 
Working on the Rambler these last six months has left me with many conflicting thoughts. First off, the Rambler was part of an idea that did not turn out to be successful in the US long term. The Rambler was marketed on a combination of economy and style. Style. One great quote, sometimes attributed to Diana Vreeland, sometimes attributed to Coco Chanel is "elegance is refusal". This philosophy drives the Rambler vision.
Refuse to waste fuel. With a 42 year old car, with virtually no work done to the engine, it still got over 25 MPG on the first journey I made with Ruby after the purchase, from Northwest Oregon to Seattle. That is amazing performance for such an old vehicle. American Motors competed, and won, in fuel economy events. There are many ads that reflect this. "Why be a gas hog?" was one caption I remember from glancing over old Rambler ads.
Refuse to drive a huge car. I often pull into the Harbor Freight parking lot and am able to easily squeeze between the F-250 and RAM 2500 trucks (and 350s and 3500s!). A 100 inch wheelbase of the American is quite easy to manuever. There is a distasteful excess to these huge rigs in my mind. The large cars from the big three automakers, I imagine, solicited a similar response from Rambler drivers at the time.
Refuse to sacrifice reliability for performance that you do not need. I don't believe much really broke over the years since Ruby was made. True, she grew up in a small town in southern Washington; however, nothing more than new tires, a water pump, and a vacuum wiper motor has been replaced on this car.
Somebody asked the previous owner, who put over 50,000 miles on it over the last 10 years, how she was able to find parts? She replied that she didn't need to find parts, because nothing broke. Note that this was 50,000 miles starting when the car was 32 years old.
There is a conflict here, though, in that at this time, owning and maintaining a 1963 Rambler American is not practical at all. I feel a lot safer in my 2001 Frontier with disk brakes and airbags going down the freeway than I do in the Rambler. I also know that there are many other components of pollution control than just gas mileage. I will end up paying a lot more for parts, in many cases, for this vehicle. Rebuilding a 195.6 OHV engine will most likely cost a lot of money. The Flash-O-Matic transmission, as well, will be expensive to rebuild when it fails. True, you can find some good deals at auction. I found a couple rebuild kits for the transmission, and believe the parts are fairly complete; however, I won't know until I try, and finding a shop with the parts and knowledge to fix this and other areas of the car will be spendy if needed. I do like to work on the car. I am fascinated by the style of the Rambler. I refuse to let Chrysler's contemptuous, callous destruction of Rambler and other AMC parts stock and molds in 1987 keep me from enjoying this vehicle. This is where style can overcome economy or function. For me, admiring the economy and elegance of the Rambler at its peak is sufficient to be obsessed with it in the present.
Another interesting thing I've noticed while working on the Rambler, is that the aftermarket parts for the Rambler themselves had style. There were many, many manufacturers. All of the manufacturers were in the US. There is a certain amount of nostalgia that goes along with this. A time when the parts for a car made in the United States were also made in the United States. I also used to drive a 55 GMC pickup. It had this feeling of nostalgia. When I replaced the head gasket in '87, resurrecting it from many years as a lawn mower and who knows how many more at some very bad kids who left the head off, rusting the cylinders, the only radio station it could bring in was an oldies station. I admit, I didn't even exist in this world at the time the GMC and Rambler were made; however, I am still nostalgic about this time I know little about. There is a feeling of national self-reliance, a feeling of wide open spaces, freedom, and, of course, being able to pick up a couple of really cheap, American made tie-rod ends and install them yourself.
I realize that this nostalgic aspect of the Rambler and the "made in the USA" parts is an illusion. There are many unseen background pieces of this illusion, that if I fully understood would wreck it for me. Pollution, I imagine, repetitive stress that was diagnosed as arthritis, stuff like that. I did a stint as a pie deliveryman and baker. All of the fruit filling was cooked with a steam pipe over a sink. I would mix sugar, cornstarch, fruit, color, and water in a 5 gallon plastic bucket and put it underneath the steam pipe. After it was cooked with the steam, I'd remove the coupling on the pipe and lift the bucket back out with four fingers on the edge, carefully, so I wouldn't get burned. Over the course of a couple years, I developed something like tennis elbow. It hurt to carry bags of groceries, and it was getting worse. I did not have any health insurance. I was making roughly minimum wage, although I was on salary to even out the Thanksgiving seasonal rush. When I went to my boss, he said he thought that maybe I had hurt it off work. He was normally a generous, good man, and he treated me very well; however, in this case he disappointed. It didn't take me long to decide I needed to go back to school. It is funny, when I took the job, I wrote on my resume, which listed quite a few programming and computer jobs, that I did not wish to work with computers anymore. Well, it is precisely my job working with computers now that allows me to purchase NOS American made parts at auction. My point is that the manufacturing jobs that created these parts inexpensively, and the variety of companies manufactured these parts, would probably not survive with current labor laws, health insurance premiums, and environmental laws. It is fine to be nostalgic; however, I do like to keep my eyes open as well.
