The 1964 AMC Ramblers Banish Casual Workmanship, Straitjacket Seats
The American Motors Corporation, formed out of the merger of Nash-Kelvinator and the Hudson Motor Car Company in 1954, did very well selling small and affordable cars during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Once the Detroit Big Three began producing their own compact cars for 1960, though, the Kenosha Not-So-Big One had to catch up. For 1963, AMC made the Rambler Classic and Rambler Ambassador bigger and better-appointed. Here's a magazine advertisement for the second model year of that generation of Ramblers.
The bad news for AMC in 1964 was that General Motors introduced its own midsize cars for that model year, while Ford and Chrysler had been in the midsize game since two years earlier.
Still, the compact '64 Rambler American could squeeze beneath the price tags on the Chevy II, Falcon, and Valiant, while the midsize Classic and Ambassador were cheaper than their Chevelle, Fairlane, and Belvedere counterparts (while also being somewhat smaller).
