WHEN THE PRESIDENT Wild

Discussions of late-1950s American cars often involve those people who speak of confidently exuberant style, and those who use words such as “ridiculous,” leaving individual designs to sometimes become lost in the middle ground. The ’59 Cadillac, the ’57 Imperial and the ’58 Lincoln exemplify the era’s flamboyance, and with the rest of the Big Three’s lineup, they make it easy to forget that the remaining Independents had their own interpretations.

By 1952, American Motors had dropped its Nash and Hudson badges and replaced them with various Ramblers. Eye-catching paint schemes and brightwork dressed them up, and fins varied from stubby to upright — depending on the model and year — but compared to their major competitors, Ramblers were at least somewhat restrained.

Studebaker-Packard was in a position at