That brings me to another interesting conflict. I would be unable to afford the tools to work on this car in a previous time. I do not have access to a garage, and I don't have tools from my father that were passed down, nor do I use tools for my livelihood. I am able to afford the tools because I can buy cheap tools at Harbor Freight. Now, in '87, I had hand-me-down, cheap, foreign-made tools that would break. I recently removed the bolts on some upper trunnions. These were grade 5 bolts that I snapped off with a 1/2 inch socket set and a breaker bar, using the handle for a floor jack. These tools are surprisingly good. True, I snapped a puller on my steering wheel, but to be fair, it was replaced with no questions asked. Anyway, the implications for people who want to fix their cars is tremendous. I'm truly surprised at the amount of steel in a heavy duty bearing puller that can be had for $10. Again, these parts are certainly causing environmental problems and health problems in workers. I will not be presumptuous enough to decide how these countries or workers decide to live their lives. The tools are good, cheap, and let me fix my car. I cannot afford to purchase American tools to fix my Rambler American.
What is more American, really, than Willie Nelson? I saw Willie Nelson in concert, once, in 1984. A girlfriend of mine had relatives in Denmark. One of them worked quite a bit on their vacation home in Canada, and spent some time in Washington state. I forget his name, but he was quite a fan of Willie Nelson, and it was because of him that I went to the concert. Although I wasn't incredibly conscious of Ramblers at the time, I'm pretty sure, after the fact, that he found a very cheap Rambler and was fixing it up in my girlfriend's garage. It was a small car, and had a roundness to it that reminds me now of a '59 Rambler American. He talked about how the car was old, but it was so easy to work on and easy to get parts for it. I remember thinking at the time that this was a bit odd, since the car was so old and I didn't even recognize the name. That didn't quite make sense to me. Another conflict that is brewing in me is the issue of the consumption of gas. My nostalgia for old cars. My nostalgia for fixing cars. My nostalgia for an America with the freedom of cars. "Think I'll pack it in, and buy a pickup. Take it down to L.A" -Neil Young. I saw Neil Young in 1984 as well, Neil and the Shocking Pinks. But, I'm rambling. Willie Nelson? Come on!! On the road again? What better describes the nostalgia of hitting the road than that, well, besides maybe Truckin'? I'm rambling. But, it is a fact that burning gasoline has huge, unsustainable implications for the United States economy and the environment. Did you know that Willie Nelson is a partner in a Biodiesel company? Well, it is true. Check out this site. So very nice. I'm thinking that a Nissan LD20 Diesel engine will burn biodiesel and it would fit in my truck when the current engine gets tired. Perhaps, if biodiesel catches on, there will be options by the major car manufacturers to buy modern crate engines and transmissions to retrofit the many cars already existing on this planet. Another option is using propane. Here are some resources put up by someone who converted his 63 Rambler Classic 550 station wagon to propane. One surprising piece to the pollution puzzle is the amount of pollution created in the manufacturing process itself. True, much of the steel can be reused; however, I'd imagine that resurrecting cars with a new engine capable of running with biodiesel could very well be a better route than buying brand new cars. I would love to see a world where there are inexpensive options to retrofit old cars to make them safer and clean burning. I would even be willing to have my car inspected as it was retrofitted to make sure that these retrofits were safe. Ruby may get a modern engine and transmission yet. One that is elegant. One that refuses to burn gasoline.
Do remember that elegance is refusal. Your style means more than just your ability to consume whatever tripe is put in front of you between sitcoms. Nostalgia is OK, but keep your eyes open. I'll try to do the same myself.
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