Introduced in mid-1965 in clumsy attempt to jump on the sporty car bandwagon, AMC’s midsize fastback Marlin had never found an audience, and by the 1967 model year, it was flopping on the dock. This snarky road test from the April 1967 Car Life took a hard look at the final Marlin — no longer called a Rambler — and dissects the many ways the big fish missed its mark.
Before we begin, I think a content warning is in order for diehard AMC fans and Marlin defenders (there must still be a few): This is not a kind review.
In fact, by Car Life standards, it’s a much meaner-than-average review. Car Life in this era was published by John R. Bond, and had a lot of editorial overlap with Road & Track, differing mostly in focus: RT was mostly concerned with European sports cars, while CL covered domestic cars, with a few exceptions on both sides. Car Life had some dubious editorial flourishes from time to time, but their usual style was deadpan sobriety. They weren’t Motor Trend, which tended to respond to every press release from Detroit with the meek obsequiousness of a state media arm, but unlike Car and Driver in this era, Car Life didn’t do stunts and they didn’t do hatchet jobs.
1967 AMC Marlin, no longer badged as a Rambler / Raleigh Classic Car Auctions
Except, perhaps, for this review. There’s a lot of acid here, and I can’t decide if the editors were really so appalled by the ineptitude of the Marlin or if it just seemed like an easy target, especially since they must have had grasped that its end was near and even some AMC executives would probably be glad to see it gone.
The production figures presented here are all from the Automobile Manufacturers Association (AMA), which compiled this data each year and released it to the automotive press as well as publishing an annual booklet called Automobile Facts and Figures. Those figures reveal that AMC was in the process of shedding market share like a space capsule sheds its ablative heat shield on reentry. AMC production went from a still healthy 391,366 units for the 1965 model year to 295,897 for MY1966, and 1967 would be still worse: 235,522 for the model year, 229,057 for the calendar year. The company had lost about $12 million in 1966, leading to the “major personnel and financial revisions” mentioned in the first paragraph: Both board chairman Bob Evans and AMC president Roy Abernethy had agreed to bow out, succeeded by Roy D. Chapin Jr. and William V. Luneberg.
1967 AMC Marlin badge / Raleigh Classic Car Auctions
Abernethy usually shoulders most of the blame for AMC’s ’60s missteps, and he was certainly to blame for the Marlin, which Car Life called “the product that most reflects the roots of the corporation’s difficulty.” In 1964, AMC had contemplated building an awkward-looking fastback coupe called Tarpon, based on the platform of the new Rambler American, which would theoretically have given AMC a competitor for the Ford Mustang. Abernethy had insisted on instead moving the Tarpon design to the bigger midsize Classic platform and raising the roofline for greater hat room, thereby hatching the Marlin. Car Life remarks:
The Marlin was born in haste and hope in mid-model year 1965. The haste was in the hope that a fastback sportster could play catch-up, could compete in the mushrooming youth market among the glamor cars of the Big Three. AMC wanted a piece of the action that was resulting in best-ever sales years for GM, Ford and Chrysler.
To quote Mr. Spock from the well-known Star Trek episode “A Piece of the Action,” what they got turned out to be “a minuscule … a very small piece.” Rambler dealers managed to sell 10,327 Marlins for 1965, but that was about all the market would bear. The 3,998-unit figure the text quotes for 1966 is a calendar-year total — the 1966 model year total was 4,547 cars — but being outsold by Checker was ignominious. (Piece of what action?)
1965 Rambler Marlin / Patrick Emzen via RM Sotheby’s
The text repeatedly compares Marlin sales to those of the Dodge Charger and Plymouth Barracuda, emphasizing that those rival fastbacks were selling comparatively well.
This is meaner than it might sound if you don’t recall the sales figures for those cars. Plymouth sold 64,596 Barracudas for 1965 and 38,029 for 1966, at a time when Ford was churning out between 40,000 and 50,000 Mustangs in an average month. The Charger, which had been new for 1966, accounted for only 37,300 units for the model year and 39,074 for the calendar year. The latter figure beat the Marlin by almost 10 to 1, but that was nothing to brag about.
1965 Rambler Marlin / Patrick Emzen via RM Sotheby’s
Car Life goes on:
These figures are offered only as evidence that similarly shaped cars, both more and less expensive, more and less powerful, more and less plush, sell in vastly greater numbers than does Marlin. Why?
That’s really the central question of this road test, and this page begins what will be a lengthy list of failings:
- The original 1965–66 Rambler Marlin didn’t offer anything more powerful than the 327 cu. in. (5,354 cc) AMC V-8, “what a horsepower snob might term ‘an adequate little engine.'”
