Riding The Storm Out ! 1957 AMC Nash Rambler Rebel & Ride on My Car Story with Lou Costabile

Hi, I'm Lou with another episode of My Car Story. We're in the western suburbs of Chicago today and I'm with Charlie Wilson. Charlie's got a great car. Charlie, what year make and model is this one? It's a 1957 Nash Rambler Rebel. And this one's the one I've waited for for a long time because this was a muscle car. This is one of the fastest cars in 1957. Can't wait to share this one with you. So let's go right to our featured attraction. Charlie, come right alongside me. Okay, right over here. And let's look at the face of that. Now, how long have you had this car? 1993. Why the Rambler Rebel? Well, my first car was a 62 Rambler Classic and then I had an Ambassador with the V8 and I'd heard what the Rebel was. Tell me what you heard. So, well, that it was the first muscle car, fastest thing, fastest accelerating car of 1957. And if you wanted your Corvette to go faster, you had to buy the fuel injection. So only the Fuele was faster in 57 than this. That's what I've been told, yeah. Wow. Motor Trend did their tests. This did zero to 60 in seven seconds flat. Wow. What is the color on this car? It's called Rebel Silver. And it's the only color they came in, isn't it? That's correct. And this gold stripe or kind of brown stripe is exactly correct. Well, this is actually maybe a few shades darker. What you see in the pictures of the originals was more gold and less bronze. But this is what it got restored to. And I just in all these years haven't wanted to put the time in to change that. How many other Rambler Rebels have you seen? As far as we know, there's 25 or maybe 26 left. Wow. I own four of them. And I know that you and I had been talking and I said, if you ever come through Chicago area and this was our chance. That antenna is correct. That's correct. Yeah. And look at the back, how it's got this piece up here that kind of holds that. I want to show it from the side. Tucks it in. Let's open the trunk, shall we? Now, the trunk's not perfectly clean. Right. But it's he's on a trip. But actually, that moves up. And this is Rambler back there. Do they all come with luggage or continental kit? No, that was an option, too. And you can tell the cars that came with it because there's no well in the floor for the spare. Oh, OK. The cars that didn't get this all had the bottom. Really? So if it didn't have a continental kit, you got a well. Right. If it had a continental kit, no well. Right. All right. And we've got the Rebel there. OK, we're going to shut that. May I open it? Certainly. Thank you. So as we feature this one, look at how the handles pull up here. You're featuring the door here, your instrumentation. Now, is this a Survivor? In a way, it was an amateur restoration 45 years ago. And we've been just driving and maintaining since. Look at the seats. This was finished in 1981. Wow. Tell me about the 4.3 drive there. Well, that's a GM hydramatic 4-speed or 3-speed if you don't want 4th for some reason. I suppose that was meant for hilly country. But I never drive it in 3rd. It's always in 4th. Got it. And we have your power brake and our single unit body here. I'm going to take you around. While I'm taking him to the other side, can you open the hood for us? Certainly. And does that seat go all the way down? Yeah. Yeah, this makes a bed. Like so. You pull this all the way forward and there are extensions of the rear seat. It lays right flat. OK. Makes a flat bed going across. Well, let's bring that back up. A little challenging to drive like that. Oh, that was easy. Let's pop the hood. You can see the bugs all over. That's all right. I just drove it here. Eight, nine hours. What's under the hood here? What's the cubic inch? This is a Rambler 327. Now, is that different than a Chevy 327? Oh, quite a bit. Yeah, it's a coincidence that the number matches. OK. This is bigger bar and shorter stroke than the Chevy. And we've got the, that just looks great. Now, is this the front? It tells you there. It tells you that, right. OK, yeah. Now, the dual master is not original. I can see that's an add-on. For driving safety, that's much better. Especially because you drive it. Yeah, yes. OK, so let's fire it, shall we? Sure. We'll let it idle. I'll listen to it idle. You put the park lights on. Let me listen to it idle for a second. Is it single exhaust dual? It's dual. OK, from the factory? Yeah. OK. Right on each side. That's another thing that's not quite stock. This has got glass packs instead of the factory mufflers. So it's a