​This American Motors ad (above) draws the obvious parallels between the Javelin and the Mustang. Obviously, the Javelin was aimed squarely at the hot-selling Ford product and its pony car competitors. In features and pricing the two cars were quite similar, but AMC, true to form, claimed the Javelin had the edge in practical details like trunk space and legroom. It’s interesting to note that the Mustang and the Javelin were created pretty much the same way. Just as the Mustang shared its basic platform and components with the compact Ford Falcon, the Javelin owed much to the Rambler American underneath.

​The Javelin rode on a unit-construction chassis with a 109-inch wheelbase, three inches longer than the American, while sharing the American’s coil-tower front suspension and Hotchkiss drive at the rear with open driveshaft and parallel leaf springs. Exterior sheet metal was based on two AMC Project IV show cars of 1966, the two-seat AMX and four-seat AMX II, with the concept originating as a two-place coupe by AMC designer Charles Mashigan.
The Javelin was offered in but a single body style, a coupe with a sloping roofline that split the difference between a fastback and a traditional two-door notchback. There was no convertible. At midyear in ’68 AMC brought out its two-seat variant of the Javelin, the AMX. (See our feature on the AMX here.) That’s the reverse of the original product lineage, interestingly enough. In the AMC styling studios, the two-seater came first. Naturally, the four-seater offered far more potential sales volume.

​Two key elements of the pony car theme, as pioneered in the Mustang, were upscale interior appointments and a wide variety of drivetrain choices. Following that template, the Javelin’s cockpit was fairly luxurious, for a Rambler anyway, with bucket seats, embossed vinyl, and full-pile carpeting. For $105, the optional SST package included upgraded cabin materials and twin beltline stripes on the exterior.
Powertrain options included a 232 CID inline six with your choice of three-speed manual or three-speed automatic transmission, while the eight-cylinder options included a pair of 290 CID V8s engines (with two or four-barrel carburetors) and the 343 CID mill with 280 horsepower. The V8s could be matched to a Borg-Warner T10 four-speed manual gearbox or the Shift-Command three-speed automatic with console or column shifter. The big 390 CID V8 from the Ambassador with 315 hp became available at midyear. But meanwhile, check this out: When Car Life road-tested a 343-powered Javelin SST for its December 1967 issue, it reported a quarter-mile time of 15.4 seconds at 93 mph. That’s impressive performance for the smaller V8, aided no doubt by the four-speed gearbox and sporty 3.54:1 final drive ratio. This was no granny car.
Javelin production for the inaugural 1968 model year totaled a little more than 55,000 cars, barely a drop in the bucket compared to the Ford Mustang and its 317,000-plus sales that season. But for tiny American Motors and its total model-year production of not quite 273,000 cars in ’68, the Javelin was a solid hit, and the company began planning a second-generation pony car for 1971-74.

For 1958 the tagline at Plymouth was “The Star of the Forward Look,” and for once this was no idle ad agency boast.
The tagline for this 1958 Plymouth campaign (below) was “The Star of the Forward Look,”  and in this case we’re inclined to agree. As well as any single Chrysler product could, the ’58 Plymouth exemplified Virgil Exner’s Forward Look design theme, which began with the 1955 models but really took off in 1957. In that year the entire Chrysler Corporation product line sported low, sleek rooflines and the most dramatic tail fins in the industry, throwing the General Motors styling team into a panic. (See our feature on the 1957 Plymouths here.) For ’58, Plymouth received a minor facelift with quad headlamps—which the front end had clearly been designed for in the first place—and now the look was complete.
In watching the clip below, you could be forgiven for assuming that the Fury Hardtop Coupe was the only Plymouth offered that year. But actually there was a broad product lineup with the Plaza as the base model, the Savoy holding down the midrange, and the Belvedere (and Fury) at the top of the heap. Available engines included the trusty flathead six with 132 hp, a pair of 318 CID poly-head V8s, and the Golden Commando 350 CID V8, while the Powerflite (two-speed) and Torqueflite (three-speed) automatic transmissions included standard push-button controls.
Actually, in ’58 Plymouth was the star of the show at Chrysler Corporation from more than one angle. With model year production of almost 444,000 units, Plymouth continued to hold down the number three slot in the Motor City sales charts, trailing only Ford and Chevrolet. And meanwhile, Plymouth sold more cars than the rest of the Chrysler divisions combined, demonstrating the size and scale of the “low-priced three,” as the category was known in the U.S. auto industry at the time. Video follows.