- Until 1967, the Marlin didn’t offer a four-speed gearbox, turning off the kind of youth market buyer who “at least considers purchase of a 4-speed do-it-yourself gearbox for his new acquisition, whether he needs it or not.” [The editors were wrong about this part — a four-speed manual wasn’t available when the Marlin launched in 1965, but was added to the options list by the start of the 1966 model year.]
- The 1967 Marlin was longer, lower, and wider, “just when major developments were occurring in the realm of smaller cars.”
- “The Marlin for 1967 has the configuration and styling that were considered magnificent on the 1942 Chevrolet Aero sedan. In short, the Marlin lacks the 25 years of refinement apparent to varying degrees in competitors’ products.”
AMC’s older 327 cu. in. (5,354 cc) V-8 in a 1965 Marlin / Patrick Emzen via RM Sotheby’s
Ouch. Now, I happen to like the 1942 GM fastbacks quite a bit, but I’m looking at them from the perspective of another century. In 1967, they were clapped-out old cars of a design that had lingered in production for at least five years past their usual sell-by date due to the war. Who wanted to lay out new car payments for a brand-new clapped-out old car?
Car Life‘s editors were not sold on the aesthetic virtues of their test car’s full-length black vinyl top, a $99.50 option, and I have to agree. Before anyone gets too mad at me, I actually like the overall shape of the ’67 Marlin, but the vinyl top is like a bald man forgoing his fitted hairpiece in favor of painting a swath of black acrylic across his bare head: It’s such a weird thing to do aesthetically that it goes beyond the merely tasteless into the outright inexplicable.
Imagine the silver area of this car’s upper body covered with black vinyl and you’ll see Car Life‘s point / Raleigh Classic Car Auctions
The text continues:
Bright-metal accent strips flanked the black vinyl, rimmed the half-elliptic windows, beaded the rear fenders, encircled the wheel cutouts, framed the vast expanse of rear window and windshield, striped side panels and set off the stacked twin headlamps. Add an overabundance of exterior chromium plate to the excess of vinyl and the sum is a surfeit of non-functional decoration. The impression is that AMC stylists drew a rather smooth, conventional fastback and gave it simple horizontal lines in grille, taillights and bumpers. Then others, perhaps some in a 1950s-oriented management, vied to see where additional chromium could be slathered on the car. The result was a thorough and unfortunate breakup of an inherently clean exterior design.
That’s probably more or less what happened during the design of the 1967 Marlin. I’m not convinced that a radical de-chroming would be an improvement, but the overall effect is of a car that’s been decorated more than actually designed, and it does clutter up a reasonably pleasant shape.
1967 AMC Marlin / Raleigh Classic Car Auctions
The CL editors were no happier with the interior:
INSIDE THE MARLIN, a plethora of unrelated things also prevailed. … Usually, good taste is considered to be harmony through a minimization of the numbers of elements. Elegance stems from understatement. The interior of the Marlin was so filled with textures and projections, angles, bends, ribs and grooves, shades, tints and tones that any sort of harmony was lacking. A run-of-the-mill Pontiac Grand Prix appears Spartan by comparison to the Phase 2 Marlin. … Scratch, too, the part of the market that exchanges money for the smooth simplicity of true uncluttered luxury.
AMC was into very ornate brocades in this period — this was the point where some AMC models even came with matching throw pillows, to complete the impression of being in the sitting room of your elderly Aunt Mildred. Today, the kitsch value is irresistible, but I don’t suppose many young people of driving age at this time had the necessary appetite for Camp to contemplate buying such a thing on purpose.
This Marlin has a split bench rather than buckets and console, but illustrates the vintage AMC brocade fetish / Raleigh Classic Car Auctions
Next, the editors interrupt their outpouring of scorn for a bit of unmerited praise. The 1967 AMC Rebel/Marlin platform was somewhat less archaic than before, having finally abandoned the ancient torque tube drive (which had forced you to drive like your elderly Aunt Mildred lest you set the driveshaft hopping), but crediting AMC for “a great deal of sound, contemporary engineering practice” in the area of chassis and suspension design was pushing it even as a joke, heavy-duty option or no. (If you don’t know what a trunnion is, take a few minutes to have a look at Tom Jennings’ Rambler Lore page; we’ll wait.)
The text’s praise of the new four-link rear suspension’s lack of “the wheel hop, axle tramp or undue spring compression sometimes apparent in other, lesser rear suspension layouts” was no doubt sincere, but what Car Life decorously fails to mention was that one of the worst offenders in these respects was the previous AMC torque tube chassis. The limitations of the old setup were amply discussed in a July 1965 Motor Trend test of a 327/Twin-Stick Ambassador 990, which found that jackrabbit starts or dragstrip-type acceleration immediately provoked a bitter conflict between axle assembly and clutch that, like nuclear war, could have no real winner.
