1963 AMC Rambler Classic 550 review from North America

- Generator.

- Belches gas out of the filler neck.

- Drinks oil.

I bought this thing for 500 bucks and drove it two and a half hours home after it had been sitting for nearly 2 years.

The car has been very reliable, but is very low on power, and the motor guzzles a quart of oil every 80-100 miles. I buy the stuff in big two gallon containers. Must be a Rambler thing, because I had another Rambler with the same engine and it would burn up oil like there was no tomorrow.

It runs rough and sounds like a really quiet diesel at idle. In its current state of tune, the little six cylinder delivers about 22 mpg. Probably be a little bit better if the engine was stronger.

The steering has tons of play, and takes some getting used to. The car is very light for its size.

Overall it is pretty well built, all the windows roll up even after 40 some odd years, and the door latches work great. This is an area that modern car designers should look into more. Sometimes there is no replacement for metal parts.

Other than needing a 20 dollar generator rebuild, I haven't stuck any money into it besides gas and (lots) of oil.

The car gets lots of comments, much more than I thought it would.

Some parts are hard to find and expensive, but compared to a newer car (10 years old or newer) I would say the parts cost are roughly the same or even slightly cheaper.

The car is extremely easy to work on. I would recommend a Classic to anyone that wants a car they can enjoy working on, instead of exploring new ways to use curse words while trying to find a specialty tool to remove a brake caliper or other such nonsense that is found on most newer cars.