 door Classic body; the back window on the sedan had wraparound glass that started at the same rearward-leaning angle as the rear side glass here before curving around the back of the car. The upgrade for a wagon over a sedan cost a mere $339.

The rear of just about any wagon of this era is cool, and this one's no different. Pointed gothic taillights are tucked under the batwing fins, and the whole rear window is set under the roofline to allow for ventilation when it's raining. 

Cross Country is written in script under the rear window. From here you can see more of that funky roofline. A rusty roof and clean underneath? This thing might originally be from the desert where sand works in concert with the sun to ruin your cars surface.

This cool ride was ingenious as it's actually a basic design from 1956 that was given some fresh skin. It certainly worked as Rambler was the 3rd biggest selling automaker in the U.S. for that year (the only time it ever attained such popularity). While Rambler was a part of AMC (American Motors Corporation) in '61, the name Rambler was dropped from all vehicles in 1966. To go from #3 in the States to a defunct nameplate was unprecedented, but the company lived on in robust fashion after buying up AM General in '71, who produced the iconic Jeep.
I love this funky ride and it just goes to show that being unique can make you more noticeable in the crowd since 2 different friends sent me picks of this exact car out of the auto paradise of Los Angeles.