Editing AMC Ambassador (section)

== Development ==
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Following [[George W. Mason]]'s unexpected death in the fall of 1954, [[George W. Romney|George Romney]] (whom Mason had been grooming as his eventual successor) succeeded him as president and CEO of the newly formed American Motors. Romney recognized that to be successful in the postwar marketplace, an automobile manufacturer would have to be able to produce and sell cars in sufficient volume to [[Amortization (business)|amortize]] the high cost of tooling. Toward that end, he set out to increase AMC's market share with its Rambler models that were selling in [[market segment]] in which the [[Big Three (automobile manufacturers)#United States|domestic Big Three]] ([[General Motors]], [[Ford Motor Company]], and [[Chrysler]]) automakers did not yet [[Competition|compete]]. While the development of a redesigned 1958 Nash Ambassador, based on a stretched and reskinned 1956 Rambler [[Coachwork|body]] was almost complete, AMC's [[Automotive design|designers]] were also working on a retrimmed [[Hudson Motor Car Company|Hudson]] equivalent, called '''Rebel''', to offer Hudson [[Car dealership|dealers]].

As sales of the large-sized [[Nash Ambassador]] and [[Hudson Hornet]] models slowed, Romney determined that consumer confidence in the historic Nash and Hudson nameplates had declined. Reluctantly, he decided that 1957 would be the end of both nameplates, and the company would concentrate on the new Rambler line, which was registered as a separate [[marque]] for 1957.

The market positioning meant that "the AMC Ambassador was a car with no real competitors throughout most of the sixties" because it was viewed as a luxury-type car and could be put against the higher-end large-sized models from the domestic Big Three automakers. Still, the Ambassador was more of a midsized car.<ref>{{cite book |last=Flory Jr. |first=J. "Kelly" |title=American Cars, 1973-1980: Every Model, Year by Year |date=2012 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=9780786456369 |page=2 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=1DiNAgAAQBAJ&q=the+AMC+Ambassador+was+a+car+with+no+real+competitors+throughout+most+of+the+sixtie&pg=PA2 |access-date=20 August 2019}}</ref>