The brocade attack continued in the rear seat / Raleigh Classic Car Auctions
AMC bought its power steering systems from GM’s Saginaw Division. However, Car Life found the Marlin’s unsatisfactory:
[the power steering] damped out whatever road feel normally would be transmitted to the driver by action of front suspension components; and the car required continual “herding.” The system’s 4.4 steering wheel turns lock-to-lock must be regarded as “slow” by current industry standards. As identical steering gears provide 3.5 turns lock-to-lock for GM cars, it must be assumed the Marlin’s ponderous steering wheel action was the product of linkage design. The test car’s power-assist system, when the wheel was turned to full stop in either direction, bucked in a disconcerting kickback in the driver’s hands.
They allowed that this seemed to be a problem that could be fixed with proper adjustment, but I’m not sure that quality control problems with the steering box would be any less concerning than problems with the linkage design.
Commendably, the Marlin had offered Bendix front disc brakes from the start. (They had actually been standard at the outset.) However, stopping a Marlin still much to be desired: As with a lot of disc/drum setups, the rear wheels would lock too easily, and since the Bendix discs had solid rather than ventilated rotors, the front brakes heated up quickly in hard use. Car Life found the Marlin “about average for disc systems but superior to the majority of factory installed drum systems.” As with the sales comparisons to the Charger and Barracuda, this was not high praise.
This Marlin has a column-shifted automatic and 8-track rather than the CL car’s console and floor shifter / Raleigh Classic Car Auctions
Dodge didn’t offer the fastback Charger with a six, but you could have your Marlin with the 232 cu. in. (3,801 cc) Torque Command six, with either single-barrel or two-barrel carburetion, giving 145 or 155 gross horsepower — one imagines Roy Abernethy and his lieutenants fretting about the potential loss of Marlin sales if it didn’t offer an economy engine. There were also 290 cu. in. (4,751 cc) and 343 cu. in. (5,624 cc) V-8s, offering between 200 and 280 gross horsepower; the test Marlin had the latter.
Both the AMC six and the new V-8 were modern designs, relatively light with excellent development potential, but there were no real powerhouses in the bunch, and the ’67 Marlin was a fairly heavy car. (The text says, “4000-lb.-plus,” but that refers to the test weight; the spec table lists the curb weight as 3,790 lb, about 200 lb lighter than a Charger with a 383.)
343 cu. in. (5,624 cc) Typhoon V-8 with 280 hp / Raleigh Classic Car Auctions
The CL acceleration times — 0 to 60 mph in 9.3 seconds and the quarter in 17.3 seconds at 80.6 mph — were certainly adequate, but as the top of the Marlin line, the 280 hp engine came up short. The text remarks:
The 343 is fine, but to a growing segment of the automotive market, 400-plus cu. in. holds magical attraction, perhaps because of the thrill of brute power, or perhaps just because of horsepower snobbery. However, no 400-cu. in. engine exists in the American Motors lineup. Scratch another list of potential buyers, the big-inch enthusiasts.
As for economy, Car Life managed a grim 11.4 mpg on premium fuel. “For many years American Motors has attracted, deliberately, economy-minded buyers,” the text notes grimly. “Scratch them, too, where the 343/280 engine is concerned.”
From head on, the Marlin could be easily mistaken for a 1967 AMC Ambassador / Raleigh Classic Car Auctions
The Borg-Warner Shift-Command transmission in the Car Life test car was basically the same one CL editor John Lawlor had (over)praised in the CL Studebaker Avanti introduction five years earlier, but the bloom was off the rose: The automatic gave you a choice of starting with a nasty jolt or a lethargic second-gear step-off, and unless you intervened manually, it would shift well shy of 4,000 rpm. The editors note:
The Borg-Warner automatic, again, is a supplied item, not manufactured by AMC. Thus the unit has not necessarily had the engineering attention that has been showered on 3-speed automatics such as the Turbo Hydra-Matic, Cruise-O-Matic and TorqueFlite. Scratch potential buyers who are seeking the smooth automatic transmission.
If the Marlin had been really attractive, or really fast, or really something, indignities like the tiny decklid and small, not very useful trunk (pictured below) might be easier to excuse, but even then, the too-short seat belts and uncomfortable front seats might have been a bridge too far. (The seat belts, at least, do sound like a problem that an AMC dealer ought to have been able to fix.)
