American Motors’ Last Traditional Convertible: The 1968 Rebel

Posted on by

The 1968 Rebel ragtop marked the end of an epoch for American Motors: It was the carmaker’s last traditional six-passenger convertible.

 

We need to start by qualifying our terms. When we refer to the last traditional convertible from American Motors, we are deliberately excluding the Targa-roofed Concord conversions, the 1985-87 Renault Alliance convertibles, and so on. We mean the last convertible produced by AMC when it was still a full-line manufacturer of traditional, Detroit-style automobiles. As the company struggled in the ’60s to realign and reorganize to compete with the Detroit three, the Rambler American and full-size Ambassador ragtops were dropped in 1967, leaving just a single convertible in the lineup for 1968: the intermediate-size Rebel.

 

Totally modernized and restyled the year before at great cost to AMC, the Rebel shared its unit-construction platform with the Ambassador but with the wheelbase shrunk from 118 to 114 inches. There were three trim levels: the stripped-down 550, the mid-priced 770, and the sporty, fully decked-out SST. A bit surprisingly, the convertible Rebel was offered in both base 550 and SST models. The purpose of the 550 soft top, it seems, was to allow American Motors to advertise the lowest-priced six-passenger convertible on the market. $2736, just a few bucks less than the Chevrolet Malibu.

 

For their extra $263 ($2,999 total) Rebel SST buyers received a standard 290 cubic-inch, two-barrel V8 instead of the 232 CID inline six, full wheel covers, reclining seats with a folding armrest, and a racy three-spoke steering wheel (above). However, both the 550 and the SST could be spec’d with the 343 CID V8 (two or four-barrel, 235 or 280 hp) and there was an optional Borg-Warner 4-speed manual transmission, too. For the power convertible top, the color choices were two: black or off-white. All the Rebels pictured here are SSTs.

After a record-breaking loss in 1967, the company did manage to squeeze out an $11.8 million profit in 1968, but it was a tough season for the Rebel product line as both Ford and GM rolled out all-new intermediates that year, putting the squeeze on little AMC. Rebel volume slipped from more than 100,000 to not quite 74,000 cars, and that total included only 377 of the bargain-priced 550 convertibles and 823 SSTs.  At that point, the path for the company was clear. There were no convertibles in the ’69 lineup.

 

2 thoughts on “American Motors’ Last Traditional Convertible: The 1968 Rebel”

  1. My father had a 67 Rebel 770 four door with the 232 six, I learned how to drive on that car and got in my first accident in it. It was a solid car and I thought, rather handsome with it’s clean lines and blacked out grill. The 232 had the two barrel carb option giving it a total of 165 horsepower. It was a metallic burgundy and had what I considered as fancy claret brocade seats. While I moved on to foreign cars, my dad drove the Rebelfor over 10 years until it succumbed to rust in Canada. I still have fond memories of it and wouldn’t mind owning a Rebel SST coupe.

  2. This AMC body style has a strong resemblance to the ’68 Dodge and Plymouth intermediates, but the AMC came one year earlier and AMC did it better.

Comments are closed.