Here’s the selling story for the Ford Motor Company’s middle-luxury Mercury division for 1958.
This 1958 Mercury commercial takes us back to that familiar time when the American automobile was sold by the inch and by the pound. Bigger was better, and “longer, lower, and wider” was another way to say “new and improved.” Cars kept growing all through the 1950s, and by ’58 they had nearly reached their zenith in size and weight. In this spot, a wacky stunt featuring rodeo star Wag Blessing is used to demonstrate (purportedly) that the Mercury has “the solid, comfort ride of a big, heavy car.”
Indeed. Through a good part of the decade, the Mercury brand was marketed under the tagline “The Big M,” and the 1958 models were true to form. The senior Park Lane, introduced at midyear to compete with the Buick Roadmaster, rolled on a 125-inch wheelbase, sporting an overall length of 220.2 inches. (Wheelbase for the rest of the line was 122 inches.) Two new V8s built on Ford’s MEL architecture were offered in 383 and 430 cubic-inch displacements, and there was a Super Marauder version of the 430 boasting three two-barrel carbs and 400 horsepower—one of the most powerful engines of the ’50s. Along with much of the industry, Mercury had joined the push-button transmission craze—read about Merc-O-Matic Keyboard Control here. 
Despite the ambitious product lineup, 1958 was not a banner year for Mercury, nor for the Motor City’s middle-luxury class in general. Sales tanked as the nation suffered through its first real post-World War II recession (at the time, labeled the “Eisenhower recession”). Production for the Mercury brand slipped more than 50 percent, prompting a complete rethink of the division’s product strategy and Turnpike Cruiser styling theme. But for the moment, let’s enjoy the rough-riding demonstration by Wag Blessing. Video below.

In 1965, there was still one passenger car in the United States that offered a standard L-head engine: the Rambler American. 
The basic L-head engine design—with its valves in the block, not in the head—enjoyed a long and productive life in the Motor City. From the age of the Model T (1909-27) all through the depression years, the L-head (also known as a side-valve abroad and as a flathead in American slang) was by far the industry’s favored layout. There were always other valvetrain configurations, of course, but the popular L-head was simple, rugged, and with its minimal component count, inexpensive to manufacture.
That changed after World War II, when the availability of high-octane gasoline drove the shift to high-compression, overhead-valve engines, led by the Cadillac and Oldsmobile V8s of 1949. (Read about the ’49 Rocket V8 here.)  Soon the entire industry went overhead. From there, a few manufacturers pressed on with flathead engines for their low-priced models (Chrysler through 1959, for example) but by 1965, excluding commercial and industrial engines, there was only one civilian passenger car left in the U.S. auto industry with L-head power: the modest Rambler American.

​The ’65 Rambler American’s flathead six, which displaced 195.6 cubic inches and was rated at 90 hp that year, was closely based on the Nash 600 engine introduced way back in 1941. While the artwork above is a bit cartoonish, it nicely illustrates the Nash 600’s key features. There was no intake manifold as such; rather, the intake ports were integrated into the cylinder block and head and the carburetor bolted on top. Meanwhile, the exhaust manifold was simply a stamped steel tube, more or less, that clamped to the side of the block. Though the exhaust tube was prone to corrosion and blowout it was easy enough to replace, and overall, the Nash six was a marvel of simplicity and ruggedness. When Nash was merged with Hudson to become American Motors on May 1, 1954, the little L-head six carried on. From its original displacement of 172.6 cubic inches, it was enlarged to 184 CID in 1953 and 195.6 CID in 1955.

​Through all these years, Nash and AMC also offered overhead-valve sixes and V8s, but the L-head six served as the company’s low-price leader, allowing AMC to offer the compact Rambler American at an extremely low price—at times the automaker advertised the lowest-priced car in America. To shave costs even closer to the bone, the L-head ultimately sported a tiny industrial air filter instead of a proper silencer (below). But nothing is forever, and when American Motors introduced a new and advanced 232 CID straight six in 1964, the little flathead’s days were numbered. For 1965, the side-valve six was available only in the Rambler American 220 and 330 series, the company’s most basic and stripped-down models. And then it was gone.