For the editors, the painful driver’s seat seems to have been the last straw, eliminating comfort-seekers from the Marlin’s potential customer base:
And, that rules out nearly everyone. Those eliminated as potential Marlin buyers in the context of this report represent a goodly part of the youthfully-inclined market; all small car fans; those seekers of refinement, taste and harmony; buyers of simplicity and luxury; the large displacement engine enthusiasts and the economy minded; the drag racer and the automatic transmission fancier; and those who will pay for comfort that comes with convenience.
Oof. But what did you think about the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
Who, then, did buy those 3998 Marlins [in 1966]? An unsubstantiated guess is that the cars went to buyers inordinately loyal to AMC products. Brand loyalty is a well-known consumer phenomenon and loyalty to AMC appears engendered by a heritage that includes the renown of Nash and Hudson, and a reputation for engineering, durability, reliability and economy.
I’ll buy brand loyalty — there are still people who fiercely defend AMC and its products, so I’m sure there must have been some in 1967 — but heritage? The Hudson and Nash brands had been gone for a decade by the time this article appeared, and their best days were some years before that. Did any new car buyers, even AMC loyalists, still care enough for it to matter? I’m skeptical.
The 1967 AMC Marlin was the end of the line / Raleigh Classic Car Auctions
The review concludes on an optimistic note, noting that AMC “appears to be regrouping its forces” (which was true — the AMC Javelin, a much more considered response to the Mustang, was only a few months away) and that this might mean “that market penetration percentage will once again creep upward.” This was wishful thinking in the long run, but AMC sales did rally a bit, to 272,726 for 1968 and 275,350 for 1969.
1967 Marlin production totaled only 2,545 units. More of them seem to have survived and been preserved than you might expect from the dismal sales figures, so they must have their fans, but as a commercial effort, they weren’t even the “rear guard action” CL suggests.
A few points of note about the data panel: Car Life did not reliably distinguish actual versus estimated top speeds, but the 116 mph listed under “Performance” is clearly a calculated figure, and I can’t see a stock 1967 Marlin even approaching it. The “Fuel Consumption” section repeats the 11.4 mpg test average in the main text, but estimates 11 to 14 mpg in normal driving, where the text on p. 77 says gloomily that the engine “could be rated no better than 13-mpg potential.”
Not a bad shape, but the detailing is rather busy / Raleigh Classic Car Auctions
I’ve always wanted to think kindly of the Marlin: It does nothing the 1966–67 Dodge Charger doesn’t do better, but it’s both eccentric and hapless in a way that engenders sympathy. However, this Car Life assessment drives home what a no-hit game the Marlin was for AMC — it seems there was almost no opportunity they didn’t miss, and the only parts of this review I can argue with are the areas where I think the editors were a bit more generous than the big fish really deserved.
Related Reading
Curbside Classic: 1965 Rambler Marlin – The Rambler Classic Shows Up With An Expensive Bad Wig And Gets Laughed Off The Stage (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1967 Rambler Marlin – The Humpback Whale – AMC’s Deadly Sin #1 (by Paul N)
Vintage Snapshots: ’65-’66 Marlins In The Real World (by Rich Baron)
Vintage Ad: 1965 Rambler Marlin – “The Swinging New Man-Size Sports-Fastback” (by Paul N)
Any car guy on here could have saved AMC if they had full control.
It wasn’t DEI but hiring drinking buddies you like vs geniuses you don’t is readily apparent.
AMC cars traditionally handled well until the trucklike Gremlin, but a few bits from the Baja American could have fixed most of even that one.
A niche company will never be mainstream.
Subie went after the Lesbian and Oddball demographic. It’s reliability was (is) no worse than AMC’s. It will never be Toyota.it survives, small but solid.
Kia is going after the “just as good as” market and will soon be forgotten.
It’s well known that emotion, not facts, sell products.
AMC could’ve used some DEI of some sort in that period, since they could’ve sorely used people not wedded to Detroit group-think. And exactly what is the Lesbian/Oddball demographic, lol? DEI certainly had nothing to do with the market share collapses of GM, Ford and the former Chrysler Corporation, so using “DEI”as a slur has its limits.
Growing up, I used to read all three major US auto magazines. I wondered then, why cars with limited popularity, or on their way out, would get significantly lengthy reviews.
At one point, I used to look at it as filler. Allowing the magazine to sell more ads, while justifying increasing the page count. I had the impression, the magazines ‘banked’ reviews like this, as insurance. In case they needed them for immediate publishing, on short notice. Then and now, first thing I do with any review, is look for the author’s byline. To assess the writer’s seniority, skill set, and talent, behind the review. I recall, reviews of less popular cars would often be done by junior writers, or new/freelance writers, I was not familiar with. An opportunity for them to gain experience and exposure, on a relatively easy car to critique. Without facing large criticism from manufacturers or readers. These reviews also often had a high entertainment value for me. Fun to see cars with ‘loser’ reputations, often lampooned. Or raked. Or praised for some redeeming features.
