AMC cars...

[appliguy]

The Hudson Metropolitan and Rambler

Regaurding the Met and Rambler wearing Hudson badges...... that was done to give Hudson a compact and subcompact to sell. After the merger the Hudson Jet of 1953 and 54 was promptly canceled because it was a huge flop. American Motors wanted Hudson to have something to sell in place of it for 1955 so putting the Hudson badge on the Met and the Rambler was the quick and easy thing to do and seeing as the Rambler was really catching on at the time it looked like that would be a good way for American Motors to get foot traffic into  Hudson dealerships. This practice was only used in 1955 and 56. In 1957 the Rambler became just the Rambler and the Met just the Met.  The Nash and Hudson names were retired halfway through 1957 but not before mock ups of what became the 1958 Ambasssador By Rambler were made with the badging that said Hudson Rebel and Nash Ambassador on them.  Other than the name badges there was no difference at all between a Hudson and a Nash Rambler or a Hudson and a Nash Metropolitan and according to what I was once told by a memeber of the local AMC club a Hudson badge on a Met or a Rambler does not make it worth anymore than a Nash version even though it is rarer........PAT COFFEY

 

[hydralique]

The AMC merger ruined Hudson as every Hudson model was swiftly replaced with rebadged Ramblers. Hudson had been a mid priced car, and the Ramblers were cheaper to build so the new AMC board thought they were pulling a fast one by being able to charge Hudson prices for Ramblers. The Ramblers were mostly decent cars so they might have been able to get away with this if they had spent some time and money for significant syling changes and engine upgrades for Hudson badged cars. Instead the new "Hudsons" just got garish two and three tone paint jobs and lots of extra chrome on the Rambler bodies. Nobody was fooled, traditional Hudson customers went to GM and Chrysler as they had strong mid-priced makes, and people who wanted Ramblers in the first place saw no reason to pay more for the Hudson name and bought Ramblers. After '57 even AMC gave up the charade and shut down Hudson. AMC then tried for years to get back into the mid-priced marketplace with the Ambassador but never made much headway there.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

The full sized Hudsons became Nash Ambassador/Statesman based actually (Hash), not Nash Rambler based. The step-down Hudson was a wonderful car, but Hudson was losing their shirt as the design was getting quite dated by the mid 1950s. The Ford/Chevy price war of 1954/1955 was putting a severe hurting on all the independent makes. Building the Hudson on the Nash Ambassador/Statesman chassis was just matter of survival. Note that the Nash based Hudsons still had the excellent Hudson flathead sixes for a while. Also note that all brands had "garish" 2 and 3-tone paint jobs at the time. It was actually another failing independent, Kaiser, that helped move the industry away from earth tones.

AMC only had enough money to come out with one new car, and George Romney decided to put that money into what would be the all new 1956 Rambler rather than the full-size Nash/Husdon lines. This was a good move, by 1960 Rambler pushed Plymouth out of the #3 sales positon.

Ken D.

 

[hydralique]

Yes, I am aware that technically the last large Hudsons were based on Nash and not Nash Rambler platforms, but to the traditional Hudson buyer they clearly weren't Hudsons. The small Hudson Jet was replaced with a Rambler platform car. Like the Hudson Hornet, the Ambassador/Statesman was an excellent car in the late '40s and early '50s. It did get updated for '52 which helped some but they still couldn't keep up with competing GM models. What AMC really needed was a new platform for the large cars in '58 but as noted they didn't have the money and decided to emphasize the Ramblers. Given this, I've always wondered why they merged with Hudson in the first place!

 

[sudsmaster]

Here's a look at the actual structure of the Chrysler Airflow.

 

It looks like it was more of a space frame design than a unibody or even a unitized body design. The space frame approach is used on many race cars, as well as was used on part of the GM Saturn cars, at least those with plastic bodywork.

 

In any case it looks strong and I notice that the lower "frame" is just a shadow of what a real lower frame with a body bolted on would be.

http://www.ponoko.com/design-your-o...34-chrysler-airflow-showroom-frame-model-5009

 

[rp2813]

I remember one trim line of Gremlin offered blue denim upholstery.  I wonder how durable it was.  I suppose from what I've read here that it would have outlasted the drive train.

