Eric Neusel and His 1961 Little Nash Rambler Amercian
Have you ever wondered how someone falls in love with a specific style of car? Is it because of the make, the model, color, or does it just hit you once you feast your eyes on it? Those are all very good questions.
On my recent trip to Minden, Nevada to participate in the annual “Rappin In Minden” car show, hosted by the local chapter of the Northern Nevada Inliners Car Club, I had the pleasure of speaking with car enthusiast, Eric Neusel, who acquired his car only after his sister lost interest in it, after purchasing it as her college ride. Eric was tasked with the job of locating a car for his sister and that’s when he came upon the perfect car.
It’s a 1961 Rambler, which was the first year of the unibody and of this body style. It is motored by a straight 6 cylinder engine and the price seemed right at the time, $1,200. This cute Rambler was a styling 2 door convertible with a manual transmission.
The Rambler was not in perfect shape, but definitely good enough for a college student. Eric’s sister looked at this 1961 Rambler only as a source of transportation, but in Eric’s eyes, it was truly much more.
After about six months of driving the Rambler, his sister became bored with it. Eric knew this was the time to jump in and offer some money to purchase the car from her. Knowing that she paid $1,200 for the Rambler, he offered $600 and his sister accepted.
Eric had visions for this cute convertible Rambler American, so he slowly began to fix her up. The top was white so this gave him the idea to give it a Red, White and Blue theme, since the car’s model name is the American Rambler. To date, Eric has owned the car for 10 years and lives in Carson City, Nevada.
Let’s look at just how this car came to be.
The Rambler American automobile was built as a intermediate sized car that was introduced as a high performance car and manufactured by the American Motors Corporation (AMC) between 1958 and 1969.
The American was the second incarnation of AMC’s forerunner Nash Motors second generation Rambler compact that was sold under the Nash and Hudson Motors marques from 1954 and 1955.
The American can be classified in three distinct model year generations: 1958 to 1960, 1961 to 1963, and 1964 to 1969. During the entire length of its production, the car was sold under the Rambler brand name, and was the last Rambler named automobile marketed in the Canadian and United States markets.
The compact Rambler American was most often the lowest priced car built in the U.S. It was popular for its economy in ownership, as was proven by numerous Mobilgas Economy Run championships.
So every time you hear the song, Little Nash Rambler, think of Eric Neusel and his 1961 Rambler American convertible.
