“Rambler” is the term I use to describe the company known as American Motors Corporation,  and all of the companies which preceded it in its family line, and those which joined the corporate family tree through mergers and acquisitions. 

---

Briefly, this would include, among others,

Gormully and Jeffery Manufacturing, known as G & J(the makers of the Rambler bicycle),

 Thomas B. Jeffery & Company, the makers of the first Rambler automobile,

 The Thomas B. Jeffery Company(formed when Thomas B. Jeffery’s sons Charles T. and Harold Jeffery took the company public after the founder’s death),

Nash Motors Corporation, which purchased Jeffery in 1916, and finally,

 American Motors Corporation(formed on May 1, 1954, from a merger between 

Nash-Kelvinator and 

Hudson Motor Car Company).

---

 

American Motors met its end when it was purchased by the Chrysler Corporation in March 1987, which continued the Jeep Corporation name.

Here is a Milwaukee Journal newspaper article from March 9, 1987, discussing the takeover by Chrysler.  From the AMC Forums…

Click Here for Page 2…

Later Chrysler itself was absorbed by Daimler-Benz AG, the makers of  Mercedes, to form Daimler-Chrysler, referred to as D-C, or DCX.  This merger put an end to the once-great tradition of American leadership in the automobile industry, leaving only two American companies, General Motors and Ford, of the literally hundreds which once operated in this country. 

---

In 1902, Thomas B. Jeffery & Company became  only the second mass producer of automobiles in the world, selling over 1500 of its Rambler automobiles.  Henry Ford himself would not reach the milestone of 1500 autos in a year until 1903.  The first to reach this mark was Ransom Eli Olds of Oldsmobile, in 1901. 

---

As you can see, cars like the 

 Gremlin, 

Pacer, Ambassador, and  Spirit descended from a very old and proud line.  In later postings I will be tracing  this heritage forward from its earliest days, now lost in obscurity, to the more familiar cars of the 1960’s through the 1980’s, now also unfortunately lost in obscurity.

mike 

---

Monday July 10, 2006 - 01:39pm (MST)

This entry was posted on Monday, July 10th, 2006 at 1:39 am and is filed under Nashin' on My Rambler, Rambler Heritage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.