The Chevrolet Impala was all new for 1965—inside and out. With some show-biz trickery, here General Motors managed to show off both at the same time.
This 1965 Chevy spot (below) uses cinematic razzle-dazzle to promote the major news at the bow-tie division that year: a totally redesigned chassis. In the previous product cycle (’58-’64) the full-size Chevy cars employed an X-frame aka backbone chassis, a short-lived engineering trend at General Motors that was adopted by the other GM car brands as well. The Safety Girder frame, as Chevy called it, was prone to corrosion and drew fire from safety critics, who declared it lacked side-impact protection. For ’65, Chevrolet stuck with body-on-frame construction and coil springs at all four corners, but adopted a more conventional perimeter frame to support the assembly.
In those days, Chevrolet was a bit jet-happy in its product messaging—Turbo-Jet engines, Ramjet fuel injection, and so on—and here the theme continues with “jet smooth ride.” (It was the jet age, after all.) Exterior sheet metal was entirely new as well, the work of the Chevrolet Styling Studio group led by Irv Rybicki, who would later replace Bill Mitchell as VP of GM design. The narrator is Joel Aldred, the familiar voice of Chevrolet on radio and television. In the ad biz, he was called  “the man with the $100,000 voice” and was known for delivering his lines without cue cards in a single take. Video below.

​Learn all about the 1969 Rambler 440 Station Wagon—the final year for the familiar Rambler name—in his original American Motors dealer film.


The Rambler name took a number of twists and turns over the years at American Motors and its forebears. In 1950, Nash Motors introduced the Rambler, America’s first postwar compact, and soon it had a minor hit on its hands. (The Rambler name had a previous history with Jeffery, a Nash predecessor.) Nash merged with Hudson and became American Motors in 1954, and from 1958 through 1965, all American Motors passenger cars wore the popular Rambler badge. Meanwhile, the former Nash Rambler compact became the Rambler American to differentiate it from the intermediate and full-size cars in the Rambler product line.
By 1966, the company was turning away from the Rambler label, which was growing stale in the swinging ’60s, to adopt the American Motors brand identity. Then in 1969 the Rambler American was dropped as well to make room for AMC’s new compact, the Hornet. But note: In this final year, the smallest AMC product was known as simply the Rambler—no American. Evidently. “American Motors Rambler American” was deemed redundant. Between 1950 and 1969, something like 4.2 million Rambler compacts were produced.
For the final year of the Rambler name, there were four models: Rambler, Rambler 440, Rambler Rogue, and the hot rod SC/Rambler. (You can find our features on the Rogue here and on the SC/Rambler here.) Ramblers were basic machines in these final days: On the lower trim levels, vacuum-operated windshield wipers were standard. The mid-range 440 was offered in two practical body styles: a four-door sedan and a cute four-door wagon, and the wagon is the subject of the clip below, which is taken from a ’69 AMC dealer film. The pitch here is “cargo space for that family to come.” Video follows.

Here’s the complete rundown on the Dependable Dodge line for 1954.

The advertising theme at Dodge for 1954 was “elegance in action,” though it was a tall and boxy form of elegance. Chrysler’s powerful chief executive, K.T. Keller, who had succeeded Walter P. Chrysler himself in 1935, insisted on high rooflines on all the company’s products so that passengers could ride with their hats on. No fan of the longer, lower trend in styling, he once told his designers, “We build cars to sit in, not to pee over,” or so the story goes. Chrysler’s styling trailed behind the rest of the industry through the first half of the 1950s and sales suffered as a result—until Virgil Exner’s daring Forward Look arrived in 1955.

On the plus side for ’54, Dodge could offer the advanced Red Ram hemi V8, which made its debut the year before. (Check out our feature on the Red Ram here.) And there was a new and improved Powerflite fully automatic transmission to replace the quirky Gyro-Torque semi-automatic box, and Chrysler’s pioneering power steering system, too.  Dodge served as the pace car for the Indy 500 that year, so there was a $201 pace car option with Kelsey-Hayes wire wheels and continental spare, and a separate dealer kit was offered that included an Offenhauser intake manifold to boost the Red Ram’s power beyond the rated 150 hp.
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Alas, no California speed equipment is mentioned in the original Dodge commercial below. Instead, the emphasis is on “the dependable Dodge,” a traditional theme in the brand’s messaging through the years. (Decades earlier, a famous Ted MacManus ad claimed, questionably, that Dodge had inspired the coinage of the word “dependability.”) In this spot, a couple is preparing for their upcoming vacation, which brings to mind the old showroom floor adage that Americans buy their cars for the vacations they never take. Hmm, that may explain all the giant SUVs on the road today. Video follows.