little bit throatier exhaust. Well, let's give it a little rev. Let's let them listen to the glass packs. One more good one. That sounds great, doesn't it? Let's take it for a ride, shall we? Sure. Thank you. We are in the 1957 AMC. Did they call it AMC back then? Yeah. AMC 5. Rambler Rebel. How do you feel driving it? You've been driving it for a while today. Oh, I have a lot of fun with this car. Where's the car live? Ohio? In Ohio, yeah. So we had talked. And you remembered that we talked. And you said, Lou, let me bring the car from Ohio. If I ever come through Illinois, I'll bring it. And can I tell you, I can't be happier to see him. I know we had to kind of come and find each other. And you'll see why in a second when we make a left-hand turn. And I'll show people kind of where we're going. But we're going right into the storm. Yes. And we laugh because I actually came to see him before the storm hit. So we could get this video in. But when there's a will, there's a way. Right. Yeah, well, we should have been here two hours earlier. Well, you know, that's... Getting through Chicago was... Yeah. I've never seen it that bad. Make a left and we'll have beautiful sailing. We'll go before this car goes. Yeah, there we go. That's what we want. And now you see why we're going straight into the storm. All right, well, we'll drive until the storm hits us. First of all, beautiful where we're at. But you can see the lightning even in the background. Picking up into the storm, which is why I came towards you. But the Lord opened the skies up and gave us the opportunity to do this video. Just enough. And I've been looking for this car. I must have called you, what, four years ago? About that, yeah. I went to Kenosha, to the Kenosha Homecoming to look for one. And I know there was one up there, but I just couldn't get one. I didn't know about the Continental kit. That the Continental kit was an option. And yet the difference in the bump in the back. Now, when you got this car, tell me, you know, what are people's reactions when they see this? Well, I get a lot of thumbs up and beautiful car. What is it? Do they know what it is? We're going to roll the windows up. Proactively. Just right. Cars in the rain. So it started out of the rain and we moved it. He had taken a little slower in it because I feel it wants to jump. But it's not because it wants to jump. But it's really windy out there. There you go. Well, there we go. The wipers are working. That's the wipers. So that's about everything. Yeah, that's the whole shebang. Well, we're going to keep driving for just a little bit because we look at the lightning. It's coming now. Another exclusive on my car story, right? We'll just talk a little bit more about it. So when you've had this car, anything that stands out to you lately. How many have you seen other than this one? I mean, I know you have four. Yeah. We were in Boston for a they specifically invited Rebels. Okay. We have seven of them. Oh, wow. So that was a one time only. Take your time, because there's no rush. As you can see, there's nobody in front of us and we're fully into the storm now. We are right in the storm out in the Rebel. I've seen rain before. Let's not go faster than this. So it's been a super dependable car for real good. Yeah. The one thing that I see is we get the chance. The clock's got a light and we can show the insurance greater out there. Well, so we can focus on the road. We're going to check out right now. Charlie, it's been really a wow. That was lightning. It's really been a treat to have you with us to show her going into. It's been a treat to have you. Thanks so much. We finally got this one in just in time. The Lord provided for us. We thank you for that. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you. So while we have a little bonus footage, tell me by accident how you found this car. Well, it really was by accident. I mean, my wife's car turned left into the side of it. Oh, she's pretty 69 Rebel. And I said, you are not totally. So we made a deal where we found a body shop and he would do the repairs. But I had to find all the parts. I made a few calls and found everything except the left front fender two days. A week later, I'm still crawling around and can't find that fender. Ended up calling a guy in Spokane, Washington. And he had it and agreed to ship it to me. Wonderful call. If you know anyone interested in one. Is that right? So you literally, if you wouldn't have the accident, you wouldn't have found this car. Wow. Just check out the place. I gave you a little bonus.