Mini-Muscle Car: 1969 AMC SC/Rambler
Between 1968-70, American Motors would offer three short-lived muscle cars. The first was the 1968-70 AMX, which was a 2-seat GT-style heart thumper. The last was the 1970 Rebel Machine, a limited production mid-size that was painted to look like a rolling U.S flag. Sandwiched in between was the 1969 SC/Rambler, a one-year-wonder that was based on the “American” compact, with a big-block V8 under the hood. This SC/Rambler is said to be a runner and a bit rough around the edges, but when was the last time you saw one? Located in Westminster, Colorado, this mini-muscle car is available here on Barn Finds Classifieds for an undisclosed amount.
The 1969 American was both the last AMC product built with the Rambler name and also the last model year for that automobile, replaced in 1970 by the all-new Hornet. So, they had a ready platform for a one-year special edition, the SC/Rambler, which was intended to help make a name for American Motors in the NHRA’s F/Stock drag racing class. Total production was just 1,512 units, which was even fewer cars than the Machine.
Besides the red/white/blue paint and body stripes, the SC/Rambler was a lot of auto for under $3,000 in 1969 money. You got a 390 cubic inch V8 that was borrowed from the AMX and had an output of 315 horsepower, which could propel the little car to sub-15 second quarter-mile runs. It was aided by a 4-speed Hurst-actuated stick shift, a 3:54 Twin-Grip rear differential, and dual exhaust with factory glass-packs. The only option you could add was an AM radio.
The seller’s SC is said to only have 68,000 miles. It appears to be a running automobile but is short on the glory it had 50 years ago. The interior, which was standard Rambler fare, looks to be in good condition with the factory Sun tachometer mounted on the steering column. Unlike your run-of-the-mill Americans, these cars were not intended to be sleepers. You could never sneak up on a potential adversary with one of these bold-looking cars.
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Comments
Yes I want one, Yes I am able to restore it to a high level. No I likely can’t afford it. It came with 3:54 gears but if it truly has 4:11 like the ad says then you can really get lost!
“…but when was the last time you saw one?” Five or-so years ago I happened upon the rarer “B-scheme” SC/Rambler on Craigslist in a city about :20 minutes from me. Could tell from the pictures she was rough – But :20 minutes down the road would’ve allowed for a real deep-dive on if she was authentic or not, and no transportation costs. Whenever I see one now; it still bothers me that I didn’t at least take a swing on her. [Almost always] got to buy ’em as soon as you find ’em.
Even tho I’m chevy an buick thru and thru, this would be a bucket list car for me. The last one I saw I used to cruise around in when I was senior in hs, 1973. My girlfriends girlfriends boyfriend, yah I just said that, had one. We cruised around all summer and he had way more restraint then I ever would, not once did he put the hammer down, we put putted everwere. I woulda been putting twin stripes down at every stop sign in town back then. Never knew whatever happened to the car as with most hs relationships everyone soon went in different directions but the scrambler always stayed on my wish list.
Big Block, says no AMCer… EVER.
Yep. AMC never ever had a big block. Not. Ever.
AMC replaced both their old straight 6 and V-8 engines with new modern designs in the 1960’s. The old 196cid 6 was replaced by the new block bored and stroked to 199, 232, 258 and at the end of AMC to 240 used in Chrysler Jeeps into the 1990’s. The old 289 and 327 Nash designed V-8s were replaced by 1 new small block bored and stroked from 290, 343, 390 into the 1970s, and then 304, 360 and 401 in AMC’s end years in the 1980’s.
You mean 287 and 327 engines.
I think they were comparing it to the 6 cylinder
Very cool but rule number one if you actually want to sell a car is you need to list a price. Even if the price is stupid.
It takes approximately 10 seconds to sell a Rambler SC/Rambler. Rebel Machines don’t take much longer if they are the 25A RWB 4 speeds.
John, what is a “25A RWB 4 speed”?
25A is the paint code for a RWB (Red, White, Blue) 4 speed Rebel Machine.