The Marlin is an exceptionally easy target, for any writer. Growing up in the 1970’s, I considered it one of the ugliest, and frumpiest, domestic cars of the 1960’s. I was surprised they attempted to salvage it, with a second generation version. Which remained hopelessly dumpy, in its looks and packaging.
Most print magazines have a uniform page count, which they only vary for certain pre-scheduled special issues. Since adding pages for print is done in terms of whole or partial signatures, it’s difficult and costly to just add or subtract a page or two. This does mean that it’s sometimes necessary to either come up with another article on short notice or cut one down by a page just to make the math work.
Car Life, like a fair number of car magazines of this period, did not generally have individual bylines except for editorials. You’ll notice that this one does not.
Print car magazines generally do most of their road testing and driving impressions well before the article actually runs, with which tests become articles in which order then determined by vagaries such as how many editorial pages they need to fill in a given issue and whether they have something that will look good on the cover. However, in this case, the actual text of the article can’t have been “banked” because it makes repeated references to the recent leadership changes at AMC, which were in January, and to the AMA calendar year production figures for 1966, which weren’t available until sometime not terribly long before this issue would have needed to go to press. Also, the photos are not stock AMC press images; they were done by Chan Bush Photography specifically for Car Life.
At this time, AMC was at a crossroads, and everyone connected with the auto industry knew it. Abernethy was out; Robert Evans relinquished the chairmanship, and Roy Chapin was trying to get the company’s finances in order. There were promises that new products (namely the Javelin and AMX) were incoming — they had not yet had the chance to test the new Rebel (their road test finally appeared in June 1967), they had already tested the Rambler Rogue, and so the 1967 Marlin (which was also new, for whatever little that was worth) offered an opportunity to take stock of where AMC stood. That the Marlin was probably on its way out meant they had fewer compunctions about being mean about it, but they weren’t terribly nice about the Rebel either, except that they liked its styling better.
I was 14 years old in 1967. My fanboy attachments had switched from Studebaker to AMC products around that time. I thought the 1967 Ambassador, with its smooth, flowing lines, was just about the most beautiful thing on the road that years. I still love it after nearly 60 years. And I thought the 67 Marlin based on the Ambassador instead of the shorter Rebel was also beautiful, except for the awkward look of the fastback.
I remember Motor Trend in 1967 did a review of all the “Specialty” cars on the market and compared the Charger to the Marlin. It wasn’t at nasty as the CL review, but they had few kind words to say.
There was a contest sponsored by MT in that issue: If you filled out a coupon and send it in you could win any of the ‘Speciality” cars they tested in that issue. I was sure I was going to win, so I fantasized about ordering a Marlin in blue with a white top and the 2-barrel 232 six with a four speed on the floor.
That makes no sense to adult me, but teenage me had some pretty wild ideas.
One of the faithful Saturday customers at my Dad’s feed store was the elderly Mrs. Silvey in her well kept 59 Rambler sedan. My brother and I hated that car – it had the continental spare and you haven’t lived until you wrestled feed bags over one of those. It was a miserable setup
Imagine our surprise one morning in 1967 when Mrs Silvey showed up in a new Dodge Charger. Even she couldn’t take the Marlin!
That some Charger buyers might have been normally loyal to Rambler and cross-shopped the Marlin is an interesting theory. The 1st gen Charger, which, stylewise, was essentially just a Coronet with a fastback roof tacked-on, had a lot of other features going for it versus the Marlin, which was much morre of a Rambler with a more awkward fastback roof.
The big differences were the Charger’s electric razor grille and snazzy interior with the electroluminscent gauges, 2+2 seating, and full-length console that extended to the fold-flat rear seats. The Marlin’s interior was just standard Rambler fair. I can see a lot of people going for the Charger based on that interior, alone.
Maybe because of the “Dodge Rebellion” ad campaign of the time, and also Dodge’s high – performance activities, Dodge had a “cool factor” that AMC lacked…
Despite the Coronet underpinnings, the ’66 – ’67 Charger was a pretty nice “package” overall, especially with that nice “Space Age” interior…
The Coronet was also a handsome car to start with IMO, much more so than any AMC vehicle…
If I’m being honest, I think the ’66–’67 Charger was a cool car show confection that didn’t make a whole lot of sense as an actual production car. I love the interior treatment and the concealed headlights, and I like that mid-’60s Mopar vibe, but all of that would have worked just about as well in a regular Coronet hardtop.
I don’t think they were being very snarky or mean; this was the single biggest stinker of the 1960s. Why not just come out and say it?