 

[appliguy]

Hydralique...the merger of Nash and Hudson into American Mot

The 1953-54 Hudson Jet was what ruined Hudson. The Jet was a huge flop in the market and it's development took most of Hudson's new car development money and so they could not afford to design a new V8 (which was quickly becoming the rage in the early 50's) for the full sized Hudsons nor could Hudson afford to replace the 1948 era step down platform...which was not at all adaptable to station wagons (another rage of the 50's). If Hudson had used their money more wisely in the early 50's they probably would have had a better chance to survive. Also the Nash was not just freshend up in 1952 it was [COLOR=#800080; font-size: medium; text-decoration: underline]ALL NEW[/COLOR] Even though it says Pinninfarina on the body the real designer of the 1952 Nash Airflytes was Nash designer Edmund Anderson. Nash had hired Battista Farina to design the 1952 models but his designs were thought to be to European for most Americans taste so Anderson was brought in to redsign it to be more suitable to American tastes of the day. Nash kept the Pinninfarina badge on because they felt it would be a good marketing tool. Oh and what really knocked <span style="font-size: medium; text-decoration: underline;">ALL</span>  the independants on the respective tails in the early to mid 50's was the price war that broke out between Ford and Chevy in 1953. Chevy and Ford's bids to outproduce each other got so bad by 1954 that both makes even resorted to sending cars to the dealers which they had not even ordered with the command to sell them below price if they had to. With competition like that the indepenants and Chrysler Corp. were knocked tothere knees and that is why the Kaiser-Willys, Studebaker-Packard, and the Nash-Hudson mergers finally ended up taking place. If the indepndants would have banded together around 1950 like George Mason had origianlly tried to get them to do we may very well have still had Packard, Studebaker, and Nash cars today......PAT COFFEY

 

[whirlcool]

I remember those denim interiors. I believed they were called the "Levi Edition". They even had the little red Levi tag on the seats.

 

[appliguy]

Yes Whirlcool

you are correct sir

 

[revvinkevin]

Here is a Rambler I would LOVE to have!

I actually came across a guy with one of these a few years ago at an early morning car show / cruise. After talking to him quite a while and drooling (heavily) over the car, he offered to give me a ride in it. I accepted of course and much to my enjoyment, the ride included a FULL THROTTLE blast thru 1st, 2nd & 3rd gears! It was pretty dam awesome![this post was last edited: 2/2/2011-00:15]

 

[revvinkevin]

This shows the rare, optional paint scheme (2nd car up).

 

[rp2813]

The body style of those SC/Ramblers was one of my favorites.  It actually could compete with the styling of the Bigger 3. 

 

I could have some fun in the back seat with a couple of the owners pictured above!

 

[kenwashesmonday]

rp2813 wrote:
"I remember one trim line of Gremlin offered blue denim upholstery. I wonder how durable it was."

****************

It would have been nice it it was real denim, but they weren't allowed to use real denim because it was not fire resistant. The fabric they used was not tough like blue jeans at all, it was just the look.

Ken D.

 

[rp2813]

Ken, that's what I thought.  That's why I didn't call it a "Levis" interior.  Yet the red tab does sound familiar.  Perhaps it was a Levis look, but I would think if the material wasn't truly made by Levi-Strauss, they'd have sued AMC over the red tab even if it didn't say "Levis" on it.

 

[whirlcool]

I remember those S/C Ramblers from the showroom. Quite an impressive car.
Didn't that also call it the "Rambler Scrambler"?

You're right about the material.....

From Wiki:

1972
Gremlins also received the option of a Levi's interior trim package, which included spun nylon upholstery made to look like denim (fire safety regulations prohibited the use of real cotton denim). Details included removable map pockets, burnished copper denim rivets, and red Levi's logo tabs. One notable and widely appreciated change was the increase in legroom in the rear seats.

And the Levi's edition even had a special exterior paint job:

 

[appliguy]

I have heard of it refered to as

The  Scrambler....PAT COFFEY

 

[sudsmaster]

A friend of mine said he'd had a Gremlin in the early 70's, and he raved about it. He said it was nearly indestructible. I think he added that he had rolled it once into a ditch and it came out nearly unscathed and he and his buddies just continued on down the road.

 

The Gremlin was based on the 108 inch wheel base Hornet, but with the wheel base reduced to 96 inches, with 18 inches chopped off at the rear and a kamm-back rear end modification. It looked a bit odd but the kamm-back (a forerunner of the soon to be ubiquitous hatchback) was aerodynamically efficient. The cars retained the sturdy AMC six cylinder engines and gave good performance with the lightened body and got reasonable gas mileage as well (as good as 30 mpg or so).

 

It was probably a better car than the Pacer.

 

 

 

 

[cfz2882]

pace car

Hehe,sounds like that friend with the gremlin had nearly the same experience
as my buddy had when he rolled his pacer in a ditch.
Somewhere i have details on an AMC concord pace car(don't remember which
race)anyway,it was from around 1979,'80 or '81 and had a modified and
turbocharged 258 six.

 

[cfz2882]

450 hp six!

i googled "AMC pace car"and a wikipedia came up with AMC spirit and concord
and mentioned the 1981 spirit pace car with it's 450hp turbo'ed six!
Radical modified bodywork too.