The paint code does not appear in the big 67 – 72 Parts Book. I’ve only seen it on my own Machine’s documentation and on every RWB Machine Ive seen and heard of. The car was offered in 16 other colours after Jan. 1, 1970. Almost all of the known survivors are listed by VIN and colour # in the Rebel Machine Registry run by Mickey Ziomkowski.
Our Registry is why we are still able to be rebuilding Machines with hardly any after-market support and zero tooling. I make the new body panels so these cars, as well as other AMCs are restored as well or better than other makes.
Replacement scoop? hood? missing some graphics.
I owned an A scheme from 72-75, sold it back to my friend when he returned from the Army. He still has it.
no price means overpriced!!!!
The price of these cars is escalating rapidly. The same thing has happened with plenty of other cars for less reason. AMCs are escalating in value right across the board because the people were biased against them for no good reason are dead or dying. People not exposed to the idiocy who have actually driven and raced them soon learn respect and lots of it.
AMC is finally getting its due. Too late by far unfortunately.
The rumour is that there are now more SC/Ramblers in existence now than were built because they’re relatively easy to modify for experienced car guys.
I don’t think that can be said for any other marque although I could be wrong.
Ferrari built 35 250 GTO cars. And all 45 of them are accounted for
@Jimbosidecar LOL
I believe that AMC built 5 mid-engine AMX-3’s and all 7 of them still are in collections. The left over parts and frames were put to good use when AMC cancelled the program. It was 1 signature away from going into production and then Congress passed new bumper rules while AMC would not put more money into the project.
While it is certainly true that AMC performance cars are widely faked, for wholesale fraud, the ‘69 Z/28 has got to be the 10 to 1 champion, closely followed by anything SS badged.
The is true of course for 442s, anything R/T, GS and Shelby as well. Cute names like tribute or clone or whatever are all very nice, but they are still fakes. That should stir up some controversy…
Modify as in clone or fake? Sorry, not true.
A car identified as a clone is not a fake. The word fake means the true identity has been hidden as part of an attempt to defraud.
American Motors, in its 1970 Technical Service Manual on page 84, covered off the subject of rebodying an existing car regardless of what it was. AMC would replace the entire body of a car if the body of the car had been destroyed beyond repair within the first two years of it having been sold. That then was cheaper than replacing the entire car or trying to fix the original body.
Anyone else doing the same thing, going back to the shell and starting over, is doing exactly the same thing. None of these cars were ever rebuilt by the factory but they were accepted as rebuilds complete with the remainder of the original warranty assigned to that VIN. Nothing fake about it at all if the work was done to AMC standards.
These days, rebody restoration of these cars generally sees them as being better than AMC itself built them.
We’ve all seen videos of cars being restored where there was nothing left but the VIN. You don’t see those cars being labelled as fakes.
With respect to AMCs, there are a lot of restorations going on right now and at least a couple of rebodys. I know most of who is doing what because I make the body parts. No one else does in North America. People who buy my parts are not putting together fraud cars. They are too well known anyway. These cars don’t get restored or rebodied without anyone at all knowing about them because we all depend on each other for help. But yes, there’s still the occasional crook out there.
But there’s lots of help around if people think to ask. And in the AMC world, we are all hyper critical of anything that is not correct.
In the end, it all comes down to the VIN. It has to be correct. The casting numbers and dates are not always correct due to swaps. So you can get clones that are far more correct than the original cars. Dating of parts is far less critical for AMC than other manufacturers. You can’t trace a block back to its original body. It doesn’t matter. A 1970 390 is always going to be a 1970 390 with the last three digits showing as 529. That’s all you care about. But if the original 390 is gone and replaced by a service block, well you may have a block that has no indication that it’s an even better 401. Or maybe you do have a factory replacement block that’s a 401. Except for the numbers on the side of the block, 401 engine blocks after 1970 are more than acceptable for most people.
