With the maybe exception of the two-passenger, 1968 to 1970 AMC AMX, when it comes to cars from American Motors, I'm ambivalent about them at best, a ribald disparager at worst. This 1968 Ambassador SST? It's no eyesore like a 1956 Nash Rambler is, but even as derivatively handsome as it is, it's simultaneously familiar and off-putting like many an Australian car that looks "American" yet isn't.
American Motors, or AMC, was the result of the merger of Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson in 1954, the Ambassador nameplate had been part of Nash's vehicle lineup going back to the 1920's. From 1958 through 1961, an "Ambassador" was AMC's top-of-the-line model and was a mid-size car, for 1962 it was a compact, 1963 and 1964 it was an intermediate again before becoming a full-size car from 1965 through 1974. Actually, it was more like a large intermediate than a full-size car albeit one that got incrementally bigger though the years.
Our '68 here is part of a 1967 redesign of the Ambassador that saw AMC unabashedly take design elements from each of the Big Three and mash them together. A little GM here, some Ford there, even some Chrysler thrown into the mix too; AMC literally borrowed parts like starters, power steering pumps, transmissions and more from the Big Three as well so along with the styling grabs, no wonder AMC was euphemistically referred to by some as, "All Makes Combined".
Through my fogged-up goggles, the thing with AMC's was they never looked like everything was sorted out properly. Part of that was on purpose, AMC deliberately designed cars that looked different, but even after they attempted to go mainstream to bumper-to-bumper with the rest of Detroit, things didn't go exactly right. In the early '60's, Chrysler pushed the envelope on weird, but they never pushed the envelope off the table, and not in a good way, like AMC did time and time again.
Bottom line being the bottom, no Ambassador sold well. Blame the inconsistencies of what an Ambassador was along with AMC attempting to compete with the big boys in a competitive and crowded market niche. Hats off to AMC for keeping the nameplate around for as long as they did, though. The last Ambassador rolled off the assembly line in 1974.
Our green machine here popped up on Facebook Marketplace the other day in Rittman, Ohio, roughly halfway between Cleveland and Youngstown. Poster of the ad claims he took it in as a trade on another vehicle and is open to trading for something that's worth at least, insert drum roll sound effect here, $20,000. Woof. Sorry, that's a ton of green for nearly two tons of green that you know you're going to have a tough time peddling off on anyone who's not an AMC goober. Bless their hearts, they're out there.
Seller apparently took it in as a trade on something else and is now trying to flip it. I wonder if he knew what he was getting himself into when he agreed to that deal.
What you get is a 58-year-old orphan with "newer driver quality paint", a restored interior that looks nice although not done to factory spec, and a 383 "stroker" GM V-8 and GM "Turbo-Hydramatic", three-speed automatic transmission; "All Makes Combined" indeed. With the General Motors power train, at least you stand a better chance of finding a mechanic to work on it although that's getting tougher and tougher to do these days. Hope you're handy and have an underground parts resource because parts for this will be hard to fine.
Fun facts, the 1968 AMC Ambassador was the first domestic car to feature standard air conditioning.
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