A little
American Motors
and Rambler
engine history

THE 196 FLYING SCOT
	THE 196 FLYING SCOT
THE 196 CAST OVERHEAD
	THE 196 CAST OVERHEAD
THE 196 ALUMINUM
In 1961 thru 1964 the small Independent launched the Aluminum 196 engine into the Classic 6. Later it went on to become an option for the Classic and American. The engine came at a bad time in the history of marketing cars. People were lead to believe that a MODERN engine should need little or no serviceing. Unfortunately the Aluminum engine was palgued with this attitude, without the heads being retorqued as per the scheduled maintenance, they blew headgaskets. As the motoring public started to hear rumours of the Reliable Ramblers troubled engine, AMC decided to retrofit 196 Cast engines into the troubled cars. The Aluminum engine, with its unjust reputation, is an extremely rare find under the hood of 1961 thru 1964 Ramblers.	THE 196 ALUMINUM
THE MIGHTY MITE V4 108 ALUMINUM
February, 1959 issue of Popular Science reported... ...American Motors is already producing some aluminum engines for the armed services. They are V-4s, with two banks of two cylinders set at 90 degrees. Horsepower is 56 at 3600rpm, and the torque 90 pounds-feet at 2000-3000rpm. The engine is air cooled. Dimensionally, its tiny -- roughly a two-foot cube. Bore and stroke are both 3.25 inches, and the displacement is 108 cubic inches. The compression ratio is low -- 7.5 to 1. Weight, without electrical equipment, is 214 pounds... ...American Motors is officially silent when asked about aluminum engines for passenger cars. But in 1954, George Romney, president of American Motors, said: "In years of experimentation with smaller cars... we developed a powerful die-cast aluminum air cooled engine." Two years later, Mr. Romney mentioned the same engine as being one of a "family" that could be produced in units of two, four, six, or eight cylinders, either V-type or pancake.	THE MIGHTY MITE
THE ROTARY ENGINE?
In 1964, American Motors had thrown in the towel on the Aluminum engine and decided to persue a different concept for a power plant... McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technoligy, 5th edition reported: An engine of conceptually equivalent to the Wankel was developed by Renault Inc and the American Motors Corp. It is sometimes called the Renault-Rambler engine. In this case, however, the rotor consists of a four lobed arrangement, operating in a five-lobe chamber. When a lobe moves into a cavity, volume decreases, resulting in a compression process...	THE ROTARY ENGINE
THE 199 - 232 SIX
The rotary engine project never got further than a couple of prototypes, as American Motors had just introduced the most successful overhead valve six cylinder engine in the history of the automobile: the 199 - 232 thin wall cast engine.	THE 199 - 232 ENGINE
THE 258 AND LATER SIXES
This inline six went on to prove the ability and forward thinking of American Motor's engineers, as a variant of the original design is still being used by Jeep - 35 years after the initial release.	THE 258 ENGINE
THE 250 287 327 FIRST GENERATION V8
RAMBLER produced its own V8 engine in 1956 with the 250. The 327 was introduced in the 1957 model year as the power plant for the REBEL. The 287 version of the same engine was introduced in 1963, the year that American Motors received Motor Trend's prestegious Car of the Year award. These engines were good, reliable, strong and had tons of torque. Unfortunately the BIG THREE was promoting Horse Power, speed and high performance. In mid 1966 they introduced a lighter replacement for the dated first generation engine. The 327 design was sold off to two companies, Willys-Kaiser purchased the last of the 327 engines for senior Jeeps in 1967 and Gray Marine purchased some for inboard commercial engines.	THE FIRST GENERATION V8
THE SECOND GENERATION V8 290 thru 401
The design proved reliable, and initiated the design of the thin wall V8 engine, which was introduced as a 290 in 1966 1/2 in the Rogue. The V8 went on to being the a most competitive engine, with stroke and boring was produced all the way up to 401 cu.in.	THE 290 plus V8 ENGINE

Rambler engine time line