But SC/Ramblers were built in the 1969 model year, so that was a different and less desirable block thanks to the 7/16″ head bolts for instance. As a result, a fair number of SC/Ramblers have 401s in them. If you have one one of those cars do you care? Does it make a difference? Yes, if you are a collector whose cars are archived and rarely driven investments. To anyone else, they’re fine.
One of the beauties of AMC restoration is that so many parts are interchangeable. If it weren’t for that, AMC could not have survived since Lee Iacoca trashed all of the tooling and all of the engineering drawings.
I bought this car in the ad. I have it running , however I bought a new wiring harness and need to install it to clean up the wiring. I have done a lot of work to it. Next is the headers and exhaust then on the road it will be!
Thanks for the update!
By the way Russ, AMC only built one muscle car and that was THE MACHINE. The AMX was not a muscle car, nor was the Javelin and nor was the Rambler SC/Rambler.
But that didn’t mean that you could not have a fast Rambler or AMC. The Group 19 section of the parts book had all you needed in the way of parts to get practically any AMC into the 11s without having to be a genius mechanic.
Btw….you seem to know your AMC’s….390’s way underrated in my book…there was a MACHINE around at the same timeframe, it was a burnt orange color, don’t know what that equates to AMC color, he certainly wasn’t timid with the throttle….the above mentioned scrambler owners name was bobby newell…just came to me when I saw your name…..
No relation to me, at least not close but that’s interesting. You’re right. The 390s were underrated. How that came to be is the subject of a book I’m writing now. How it happened was literally one of those things sort of like the Perfect Storm. What should have been and would have been a game changing car in 1970 turned out to be an after-thought for all the wrong reasons.
These days, they and the SC/Ramblers are being bought up by Chrysler guys who have taken the trouble to learn what they’re all about. Once they do, they are all over them.
Rebel Machines and SC/Ramblers are much better known now than they ever were when they were new.
When the SC/Rambler was introduced, drag racers didn’t understand them because what makes an AMC tick was not what they were used to. That contributed to AMC being on the receiving end of a lot of undeserved bad rep. People forgot how many years of development was behind GM, Ford and Chrysler engines. For the AMC V8s there was, by comparison almost none. That of course is no longer the case. AMC engine builders can put together performance motors that can compete at all but the very top levels. Way more power in other words than is safe on the street. And they are still small blocks, so the car and the performance product is better balanced and more streetable than any big block. In the modern world, they are still a great car to have.
The 1956 Rambler Rebel should classify as a Muscle car , it easily beat the competition from the big 3 !
I have read that the 57 Rambler Rebel 327 was the 2nd fastest American car produced in 1957, second only to the Corvette. Probably not too collectible because AMC/ Rambler had the torque tube drive in all mid-sized Ramblers until 1966. The last Chevy with torque tubes was in 1954 and that’s why 1955 Chevies are desirable and collectible but not so much for 1954’s.
So who was that Mark Donohue guy that all the other ponies saw the rear end of during the racing ?
When an ad reads “starts and runs” you better run.
I yearn for one of these sc/Ramblers (or a Machine). Just not this one.
Back in the day with so many muscle cars out there this was a joke, to see one and to see one now is still a joke
As a matter of fact you are right Al. Just not for the SC/Rambler. They won their class everywhere. The Machines were the cars that were intended to be the joke. Unfortunately, the joke backfired because AMC in its heart of hearts really did not want The Machine to succeed.
So when it was launched in Dallas, it did so with built in flaws that cost over a second in ETs. Those numbers were what the magazines published initially. Despite noting the flaws, no journalist or even AMC itself followed up to correct the numbers that would have been posted if the cars had been finished by Hurst correctly as they were contracted to do. Once set up properly, The Machines ran 13.5s. With the Service Package they ran high 12s. Not too shabby in those days for a small block and faster than nearly any of its competitors. Two top automotive writers, Jim Craw and the late Roger Huntington did record those numbers in drag tests later but the damage was done. The misinformation was immortalized.
The Rambler SC/Rambler did everything it was supposed to do and more. That’s why they sell faster than you can buy a hamburger now.
