The ' Nash Rambler' on Elm .

[Jake Hammond]

 Anyway, the Nash Rambler mentioned by various people - is it in any images ?, what model is it and where else was it seen? After doing some googling, consulting with a classic car encyclopedia and looking at a few past threads on this forum I have come to a few conclusions . 

 First and most importantly we have Officer Craig's statement of seeing a man looking like LHO running down the hill and into a light green Nash Rambler. The Warren commission changed this to a white Rambler and there is a photo doing the rounds of a white or light station wagon pulled over on Elm, but the image seems to be taken later, the lights seem to be shaped in a vertical rectangle or stacked twin headlight configuration and also the Warren commission changed Craigs description of a green wagon to white.  see image with yellow target.

 The image above is spurious, it does not show ' the Nash Rambler' .Or in fact, any Nash Rambler. 

 The next image of the 'Rambler' shows it parked on Houston and seen by Randolph Carr and one other I believe. 

  Below is the actual car and below that a stock picture of a  62 Chevy Bel Air wagon, albeit a customised one. Not a Nash Rambler. 

 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Jake Hammond
tidying up content

[Jake Hammond]

 

edited out. 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Jake Hammond

[Jake Hammond]

The next image is that used by ' Ramblerman ' in the YouTube video and also used by John Armstrong on Harvey and Lee .com. You may well be familiar with the image and what it shows but I've attached a close up anyway. Out of shot is the Hertz sign atop the TSBD saying 12.40. Now ... after looking very closely and googling a lot it became apparent that this car is a 1961-62 Rambler classic station wagon. It has a few features you can just make out. It has a twin circular front headlight configuration, with a noticeably large gap between the two lenses. It also has noticeably ' tucked in ' wheels, i.e the arches have a fair bit of overhang. it also has a distinct mid section to the front bumper for the plate. One more apparent detail is the slope down of the headlight from extreme of the front wings down and in toward the centre of the grill. This is a slight optical illusion as what you are actually seeing is a similar sloping line in the bonnet ( hood) above the lights. 

 Most importantly perhaps with this car is that Officer Craig identified it specifically as a Rambler because of the luggage rack specific to that car. I thought that seemed quite a detail even by my car geek standards but when googling Nash Rambler it becomes apparent what he means. .... The Nash Rambler has a lower and flatter back section and retains the full height and shape of the central section used on the hard top sedans.Its quite a unique feature. They all had this as a styling detail, probably also a money saving exercise too. Several other confirmed that this was a Rambler. Therefore we can conclude that this was in fact 'a' and quite possibly ' the' ' Nash Rambler' . Why ' Nash Rambler'.... well the 57 onwards they were simply 'Ramblers' produced by AMC and sub divided into a few trim levels and style levels such as classic, rebel and Ambassador. So technically it was an AMC Rambler 'classic' station wagon  61/2 with chrome luggage rack. 

 Please see image below for the shape of the back end and rack deck. 

 Ruth Paine and the Rambler - She never had one. She had a 54 Bel Air wagon. 

 Craigs assertion that Oswald said ' Thats Ruth Paines station wagon , don't bring her into it' when captain Fritz mentioned a CAR on Elm and someone getting in. He apparently made a presumption that it was a wagon, without prompt. But you never know what had been said previously to LHO and if he actually even said that. Assuming that this is all accurate then you can only speculate that he was mistaken as the colours were similar and they are similar cars, he assumed it was her car being used and thought that she knew something about what was going on that day. Pure speculation. 

 Oswald and his escape route - Some people try to claim that he escaped in the Rambler, he clearly got on a bus and taxi, that is just not open to negotiation I don't think now. So someone who looked like him was acting suspiciously very different to everyone else that day and was very keen to get away from Dealey Plaza, was whistled at by a friend and was never seen again. He also looked ' like his identical twin' . It should not be forgotten too how Craig came to be in the interview in the first place - The man running down the hill and into a parked car after a whistle looked so incongruous given the situation that when an arrest was made he ( Craig) rang Fritz to tell him what he'd seen but more importantly to check if the suspect matched Craigs guy on the grass from earlier, which he did.

 One more thing ..... Why have we never seen or heard of this mysterious man, his driver or the car ? In almost 60 years no one has come forward and there were multiple people in that car. 

12.40 photo close up

Ruths Bel air wagon '54 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Jake Hammond

[Jake Hammond]

Side issue .... who is the man in this image crossing the road .... looks suspicious . https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/photo_popup.php?photoid=77293&gallery_id=3767

Edited January 25, 2023 by Jake Hammond

[Sean Coleman]

Jake, Tosh Plumlee found and photographed an interesting Rambler and threaded his pics here a few years ago, they may be interesting to you. The Mexico permits still adhered to it make you wonder…

[Jake Hammond]

Cheers, Yes I read that but the car doesn't match the colour of Craigs description or match the images of the rambler on Dealey Plaza. Also it had a chain of custody I believe from 1960 - 1995 or close to that. 

7 minutes ago, Sean Coleman said:

Jake, Tosh Plumlee found and photographed an interesting Rambler and threaded his pics here a few years ago, they may be interesting to you. The Mexico permits still adhered to it make you wonder…

 

[John Butler]

This may help with what a Chevy and Rambler wagon would look like in those days.

