But back in 1969 AMC introduced a car called a Rambler Scrambler.They took a two door hardtop Rambler which was a small light weight midsized car and put a 390ci engine with a 4spd and 3.91 traction lock gears together.Then they painted them white and bolted on a snorkle hood scoop.
Off the show room floor they would run low 13's high 12's!On a friday or Saturday night if you pulled next to one of those you better of had a super running small block or a big block with some real "go" power or that "Rambler" would "Kick" your Butt at the stop light.
Off the show room floor they would run low 13's high 12's!
On a friday or Saturday night if you pulled next to one of those you better of had a super running small block or a big block with some real "go" power or that "Rambler" would "Kick" your Butt at the stop light.
I have nothing specific against the AMC cars, but they were not a big factor in the musclecar wars of the mid to late '60's and unfortunately, your memories of their performance is a bit more optimistic than the records show.
From the americanmotors.com website:
In 1969, as a bidding farewell to the long distinguished Rambler Marquee, the American Motors Company issued the SC/Rambler, a limited edition Rogue American. The SC/Rambler affectionately nicknamed Scrambler, boasted a big 315 bhp 390 V-8, functional hood scoop, four speed transmission with a "Hurst" shifter, heavy-duty suspension package, and a loud, red, white and blue paint scheme.
Priced at a mere $2998.00, the Scrambler was hardly sensible, in the Rambler tradition. Tradition aside, the Scrambler was certainly a spectacular junior muscle car, with confirmed road tests of low 14 second ETs in the standing quarter mile at over 100 mph, and a 0-60 mph time of 6.3 seconds. In all, only 1512 of these gems were produced, triple the number that had been planned.
Low 14-second et's were good for the time but not spectacular nor did the Rambler S/C strike fear into the hearts of big-block Ford and Chevy drivers back then. With such a limited production run, they were an interesting car (like the Corvette 427) but not a factor at the stoplight races.
I love and respect all those '60's musclecars but the Big Three always had the fastest cars and small companies like AMC did what they could to play the HP game but were never a real factor. Not that they didn't win some races, but the AMC cars were simply never fast enough to tempt Ford, Chevy or Chrysler muscle car buyers to switch, and the styling was, to be charitable, not a big reason to buy an AMC. Build quality was also a negative factor and while they were probably not much worse than the big three manufacturers, AMC had a reputation as a somewhat 'cheap' car and this limited it's appeal in the muscle car market segment.
I never intended to start a flame war with anyone here. We all have our biases and our favorite cars, new and old. I simply don't like to see misinformation being bandied about. Very few mid-to-late '60's muscle cars ran much better than high 13's, at best, off the showroom floor. 14 second et's were about average for that time.
This was mostly due to antique suspension systems and skinny (by today's standards) bias-ply tires on small wheels that couldn't get the power to the ground efficently. The factory-prepped big blocks used slicks and pro drivers and did see high 12's and low 13's at the track on some of the better performers, like the Dodge/Plymouth hemi's. However, these et's were not duplicated on the street.
If you had a low 14-second car in 1965, you ruled at the stoplight battlefields. Today, you need to run at least high 12's to do that, plus pass emissions requirements and get good mpg. Times have changed and recollections of '60's muscle car performance seems to get a bit distorted, which is to be expected, but it's good to try and not only keep it true to the facts but also keep those cars (and today's) in proper perspective. They polluted, they got horrible gas mileage (under 10 mpg for the big blocks), they wouldn't run if it got too hot (or too cold) and they were unsafe in terms of having weak brakes and weak tires, not to mention metal dashboards and other now-antiquated safety no-no's. Fun and fast but not without some price.
Frankly, I'll take a new Mustang Cobra 4.6 over an old muscle car, but I can still appreciate and enjoy them. I just don't need to make inflated claims about any of them in order to appreciate them. That doesn't mean that I dislike or want to disparage any old muscle car. I just want to be realistic, no flames intended, to anyone.
Even nitrous lovers.