For almost 35 years — from the end of the 1940s until the early ’80s — my grandpa bought Fords.
For whatever reason, he decided he liked them; and the ones he bought served him well enough to keep him happy. And so the Blumenaus were, for almost all of their residence on Hope Street, a Ford family.
I know of only one occasion during those years when my grandpa’s attention wavered. We’ll go down that road this week — which gives us the opportunity to look at some classic Sixties marketing materials, as well.
Find a comfortable seat, like this special “Mannequin” has. Why, it’s the standard for the entire industry!
Throughout the ’60s, my grandpa bought a new mid-sized Ford Fairlane every four years, in the presidential inaugural years of 1961, 1965 and 1969.
(His loyal patronage was not enough to save the model, which was discontinued in 1970.)
The marketing brochures for these cars, as well as other Fords from the ’40s and ’50s, still live in a worn yellow envelope in my folks’ basement, somewhat the worse for wear after many years of my pawing.
There’s also one non-Ford brochure from the ’60s, which shows that my grandpa — at least once — was willing to be flexible and consider something new, rather than plunk down his bills for the latest shined-up version of the same model.
When he went off the ranch, he went in a big way. He left behind the other members of Detroit’s Big Three and turned to the industry’s scrappy fourth-place player, Rambler.
The 1965 Rambler “X-Ray” catalog compares the turning radius of leading cars. Great ’60s design.
When my grandpa went car-shopping in ’65, the Rambler brand had only been a stand-alone marque for about eight years, having emerged from the survival-merger of Nash and Hudson in the mid-1950s.
The company with a plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, had managed to make significant waves in the industry, though.
It had pulled off the eternally difficult trick of convincing Americans to buy compact cars. It had positioned itself as more nimble and creative than the Big Three, adding features the bigger players didn’t have. And it had won Motor Trend magazine’s Car of the Year award in 1963.
An example of we-do-it, they-don’t from the ’65 Rambler catalog. Rust never sleeps, except in Kenosha.
Indeed, by the time my grandpa noticed Rambler, its best days might have been behind it.
Wikipedia suggests the company enjoyed its glory years under the corporate presidency of George W. Romney, and after Romney left to run for governor of Michigan in 1962, subsequent chief executives found the going tougher and tougher. (How might America’s automotive and political worlds be different today if George Romney had stayed in the auto business?)
The 1965 Rambler “X-Ray” catalog plays on the company’s established giant-killer image, comparing Rambler autos to their big-name competitors. Not surprisingly, all the comparisons — from turning radius, to cargo space, to fuel economy, to reliability — come out in Rambler’s favor.
My favorite comparison in the catalog: Rambler has nicer ashtrays than Buick. Hey, it mattered then.
Several pages of the catalog stack up Rambler models against their competitors in different size classes. Thoughtfully, Rambler put its Classic mid-size model on the same page as the Fairlane, so my grandpa could size them both up at a glance.
In retrospect, it doesn’t look like much of a choice. Both cars are plain and rather boxy, and would be difficult to tell apart at a distance. Still, I imagine my grandpa spent at least a couple minutes looking at this page.
Head to head. The adjoining page featured the Chevrolet Chevelle, Plymouth Belvidere and Dodge Coronet.
A few other pages of the catalog showed my grandpa looking behind the hype and writing down questions about key features.
I didn’t think that many people cared about seat belts then, but the note on this page suggests it mattered to him:
“SEAT BELTS?” (Clearly the lack of headrests didn’t bother him, but the potential lack of seat belts did.)
Not surprisingly, my grandpa was interested in what Rambler put under its hoods, as well.
I have to hand it to the forgotten marketing geniuses at Rambler: After reading the X-Ray catalog, I was ready to go out and plunk down my own money on a Rambler. They sold the hungry, quality-driven, thinking-man’s-choice, underdog image pretty well.
I want to buy one of these wagons, drive it to Milwaukee, fill the trunk with beer and drive home again.
Unfortunately, as I said 600 words ago, they couldn’t convince my grandpa. When the time came to make a decision, he turned his back on the little guys and stayed loyal to Ford.
This in and of itself was not life-changing to anybody. But repeat it a couple hundred thousand times, and it helps explain why Rambler and its successor brand, AMC, couldn’t last in the long term. Window-shopping doesn’t bring in any money, and Rambler/AMC didn’t get enough Americans to sign on the dotted line.
A shame: A ’65 Rambler Classic like this one — shown in its X-Ray glamour shot — might have looked nice in old family scrapbook photos.
Bonus multimedia content: Check out this ad, not for Ramblers, but for the X-Ray catalog.
Or, if you want to see a ’65 Rambler Classic in action:
Hope Street 
In 1965 your grandfather was looking to replace the 1961 Ford he was bequeathing to his son in college. I had no knowledge of him looking at Ramblers, and especially 6-cylinder engines. The 1961 Ford, which I would have called a full-sized car, had a 3-speed stick six, and couldn’t get out of its own way. I know I urged him to go back to a V8 in 1965, which he did.
I didn’t remember the Ramblers getting as large as these 1965 models. Perhaps they didn’t sell because the brand lost its identity. The mid-50’s Nash Rambler was a readily identifiable, unique compact car, probably the smallest piece of American steel on the road. But with gas under 20 cents a gallon, fuel economy wasn’t even discussed, so why by such a small car when you could buy a bigger one?
“I know I urged him to go back to a V8 in 1965”
An unbiased and fully impartial opinion, I am certain. 😉
It occurs to me now: I wonder if he considered Ramblers just because he liked the “scientific” layout of the big X-Ray catalog, with its glimpses inside all of 1965’s auto models.
For example, a book that listed info on all the engines available in major car models (as X-Ray did) might have piqued his interest, even if that info came with a layer of marketing messaging on top.
In other words, maybe he liked Rambler’s catalog more than he ever liked their cars.
It’s good to see that AMC was strong with their ash tray game. I was wondering if cars even had ash trays anymore but apparently they were subtly discontinued – http://mentalfloss.com/article/30369/why-dont-cars-come-ashtrays-anymore. I’m assuming that the accompanying cigarette lighter was also discontinued (my parents didn’t smoke so I didn’t even know what this was supposed to do until I burned my fingertip a time or two), probably to make room for a usb port or something similar.
I’m trying to remember if my ’07 Honda has an actual cigarette lighter, or just a receptacle for electronic converters.
I am not sure I have ever driven a car in which someone was smoking. If I have, it’s been a long, long time.
Having been in the news biz for a while, it’s possible I once had to ferry a photographer along with me to an assignment somewhere, and maybe they lit up. That’s about all I can think of.
Wait, “The Adventures of Ford Fairlane” was a pun? What? This must be the first time that I’ve believe the humor of Andrew “Dice” Clay to be subtle for me.
Ford Fairlanes seem to me to have been pretty unadventurous — intermediate-sized and the farthest thing from flashy — so yes, I suppose there is an underappreciated cultural irony in “The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.”
The line in “Train Kept A-Rollin'” about “walking down that old fair lane” always made me think of Ford Fairlanes, though I had no idea what business they had in a train song.
It appears that there were some flashier variants, a complicated convertible thing from the late ’50s that Dice drove – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Fairlane_500_Skyliner – and muscle cars in the late ’60s.
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