AMC’s cluelessness with the whole Marlin project almost defies reality. The youth-sporty-bucket seat brigade market had been exploding since the 1961 Monza, but it required its creators to actually have a genuine interest in understanding what drove that market.
AMC convinced itself that a fastback alone, slapped on a rather dull sedan, would do the trick. Utterly clueless.
“The fish stinks from the head down”, and it’s totally clear that Abernethy was the most at fault here. He’s the one that insisted that the tarpon concept be a legitimate 6-seater and then he raised the roof of the actual ’65 Marlin while Dick Teague was on vacation. Good luck even contemplating such a move at GM; no one dared to second guess Bill Mitchell like that.
And then the brocade bench seat interiors…I could go on. All of it is utterly mind boggling when the competition was clearly showing the way forward.
Granted, the ’67 is a clear improvement over the ’65-’66 stylistically, but the basic problem was never addressed; they still thought that a fastback on a sedan body was going to create magic.
It’s really hard to understand why they decided to spend the money to tool up this ’67 version after the highly mediocre sales of the ’65-’66. That alone is a major head-scratcher.
Admittedly AMC made some real progress with the Javelin and then the Hornet. And of course major mistakes with the Pacer and Matador coupe. But if I had to point to their worst and most embarrassing mistake, it’s the Marlin. At least the Pacer and Matador coupe had certain redeemable features, such as they were.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: AMC was doomed. And the Marlin made that painfully obvious.
“The fish stinks from the head down”, and it’s totally clear that Abernethy was the most at fault here. He’s the one that insisted that the tarpon concept be a legitimate 6-seater and then he raised the roof of the actual ’65 Marlin while Dick Teague was on vacation. Good luck even contemplating such a move at GM; no one dared to second guess Bill Mitchell like that.”
youth-sporty-bucket seat brigade = hat wearers. I mean it’s obvious!?!
I assume the major commitments were made before it became clear how bad the sales actually were.
It’s tough to find a good captain to pilot a sketchy ship, and Abernethy was a fine example of that. The Marlin would have been better if based on the Rambler American underpinnings.
When American Motors bought Jeep from Kaiser in 1970, it was considered quite a risky gamble for the cash-strapped AMC. It came out as a big win, but many people thought it was a bad idea at the time. Without Jeep, the good ship AMC would have probably sunk a lot sooner.
The Marlin would have been better if based on the Rambler American underpinnings.
The Tarpon prototype, which was based on the American, still had all the key flaws of the final product, stylistically: Abernethy insisted it be a 6-seater, so the roof stays flat for way too long. Its proportions are really bad.
You think this would have been a success against the Mustang and Barracuda?
Fair enough, let me try again.
The Marlin would have done better if Abernethy kept his nose out of it.
The Marlin did SO badly that there would have been an awful lot of daylight between “would have done better” and “would have done well.”
Paul Niedermeyer wrote:
“You think this (Tarpon) would have been a success against the Mustang and Barracuda?…”
Lol, that thing looks like a giant roller skate…
—
GM
I thought the Tarpon although not exactly glamorous would have been a better choice, had AMC lowered the roofline slightly and produced it as a hatchback with a reclining rear seat, that might have worked.
I’m amazed that after the totally negative reception of the ’65 Marlin, AMC produced a second version and only for one year. What was AMC smoking and how do I get some.? Surely AMC could have found a better use for their limited funds.
That brocade upholstery is simply awful, it looks like something borrowed from a ’58 Studebaker or some other vehicle. I did see one of these in 1967 with this interior and it was ugly.
The big problem with the Tarpon is the externally large first gen AMC V8 wouldn’t fit into the American’s engine compartment. Even if the public found the Tarpon styling and proportions more palatable (which is doubtful)no V8 would still put it at a major disadvantage to the Mustang and Barracuda, whose V8s not only were available but much more potent than the old school AMC 327 to boot.
Since the Tarpon was purely a styling concept, it’s only real problem was its…styling. Which was way off. What was under the hood was academic.
Even if they’d had a V8 that fit under the hood, the styling is the killer. Look closely at the three below. Note how the Tarpon’s roof stays essentially flat until it’s almost in the mid point of the rear wheel. Now note how the Barracuda’s roof starts tapering down already over the front seats. And its fastback was far from brilliant. Never mind the Mustang’s.
And then there’s the interior, which would undoubtedly have been just as bad as in the actual Marlin. Brocade galore, and other fine touches. The reality is that the American wasn’t exactly a good basis for any of this. They should have just started on the Javelin a year or two earlier.