 

[Jake Hammond]

Thank you John, I did see the thread  where you had made that argument and its a good point. Neither of these cars matches the car in the image taken at 12.40 however. The 1960 Rambler did technically have twin lights but they were one cluster and up high in the hood almost. The image of a mid colour car is almost certainly a 61 Rambler with its quite unusual spaced out twin lights, low down in the grill . I had lots of comparison images but forgot about the upload restrictions. In relation to the identification of the Rambler you have Craig, who seems like a very reliable witness given his detailed description of the people and car in general and also several people following who identified that car as a Rambler. Remember ... the Rambler wagon was a very distinct shape, the rear area dropped to form a flat surface for a luggage rack. Another feature of the Rambler was they were a compact car, if you look at the '12.40' image in the below video (at 3.40) ....   you can see its diminutive size compared to the other cars around it. As regards to Harvey potentially thinking the Ruth Paine Chevy was a Rambler.. maybe, he didn't drive but could read. The older chevy you compared could be the same as the car in the image at the top of the thread ( yellow circle) but I believe the time of this image to be later than 12.40 and it isn't a Rambler of any sort as far as I can see from google images - the lights are more Chevy. 

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Jake Hammond

[Jake Hammond]

I just did a google search and found that the '61 year carried three colours you could describe as pale green ... chatsworth, echo and valley green. Chatswoth I'd describe as quite a bright green or peppermint green but both valley or echo green could both be described as ' light green' . Neither colour is a light ' shade' but rather has a small amount of the green pigment in relative to the base of grey/ silver . Certainly 'echo' green I'd describe as light green, valley green is a relatively dark colour but not a strong green and could be described as light. 

 For the 62 model year the ' Glen cove' is a softer and paler version of Chatsworth and the Elmhurst is essentially a metallic version albeit slightly darker. Both very good choices for ' light green' as described by Craig and all of the above colours could be the colour of the car in the 12.40 photograph, which is not particularly light in shade making me think that the colour is one of the metallics like Echo, valley or elmhurst. 

 In summary I more convinced now that the 12.40 image shows an echo or Elmhurst green 1961/2 AMC Rambler station wagon. This ties in time wise and description wise with what Craig said. 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Jake Hammond

[Sandy Larsen]

Jake,

Deleting some photos that you've posted in the past will free up space for new photos. If you want to do this, I've written instructions on how to do so. Just go to the very first topic in the forum, which is named Forum Tips & Tricks, and look for it there.

[Jake Hammond]

9 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Jake,

Deleting some photos that you've posted in the past will free up space for new photos. If you want to do this, I've written instructions on how to do so. Just go to the very first topic in the forum, which is named Forum Tips & Tricks, and look for it there.

Thank you Sandy, its more the size of the ones I posted. I'll check it out now. 

[Jake Hammond]

The close up of the Rambler at 12.40. 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Jake Hammond

[Sean Coleman]

Red ‘61 & blue ‘62 - just in case you’re having problems loading pics. As a fan of classic cars (that cost more to run than an ex wife), this is an interesting thread, hope you’ve got more info

ps. Do we know if Roger Craig actually confirmed the vehicle in the 1240 photo was the one he witnessed?

[Jake Hammond]

Thanks for that !  Those two images are perfect for the car in the cropped '12.40' image above yes.   I am not aware of anything Craig  said over the years to confirm that image or not but he did state that it was 12.40 when he bumped into Buddy Walters on the south side of Elm and we know he was there at 12.40 as there are many images of him , in fact the full '12.40 ' image has him in. It seems likely that is the car as the coincidence of another light/mid coloured Rambler pulling up on the curb at 12.40 is highly unlikely. In addition we have the testimony of Marvin Robinson, following the Rambler in a Cadillac that corroborates the statements of Craig. In the '12.40' image you can see behind the Rambler is a larger car in a light colour or white, potentially a Caddy. 

 In just double checking Marvin Robinsons statement  I came across this ....

 "Richard Randolph Carr stated to the FBI on January 4, 1964, that he saw a man looking out of a window on the top floor of the depository a few minutes before Carr heard shots. (99) He described the man as white, wearing a hat, tan sport coat and glasses. (100) He said that at the time of the motorcade, he was standing on about the sixth floor of the new courthouse which was under construction at Houston and Commerce Streets.(101) Carr said that from that spot he could only see the top floor and roof of the depository building.(102) It was from that location that he observed the man in the depository window. (103) Carr said that after the shots he was going toward the direction of the triple underpass; when he got to the intersection of Houston and Commerce Streets, he saw a man whom he believed to be the same individual he had seen in the window of the depository".

 This sounds like the man I previously asked about the identity of in this image  https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/photo_popup.php?photoid=77293&gallery_id=3767 

taken just after, or maybe just before the 12.40 image ( still working on finding images of the cars on Elm around 239-12.41

 In addition we see in the image https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/photo_popup.php?photoid=83436&gallery_id=3767   the bus that was directly in front of the Rambler, annoyingly the Rambler is obscured . 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Jake Hammond

[Jake Hammond]

1 hour ago, Sean Coleman said:

Red ‘61 & blue ‘62 - just in case you’re having problems loading pics. As a fan of classic cars (that cost more to run than an ex wife), this is an interesting thread, hope you’ve got more info

ps. Do we know if Roger Craig actually confirmed the vehicle in the 1240 photo was the one he witnessed?

The car behind, if it is a Caddy , looks most like a '58. I can't confirm this as I can't find the source for Robinsons statement or whether it was noted what car he drove. Randolph Carr also stated that the Rambler was parked on Houston next to the TSBD and two men got in after the shooting...