This TV campaign for the 1969 Rebel foreshadows the introduction of AMC’s muscle car,  the Rebel Machine, just one year later.

Here’s an American Motors marketing campaign with a remarkably different flavor. Traditionally, American Motors commercials of this period featured family-car people doing the usual  family-car things, usually with a light-hearted angle. But in this pitch for the 1969 Rebel, AMC’s intermediate-class offering, the hero is a working cowboy out on the Western plains, and the selling words include “action,” “muscle, and “power.” “We call it ‘the machine'”, the announcer proclaims. “Don’t let the good looks fool you, pardner. The machine is one mighty rugged automobile.”

The repeated use of the word “machine” caught our attention, naturally. For the next model year, AMC introduced a Rebel-based model called the Machine—a bona fide muscle car with a 390 cubic-inch V8, a Hurst-shifted four-speed transmission, and bold graphics—all the usual muscle-car equipment. Another item that caught our ear: For 1969, the track width was opened up from 58 to a full 60 inches, a change that couldn’t have hurt the Rebel’s cornering abilities one bit..Now watch with us as the cowboy tears up several acres of scenery in his ’69 Rebel. Video follows.