1962 Rambler American Station Wagon - Thanks Dad

I'm mildly intrigued by this 1962 Rambler American station wagon that popped up in Facebook Marketplace this morning. It's for sale in Wind Gap, "P-A", as we refer to Pennsylvania here in NE Ohio, with an asking price a not unreasonable (in this day and age) $1,200. My wife and I are going to Carlisle and then Gettysburg next weekend. Maybe I can convince her to make the extra jaunt northeast to the Allentown area. Don't bank on that but it's a thought.  

My taste in cars is pretty narrow - if it's got more than two-doors, forget it. However, if it does have more than two, it better not have more than three. And if it does have more than three, then it better have five like our literal barn find here.  

I know I'm not the only "car person" who likes wagons and I get that it's a contradictory affection as well. Four-door sedans are too stuffy and practical. Yet, I'm drawn to station wagons that are far more functional than four-door sedans are. What's up with that? 

I mean, look how much stuff can fit in the back of this thing. And the glass opens separately from the tailgate like it did on our long gone, much loved 2004 and 2006 Chevy Tahoe's. I don't want either of them back but there are times my wife and I sure miss them. 

My father had a '61 Rambler Classic sedan that had an interior just like this one, ahem, had. I couldn't have been more than five when I'd be riding shotgun with him as he steered that big wheel with his knee while he lit one of his cheap, stinky, skinny cigars with a match. Cigars, for whatever reason, he only smoked while driving. After he got the thing lit, he'd throw the match out the window and I'd get a warm rush of relief when he'd finally put a hand back on the wheel. He'd roll up the window too to keep all maple rum aromatic flavor trapped inside the car. Thanks, Dad. 

No seat belts in Dad's '61 too. Good grief. Well, what did he know. That's what parents did back then. 

I'm sure he'd figure out how to light one of his smokey treats even if his had this three-on-the-tree setup. His had the funky push-button transmission. The buttons for it where to the left of the steering wheel. 

Ramblers came in three guises in the early Sixties. Americans like our barn find here where the entry level models based on the long in the tooth, one-hundred-inch-long wheelbase that went back to the 1950 "bathtub" Nash Rambler. Then there was the one-hundred-eight-inch wheelbase "Classic" like my father had and then the fairly massive "Ambassador" that rode on a one-hundred-seventeen-inch wheelbase. Still quite tidy compared to what the Big Three offered back then. 

If the three quite different yet similarly styled models had anything in common, it was that they looked like nothing else on the road at the time. Domestically anyway. Especially the Ambassador that looked like something penned up in a Communist-bloc country. 

I'd hate to think this old chuffer will go unsold and will be hauled off to the junkyard but who knows. Maybe someone who's really into this will grab it and at least get it going again. Might not be too bad. Afterall, according to the FB ad, it was running when parked where it is forty-years ago.