11-10-2025 – Edited by Frank Swygert
In July 2019 Tom bought this 1968 Rambler American Sports Sedan from a friend on the AMC Forum. This was his daily driver. Innocuous and forgettable when new in the 1968 market, but today a shining example of excellent engineering, frugal but comfortable design, and a semi-timeless style, meaning it’s not larded up with non-functional stylistic gunk. The smallest six, three speed column shift, bench seat, 22 MPG with 210,000 original miles verified, engine never apart. Wonderfully reliable. It was sold to another AMC fan in September 2021.
“Sports Sedan” was AMC’s up-market name for their bottom of the line car, and the last AMC car to bear the venerable Rambler American name (“American” was dropped for the 1969 models). This car has a pre-Eisenhower ride — smooooth, quiet, soft squishy springs, the comfort of a grandmother’s living room sofa — but the feel of a basic manually-operated everything; giant steering wheel, manual brakes, glacially slow-to-shift manual transmission, just-adequate horsepower, lots of room and lots of glass. and great gas mileage. Tom loved his roadster, it was a blast to drive, but long-distance comfortable it wasn’t not. Thousand-mile summer desert trips were grueling. Over the winter of 2018/2019 he decided it was time to replace his plastic car (2004 Scion xB, a fine thing) with a road-trip-worthy Rambler.
This was basically a one-owner car, fixed up by the original owner’s nephew and Tom’s friend to sale for him. Saying that this car was well cared-for is an understatement. Not a lot of money was spent, and this was about the least expensive car you could buy in 1968, but it consistently got what it needed, though little more. The receipts, and various notations on them, tell much about the car. Given the original owner’s long relationship with this car it is clear that this wasn’t just transportation. The receipts start 22 February 1968 and continue through late 2017. The original AMC Maintenance Book was kept up to date, through and beyond the last page for 56,000 mile inspection. You sometimes find old Owner’s Manuals with the first few pages filled out with new-car enthusiasm, but neither Tom nor I have ever seen one updated for the life of the car.
You can find much more info on and photos of this car on Tom’s site: https://www.ramblerlore.com/AMC/1968-Rambler-American/index.html
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