Word: rambler
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...young man in Washington, D.C., American Motors' President George Romney showed up at a costume party as a knight, accompanied by a fair young maiden whose hand he had just won (see cut). The choice of dress was symbolic. Later, Romney rode forth to battle, astride his trusty Rambler to engage what he considered the modern U.S. dragon: the dinosaur-like big car. For a while, Detroit regarded him as a mere windmill tilter. But as Romney began to smite the dinosaur hip and thigh, TIME chronicled his success round by round, carefully reported the rise of the small...
Then Romney pauses dramatically, juts his formidable jaw. "Who," he challenges, "wants to have a gas-guzzling dinosaur in his garage?" In the silence that follows, Romney races on to introduce the creature he would most like to see replace the dinosaur: American Motors' compact little Rambler...
...Ladies. With inexhaustible energy Romney last year traveled 70,000 miles across the U.S. to preach his message, sometimes sleeping and eating in his Rambler. He wears an alarm wrist watch to remind himself when to stop talking, but no one can remember a time when he ever heeded it. He likes to get up before women's clubs, fix the ladies accusingly with his blue-grey eyes. "Ladies," he says, wagging his finger at them, "why do you drive such big cars? You don't need a monster to go to the drugstore for a package...
...other hand, Romney will have a problem with some of his dealers. Some 30% of them are auto bigamists; they sell a Big Three car as well as the Rambler, will probably carry the Big Three's line of small cars (though only Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth dealers, of which Rambler has practically none, are expected to). Romney hopes that his hard core of 2,800 dealers will stick with Rambler. During the industry's 1958 slump, Rambler saved many of them; last year they made a 2.8% profit on their total sales v. .2% for the average...
...George Romney has brought off singlehanded one of the most remarkable selling jobs in U.S. industry. He has taken a company that only three years ago was on the brink of the grave, the butt of countless jokes ("Did you hear about the man who was hit by a Rambler and went to the hospital to have it removed?"), and given it a new and vibrant lease on life. More remarkable, he has done it all by selling an "economy" car that, in 1956, actually cost $4 more than the Big Three's cheapest...