Rambler

US, 1902 – 1913; 1950 – 1970

(1) Thos. B. Jeffery Co, Kenosha, Wic., 1902 – 1913

(2) Nash Motor Co, Kenosha, Wisc., 1950 – 1954

(3) American Motors Corporation, Kenosha, Wisc., 1950 – 1970

Despite the interval of 37 years, these two Rambler car makes are directly connected. The original Rambler car derived its name from the bicycles built by Gormully and Jeffery, who had a branch factory in Coventry in the 1890s. In 1902 form this Rambler car was a light runabout in the American idiom with a single horizontal cylinder, chain drive, cycle-type wire wheels and tiller steering, this Rambler car was selling for $750. In the first season 1.500 Rambler cars were sold, a figure which places the makers in the same category as Oldsmobile, among the world’s first mass producers.

By 1905 the Rambler car had grown into a sizable twin-cylinder machine with front bonnet, and with the introduction of a 4-cylinder Rambler car in 1907 the Rambler car make had moved up into the semi-luxury class; another parallel with Oldsmobile, but one which had less unfortunate financial consequences, for Rambler sold over 3.000 Rambler cars in 1911 and 4.435 in 1913, the last year of production of Rambler cars. The bigger of two fours offered in 1912 had a 7-litre engine with separate cylinders. 1914 Rambler cars went under the name of Jeffery. Advanced features of these late Ramblers were sidelamps faired into the scuttle, and detachable wooden wheels.

Nash Motors, successors to the Jeffery company, revived the name in 1950 for the first of the modern generation of American ‘compacts’. This Rambler car was a 2.8-litre sv six with a wheelbase of 8ft 4in and an overall length of under 15ft, priced at $1.800. It featured unitary construction of chassis and body, and the Rambler car weighed only 2.576lb at a time when a regular Chevrolet sedan turned the scales at around 3.600lb. Nash sales went up by 50.000 as a result of the Rambler car, which was offered as a Nash until 1957, acquiring styling by Pininfarina in 1952, the option of an automatic gearbox in 1953, and an alternative V8 engine in 1957. Some Rambler cars were also sold under the Hudson after the merger which brought American Motors into being in 1954.

From 1958 on, all A.M.C. cars were known as Rambler cars, the former full-sized Nashes continuing as Rambler’s Ambassador model. The Rambler car was the first of the contemporary compacts, and set a fashion imitated later by the Big Three. In the recession year, 1958, George Romney’s criticisms of large Rambler cars were widely quoted. In 1958 the low-priced American model reverted to the 8ft 4in wheelbase, and 1961 saw the introduction on Rambler cars of a die-cast aluminium ohv push-rod six which eventually supplanted the old sv unit. The last vestiges of the 1949 Nash Airflyte styling vanished in 1963, and disc brakes were offered as an option in 1965, in which year a sporting fastback coupé, the Rambler Marlin, was introduced. 1967 Rambler cars were made on three wheelbase lengths – 8ft 10in, 9ft 4in, and 9ft 8in – and with a choice of ohv 3.8-litre 6-cylinder or 4.8- and 5.6-litre V8 engines. From 1968 the name Rambler cars became less prominent in the range, new models such as the Javelin being known under their own names. For the 1970 season the name Rambler was dropped altogether in the USA and Canada, although the Hornet was sold as a Rambler car in export markets. For the 1971 season the name Rambler was no longer used at all.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; MCS

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