Interestingly, AMC products did not need to be tubbed to achieve impressive ETs like so many GM, Chrysler and Fords did. Now that really was a joke. Too many great cars were ruined for that reason alone.
Funny – I laughed at your response………
Al camino,
I had both an SC/Rambler and R/W/B Rebel Machine and the joke was on all the guys I smoked with those 2 great cars.
Back in the day with so many muscle cars out there this was a joke, to see one and to see one now is still a waste of time to me when I had a 70 Chevelle 454 when I was 20
I bought an 8 month old Rebel Machine for $6.00 when I was 20 and I still have it. I had so much fun I published a 300 page book about it. Now I’m writing the second one. I drove it coast to coast and raced in lots of different places. Now I make the stripe kits and body panels for those cars and others.
I hope you had as much with your 454 but I doubt it.John
I agree why even list it with no price? It has a Hearst shifter, not a Hurst.
??? Hearst was the guy Wells immortalized with “Rosebud”. Hurst had Linda and a shifter company.
These cars came out when I was 14. I hated the paint, liked the idea of a 390 with a 4 speed and loved the name. To me it was a Rambler Scrambler, which was also what the coolest motorcycles were called. I saw one in ‘69 or ‘70 that was painted all white, and it looked great. I believe they would have sold a lot more with single color paint schemes. I’ve always felt that red white and blue belongs on the flag, not cars, trucks and clothing.
As a kid, there was a red, white and blue one in the adjacent town. Nobody made fun of it. It was just a cool car.
And like you Rex, we called it a Rambler/Scrambler.
December 7th,1967 was my first day of Basic Training in the Air Force and after six weeks, I was then sent to Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, Texas to begin a three month course in Aircraft Maintenance. But in the final week of Tech School, I and eleven other guys were told that instead of going out into the field, we were going to take another two month long course to become ‘instructor’s ourselves and soon, I was teaching the very same course that I had just completed myself. That meant that among other things, I was stuck in Texas which I hated. Well becoming ‘Permeant Party’ at Sheppard AFB, I was allowed to have a vehicle on base and I bought a 57 Chevy Bel Air hardtop from a Tech Sargent for $450.00. That car was a straight, rust free Texas car with a rolled and pleaded interior and 283 with a 3 speed stick, which I modified by installing a dual quad manifold with two Rochester 4 barrel carbs that came from a 56 Corvette and the 4 speed that had been in my 58 Chevy Impala convertible that I owned before going into the Air Force. Well that 57 Chevy Bel Air hardtop became my daily driver and my weekend drag car. I even made three and half trips between Texas and my home in New Jersey with that car, which I could write another long winded story about. Anyway, at a dirt water drag strip just across the state line in Oklahoma, I raced that 57 Chevy Bel Air, and among the other 50 or 60 drag cars that would show up, was a 68 Javelin that was sponsored by the AMC dealership in Wichita Falls. That Javelin was a well prepared drag car that I think, ran in Super Stock/H. Then in June,1969 a friend of mine and fellow ‘instructor’, received orders that he and only a few other guys from that original dozen, were going to be assigned to ‘permeant duty’ at Sheppard, while I and most of the other guys who were in that original group of twelve, received orders for Southeast Asia. So my friend decided to move his wife & baby daughter down from Brooklyn and was in need of a new car for his wife to drive. So I suggested that instead of trying to buy a new Volkswagen, that he look at the Ramblers. So while in the dealership, while my friend was talking to a salesman, I asked one of the mechanics where the ‘Javelin Race Car’ was and was told in his best Texas accent “it’s “round yonder in the shop’. So I walked back there and found not the Javelin drag car, but a brand new SC/Rambler that had just been offloaded from the transporter truck. I was all hopped up seeing that car, because the SC/Rambler had just been announced in April of 1969 and had been featured in the May, 1969 issue of Super Stock & Drag Illustrated magazine. Anyway the salesman & my friend finally came out to the shop & together with the mechanic who had been checking the SC/Rambler out, the salesman asked if my friend and I wanted to go for a ride. I couldn’t get in the back seat of that SC/Rambler fast enough. Well from a slow roll on the ramp leading up to the Interstate, the salesman nailed the throttle, pinning all four of us against