American Motors 1956 Rambler Brochure

Description

This is a brochure for American Motors Corporation’s 1956 Rambler. It contains 12 pages and measures approximately 9 x 12.75 inches. The brochure contains color photos, text, specifications, etc.
The Rambler Six and the Rambler V8 were intermediate-sized automobiles that were built and marketed by American Motors Corporation (AMC) from 1956 to 1960.
Launched on 15 December 1955, the 1956 model year Rambler Six ushered in a "new era in motoring has begun" according to George W. Romney, AMC president. In 1956, the Rambler was sold through both Nash and Hudson networks of dealerships. This was a result of the merger of the two companies to form AMC in 1954.
The new Rambler line created and defined a new market segment, the "compact car" as the automobile classification was called at that time.
The new for 1956 Rambler was arguably "the most important car American Motors ever built" in that it not only created and defined a new market segment, emphasized the virtues of compact design, but also enabled the automaker to prosper in the post-World War II marketplace that shifted from a seller's to a buyer's market. The sales war between Ford and Chevrolet conducted during 1953 and 1954 had left little business for the much smaller "independent" automakers trying to compete against the standard models offered by the domestic Big Three (GM, Ford and Chrysler). Imported vehicles from Europe (Volkswagen in 1955, Peugeot in 1958) and Asia (Toyota in 1957) were much smaller, but found buyers in North America.
American Motors focused its resources to introduce a line of smaller cars than were then available from the domestic Big Three for the 1957 model year. The designs were developed by its Styling Director, Edmund E. Anderson, and they were aimed at a new market segment. Although conventional business thinking states that bigger profits were made from sales of bigger cars, American Motors lacked the resources to develop a full range of models that targeted different market segments. As the chairman and president of AMC, Romney also avoided a head-to-head battle with the U.S. automakers by focusing the company on the compact car. He "felt that with the Rambler I had the car of the future" and Romney "bet the farm on the Rambler" by spending .4 million on a "crash program to bring the 1957 Rambler to market a year earlier."