I completely agree with all of this, the design is the forefront of the problem, but to thoroughly ponder the hypothetical scenario of the American being used as the Marlin’s basis in 1965, that lack of V8 at the time to even fit in it is the nail in the coffin. Even if they somehow got the styling right, let’s say 68 Javelin styling from the get go in 1965, it would have had no chance in the market with that liability. I doubt it would have done any better than the actual real life Marlin.
A V8 was not absolutely essential. The percentage of 1965 Mustangs that came with the six was considerable, close to 40%, and I bet it was higher for the /6 Barracuda.
AMC had by far the best and most powerful six on the market at the time, in the new 232 six, which was available in a 155 hp 2V version. Even when combined with the rather dull B/W automatic, the American 440H tested by Car Life did 0-60 in 10.9 seconds. That’s right in small-block 2V territory.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/vintage-reviews/vintage-car-life-road-test-1965-rambler-american-440-hot-six/
With a manual, especially a properly geared 4-speed, that could easily be under 10 seconds. That was plenty fast for the heart of the pony car market. They could have juiced it up another 10-30 hp easily enough with all the usual tricks: bigger carb, hotter cam, split exhaust, etc.. The new Hornet Twin-H power six!
My point is: If the Tarpon had had a really well-done (sexy) fastback roof, and came with a Mustang-like interior (vinyl buckets, floor shift, etc.), I’m convinced they could have sold a decent number. Not exactly in Mustang territory, but maybe more like the Barracuda. And in ’67, the new V8 would have arrived, and in ’68, the Javelin.
It just would have required some genuine awareness of what was actually cool and appealing to the younger buyer.
The real problem with the Marlin is that AMC somehow deluded themselves into thinking that a fastback, any fastback, was going to make their cars cool. The new silver bullet. it’s never that easy in the car business.
Jeep seems to be the trademark of doom. How many companies has it killed so far?
Willys; Kaiser; AMC; [independent]Chrysler; DaimlerChrysler; FCA. Stellantis had better watch its back.
Stellantis may end up killing it and themselves based on how they’ve been running things.
It’s the total opposite. The Jeep totally saved Willys; they were barely hanging on until the Jeep gave them a huge boost. And they never “died”; Willys merged with Kaiser. And Jeep gave Kaiser a big boost, as the passenger car lines were doomed. Kaiser never went bust; they became Kaiser-Jeep and did fairly well. And Kaiser’s sale to AMC worked out well for the Kaisers. And Jeep gave AMC a huge boost. It’s exactly why Chrysler was so eager to buy them. Jeep generated huge profits for FCA and Stellantis, and it still is. And Jeep certainly isn’t going to kill Stellantis. It’s their most valuable brand.
Jeep revitalized each of these companies and kept them from dying (bankruptcy). Getting bought out by another company is not at all the same as getting killed.
Sad, the whole thing .
I can see the basic fastback looking okay for that small segment who always seems t like them but AMC kept missing the mark time after time .
-Nate
Even as an AMC fan myself, I agree the Marlin was a disaster, and yet another misallocation of AMC’s scarce resources.
All this effort to come up with a body style less attractive than even the 4 door sedan or the wagon. Early in the process somebody should have stood up and said “No, this is not going to work”
Fins and vacuum wipers. Geez, it’s 1967! Poor girl in the lead photo looks like she fell over in disgust. The Pontiac Aztek of it’s time.
Thank you for mentioning the poor model in that story. Frankly, she’s what caught my eye the most. There’s the weird pose in the opening shot, and then the totally dispirited look in the final interior shot. What is she looking at? And why does she seem so disappointed? (maybe it’s the ennui that comes from the realization that there is no manual transmission available?)
I’m just trying to imagine the direction she was given during that photo shoot.
Then there’s her big baggy sweater. Maybe she didn’t know she’d be in a car story shoot until she showed up that morning.
Somehow it all reminds me of Paul’s story a while back about the contemporary Rambler Rebel regional editions ads. But at least the model in those – while also kind of bizarre – seemed not to be quite so sad about how her life had turned out to date.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/ad-classics/vintage-ads-1967%c2%bd-amc-rebel-wagons-targeted-to-specific-geographic-areas/
I’m guessing that the hairstyle, clothes and overall “look” of the model are meant to evoke singer Michelle Phillips, who was part of The Mamas and the Papas, a red-hot group at the time this article was written.
At first, the fastback side view made me think the article was about the 68/69 Fairlane/Torinos. Very similar appearance, except for the odd side window.
Poor AMC. After the success of the original Rambler, it seemed like they could never build a car that was really good at any one thing. The weren’t great looking, the interiors were second rate, their performance and durability were no better than average. AMC just built undistinguished cars. But this was worse – an undistinguished car that is actively ugly.
