A Rambler Fit For a President

Another fairly inexpensive but interesting model arrived on my doorstep yesterday. The Rambler Ambassador Presidential limo from Argentina, modelled by Altaya in its “Unforgettable Cars of Argentina” series.

Apologies if this is old news, by the way, but I did a Forum archive search and didn’t find any mention of it, though maybe I didn’t look far enough.

Like several other U.S. cars of the day, when the dies were obsolete they went to South America, but unlike the sometimes drastic re-styling applied to U.S. cars every couple of years, the South American versions might soldier on pretty much unchanged for 10-15 years or more and were just “freshened up” every few years with a new grille, tail lights, trim, etc. So this Presidential limo was based on the 1965-66 body

which was also modelled by Altaya earlier in the same series

but the presidential version (I believe 4 were built) wasn’t actually completed until 1977. Two have been restored and preserved.

The body and wheelbase were stretched by 30 cm, so a new non-standard rear door had to be fabricated. A partition was built in behind the front seats, and armoured windows, doors and floor pan were added. There is an interesting video online (in Spanish, unfortunately) where the man responsible for the conversion explains that because of the fear of assassination attempts with bombs placed under manhole covers, they had to test the underbody protection with real explosives which threw prototypes 30 feet in the air. (So presumably el Presidente would survive the initial blast but be killed by the hard landing. That would be a bit ironic, really.) And they had to do all this stretching and armouring without adding more than 400-500 kg to the total weight, otherwise the basic platform, brakes and suspension would have required serious upgrades.

Here is another video (this one usefully dubbed in English) which gives details of the car’s history and construction.

RAMBLER PRESIDENTIAL AMBASSADOR IN THE BOS.AS. HALL - YouTube

The heavy rear pillars and tiny one-inch thick rear window were intended to make it difficult for a sniper to get a direct shot at the rear seat, where el Presidente would presumably be curled up into a ball, mumbling his Hail Mary's.

Anyway, Altaya have made a nice, crisp job of it. It conveys the look and detailing of the car well.The interior has been modelled, including the partition, but is barely visible without using a flashlight.

OK, so maybe it isn’t the prettiest car you ever saw. In fact, it bears a passing resemblance to the old Russian Zil limo – not something you’d really want your state limo compared to.

It’s just a shame the Argentinians couldn’t have waited a few years longer, they might have got the dies for the ’69 Ambassador which I think is a rather more sophisticated design. A limo version of that was actually produced in the U.S.

As other Forum folks have said before now, before they went down the tubes poor old Rambler managed to produce some quite attractive designs which deserve to be modelled, but in the present climate that could be some way into the future, if ever. So we take what we can get.