the back of our seats while the SC/Rambler’s ass end went sideways. Well I knew then and there that I wanted one, but I couldn’t afford one (not on the $208.00 a month the Air Force was paying me). Plus I still had a tour of duty in Southeast Asia ahead of me. But in September, 1970, after being discharged from the Air Force, I found a used SC/Rambler with 12,000, on the used car lot of Wagner-Hetman AMC in South River, New Jersey that I bought for $1800.0. That car became my daily driver & my new ‘weekend drag car’. With the addition of only a set of Doug Thorley headers, a rejetted carburetor, a reworked distributor to bring in the advance a little sooner, and a set of six inch wide slick, on a cool night at Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey the car went 12:97 @ 104.00 MPH. And when I could get the car to ‘hook’, I could daylight the left front wheel by an inch or two. Anyway that SC/Rambler, like countless other muscle cars, fell on hard times and by 1986, it was a rusty shell with no drive train. Then in October of 1986 I found a SC/Rambler that had undergone an armature restoration by a guy from Eatontown, NJ and I bought that car for $6500.00 (which I still own all these years later). But unlike my original SC/Rambler, the ‘new’ one basically sits in a garage and gets taken to local (and some not so local car shows) but has never been drag raced. But the guy who sold me the car back in October of 1986, in-turn, took away the remains of my original SC/Rambler for a mere $100.00, (which was something I’ve always regretted having done), because while my original SC/Rambler was rough and beyond my ‘skill level’ to have restored it, compared to some of the cars I’ve seen on Barnfinds over the years, it was a creampuff. But I have a friend named Ralph who bought a SC/Rambler brand new at Flemington AMC in Flemington, New Jersey in 1969 for $2998.00 and he basically did with his, what I did with my original car. It was used as a daily driver, it may have been used as a weekend drag car and it participated in many a ‘stop light to stop light Grand Prix’ and then Ralph got rid of the car. Then maybe 20 years ago, Ralph bough a ‘restored, second SC/Rambler’ just as I had done years before that. And just as a little side FYI, Ralph also owns his own private, AMC junkyard where he has the remains of at least seven other unrestored SC/Ramblers). Well over the last 15 years or so, Ralph and I have gotten our two SC/Rambler together at several different local car shows here in central and northern New Jersey. But it had been a few years since we had done that. Then back in 2015, Ralph bought another, restored SC/Rambler which turned out to be his original car that he had purchased brand new in 1969. But I don’t think Ralph knew he was buying his original SC/Rambler for a second time until after the deal had been made. Oh yea, when Ralph bought the ‘second SC/Rambler’ originally in 1969, he paid $2998.00 for it. When he bought it a second time in 2015, it cost him $40,000.00
John and Robert, it would be great to see you and your SC/RAMBLER’S at the
2022 AMO Motor City Muster in Livonia Mich. Wednesday Aug 10th thru
Saturday Aug 13th. You can get more information on the show at the Great Lakes Classic AMC Club web site or face book page.
Hopefully AMC ya
I’ve never owned a SC/Rambler. Never had the opportunity to but one either. I’m a Rebel Machine guy. You can see my present red Machine at: rebelmachineparts.com
Getting to the show will depend on how possible it is to cross the border into the USA and back.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/181899124883
I can only assume you’re a little cranky before the medication takes effect. But, I see you’ve posted at 5:56 a.m. so I apologize. Perhaps you need some perspective on the car business as it was in the late 1960’s. American Motors had occupied the number four selling spot as recently as 1963 behind Chevy, Ford and believe it or not – Pontiac. To say they had ambition would actually understate what they believed they could achieve. My Dad was tighter than paint on the wall, but went all-in for new signage and a remodel for our little store. Today, we have the Monday morning quarterbacks saying how underfunded and under-imagined they ended up being, but that was not the prevalent mindset. You insult the memory of all these “little trains that could” and their hard work and dedication by branding them with your descriptors. Now, my meds are taking over, so I will grant we all have opinions, just like that other opening, and agree to disagree. Even today, with a Lincoln, Jaguars, Infiniti, Hudson and Ambassador in the fleet, I swell with pride driving the sons of Nash. Probably a character defect.