Check out the ultra-luxurious 1963 Ford Thunderbird Landau in this original Ford Motor Company promo.
This Ford television spot from 1963 (below) takes the retrospective approach to telling the Thunderbird story. First up on the screen is the original two-seat roadster of 1955-57, then the four-place 1958 T-Bird that launched the personal luxury car category, then the dramatically styled 1961 Bullet Bird, and finally the 1963 Landau Coupe.
And all the while, we can see the Thunderbird steadily marching toward the luxury side of the sport-luxury junction. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Landau Coupe that debuted in 1962, with its optional padded vinyl roof and faux top irons. In just a few more years the four-door 1967 T-Bird would be introduced, the convertible would be dropped, and the transformation was complete. Now the Thunderbird was a full-blown luxury car in every sense, but for buyers who had no need or want for a traditional large sedan.
Back to 1963: This was the final year of the 1961-63 Bullet Bird series, distinguished by its hockey-stick character line shooting through the front fender and door, accented with three hashtag chrome gadgets. Prices ranged from $4500 to $5500, right in Buick Riviera territory and edging into the Cadillac realm. Check out the sales pitch below.

For 1955, the DeSoto line at Chrysler Coporation recieved its boldest styling update in years. The new DeSotos were “Styled for Tomorrow,” the ad guys declared.
When the Chrysler Corporation introduced Virgil Exner’s aggressive Forward Look styling theme for 1955, each of the five Chrysler passenger car divisions got its own subhead for the new design. At DeSoto, the tagline was “Styled for Tomorrow,” which is also the title of the 1955 commercial spot featured below, naturally enough.
This is only one subjective opinion, of course, but the DeSoto is arguably the most handsome of the ’55 Forward Look cars. While the DeSoto was based on the senior Chrysler platform and sheet metal, it sports a number of distinctive touches, including a remarkably European-looking “double cockpit” instrument panel. And like all Chrysler products in ’55, the selector for the Powerflite automatic transmission was a petite panel-mounted lever—the familiar push-button control would appear in the following year.
While alas, our original commercial spot below was produced in black and white, the ’55 DeSotos were noted for their bold use of color. There were 55 available exterior paint combinations, including the flamboyant Coronado three-tone treatment, and the interiors were equally exuberant. Rapidly shedding its conservative image, DeSoto dumped the base flathead six for ’55, offering only 291 CID hemi V8s: the 185 hp Firedome and the 200 hp Fireflite with Carter four-barrel carburetor. Here’s George Fenneman, the voice of DeSoto in those days, with the rest of the story.

Meet the new Oldsmobiles for 1958, now with an exciting high-tech feature: the Trans-Portable Radio.
The special focus of this 1958 Oldsmobile spot is a short-lived General Motors feature called the Trans-Portable Radio. (Note GM’s distinctive rendering of an ordinary word, “transportable.”) This optional gadget was essentially a 10-transistor portable radio that nested within the car’s in-dash radio. The removable sub-unit included its own tuner, battery pack, and 3-inch speaker, allowing it to be operated separately from the car—for entertainment at picnics, at the beach, and so on. (Pontiac and Buick offered versions as well.) Trans-Portable Radio lasted only two years, ’58 and ’59, overrun almost overnight by the rapid advances in semiconductor technology. Soon, personal transistor radios of shirt-pocket size were everywhere, and they sold for far less than the expensive ($146) Delco in-car unit.
At Oldsmobile, 1958 will forever be known as the year of chrome. All five GM brands  for ’58 were lavishly decked out with bright metal, Oldsmobile more than most. It was said that longtime Olds general manager Jack Wolfram, who ran the division from 1951 to 1964, had a special love of the stuff. From the base-model Dynamic 88 to the deluxe Ninety-Eight, all ’58 Oldsmobiles featured multiple chrome side spears running in both directions. And as we can see here, most of the instrument panel was dressed in shiny chrome as well. Grab your sunglasses and check out the video below.