Well , i stand by what i wrote
An ugly car that nevertheless deserves its place in history is what i wrote
And i still find it ugly
And i agree that we disagree
And hope we can have a beer to argue and chat and work on one of your wonky cars
Cause i work on any car just for the fun of it
Yolo
Agree – most posters weren’t even born so it’s just a half assumed opinion.
In 1961 and 1962, the Rambler was #3 in sales, jumping ahead of Plymouth both years. Pontiac was also #3 in 1959 with their Wide Track. When the Rambler won the Motor Trend Car of the Year in 1963, they came in #7! That was a very significant car of the year award. They got it because the door frames were all one piece, eliminating a lot of poor fitting doors. You could tell the difference in their cars just by opening and closing their doors as opposed to the rest of the industries cars. And to Robert Gill, Ralph from New Jersey still has his SC/Rambler that he bought new. He brings it to some our shows in Southeastern, PA.
Just my .02.
Larry in PA.
20 years ago saw ’em for 5 or 6 grand.
Shoulda, woulda… um, didn’t! oops!
An AMX not a Muscle Car ?? A friend of mine had a 69 with the Go Package with 390 and 4-speed plus some mods and it would run with anything out there at the time. The Machines would not run with the AMX ! Too heavy !
Don, your comment gives you away as another poster who was not born to participate in the muscle car wars in person.
Muscle cars are intermediate sized, two door hardtops. Less popularly two door sedans.
AMXs, Mustangs, Camaros, Javelins, Cougars, Firebirds, 1970 and newer Cudas and Challengers were all PONY cars. They were never considered muscle cars.
The Rambler SC/Rambler was built using the Rambler American body and that was considered a compact car along with the Chevy IIs, Cansos and various others.
You see this question pop up every now and then and it reminds us that the muscle car generation is marching off into the sunset leaving a huge vacuum where knowledge used to be.
No mention of the SC/360 Hornet in any of this conversation…I am surprised. I owned one of the rarest of all. A factory Go-Pack, 4-speed w/ air conditioning (now owned by another collector).
Looks-wise, I far prefer the AMX. That ugly hood scoop….
But I’ll probably have to be content with my 63 Ambo 327, as I never saw a right-hand steer AMX over here in the UK, and I doubt I ever will.
Yes, I could sit on the wrong side, but no….
That 327 is a good engine. Valves are small, and they don’t “breathe,” but they run forever. That was the engine that was in the ’57 Rebel. They were pretty quick “back in the day.” I had four them, 2 that I drove. They were great highway cars!
Just my .02.
Larry in PA.
I raced Ramblers “back in the day.” I was the only one there with a Rambler, a ’57 Rebel with overdrive. Never won anything, as everyone else was cheating. But I drove mine back and forth to work everyday, and it never missed a beat and never broke. Bought it in 1961 and sold it in 1965. And anytime my friends and I went somewhere, it was the vehicle of choice. It was also the oldest. All the other cars were newer, but that Rebel was the reliable one, and it was more comfortable. The Chevies, Fords, Mopars, Pontiacs, etc. were parked in favor of that Rebel. I reluctantly sold it and bought a new car in 1965. Yep! It was a Rambler! A 440-H with the new 232 6, shift Command automatic and a 3.31 rear with Twin Grip. I won ten trophies that year in I/Stock Automatic. I was the only rambler at the track. They called my car a Nash Rambler! Wiped out two trannies, but they were repaired under warranty! Nice little car. It ran low 17’s and was a lot of fun on the street! Just bought another one with low mileage on it, and no racing with this one. Just cruise with it and enjoy!
Just my .02.
Larry in PA