I thought the ’65-’66 Marlin was rather hopeless styling-wise. Even though it was the same thing conceptually as the 1st. gen. Barracuda, the Mopar somehow managed to look a lot more sporty than the Rambler. However, I rather liked the ’67 Marlin. I think it came pretty close to the ’66 Charger, and perhaps if the 2nd. gen. Marlin had been introduced in ’64 it may have sold better, as by ’67 it was up against cars like the 2nd. gen. Mustang, Cougar, and GM F-body. Good thing the Javelin showed up on ’68. Even if its front suspension still had trunions…
We should note, however, that lines of the Marlin’s rear window and decklid appear to have inspired the rear design of the C7 Corvette coupe. So it’s got that going for it (if not much else)
I really enjoyed this, even though the picture of the ’67 Marlin was so bleak. Even my copies of the Encyclopedia Of American Cars from the editors of Consumer Guide hadn’t given me the same, sad impression of these cars. I had always just seen the ’67 as AMC’s attempt at a larger, Charger-sized fastback with some relatively insignificant differences or shortcomings, given AMC’s smaller size and budget.
I’m glad many seem to be charitable about the looks of the ’67, more or less. Aesthetically, I honestly don’t have any problems with the exterior styling, and what was described as excessive and superfluous chrome doesn’t really bother me.
Did the ’67 Marlin look better when new than the ’74 Matador coupe? I like the Matador coupe. Another curious similarity between the two cars (besides being big fastbacks): the placement of the dome light in the upper center of the rear seatback.
The Car Life critic must have gotten up on the wrong side of bed that day, to find almost nothing to like in this, yes, somewhat oddball car. To pick at the seats of an AMC of that era shows no respect. Who else used coil spring seats in 1967? Not Ford. Not Chrysler. Not GM, with the possible exception of Cadillac! And who else offered individually adjustable reclining seats?? The complaint about the recliner mechanism is fair, but I’ll take those seats for comfort over any bench seat the Big 3 were offering. Also, Marlin’s in ’66 (and very late ’65) could be optioned with the BW 4-speed. You won’t see many of them, but it was available.
Look, seat comfort is seat comfort, and it’s an area where an individual reviewer owes no one any “respect” if a car doesn’t measure up. So what if it used coil spring seats? The problem described was the seat back padding being too thin, causing contact with the seat back support member on a long drive.
Never saw a Marlin in the flesh although I have seen a salmon in the flesh…
The first photo (front 3/4 view) of the Raleigh Classic Car Auctions vehicle makes the ’67 Marlin look rather striking, a close copy of a big 1965-66 Pontiac hardtop coupe. The awkward proportions of the fastback are not obvious from this viewpoint, and it has all the Pontiac cues, including coke-bottle quarter panels, stacked headlights, and contrasting rocker panel trim. All that’s lacking is a split grille. The 2-tone navy and silver paint suits it well.
I can see myself as a pony car buyer at this time NOT choosing the Marlin over Camaro, Firebird, Mustang, Charger…. But now, after being bashed on the head over and over by those pony cars at every car show I’ve been to in 55 years, I very much prefer the Marlin. Incredibly unique. I find the exterior styling polarizing and the interior just fascinating. Well, I’ve always purchased vehicles that were not hugely popular so I guess this view fits me.
It’s important to draw a big distinction between the reality of the market at the time and the appeal of cars like this now. Of course the Marlin is highly attractive to many or most of us now, as it’s a rare window into a rather unique car and one that has compelling features as a consequence. Yes, a Marlin is almost invariably going to get much more attention at a car show now than a ’65 Mustang. But it was a different reality at the time.
Well, I mean….
I recall previously reading that the Marlin was a sporty car for Walter Mitty-types, but even Walter Mitty wanted something sportier and better looking. The ’65 and ’66 were really pretty awful, but the ’67 with its longer wheelbase and longer hood and Ambassador front-end clip had better proportions and managed to look a little better. The brocade fabric on the seats was decidedly dreadful and unsporty, but a better-looking vinyl seat option was available.
The Ambassador had been redesigned for 1967 and the Classic was replaced by arguably more stylish Rebel. Their restyled 2-door hardtop coupes both featured semi-fastback styling that was less extreme than the Marlin. I wonder what a ’67 Marlin would have looked like if it had featured the front-end clip from the ’67 Rebel.
I assume you’re thinking of Larry Daum’s summation in the Standard Catalog of American Cars:
Even in the lexicon of fawning AMC defenders, this was absurdly generous. Yes, the Marlin “again had problems in the marketplace,” as “the family man with a Walter Mitty complex who wanted a large six-passenger fastback based on the AMC Ambassador” described approximately 10 people in the entire continental United States, at least seven of whom probably worked for AMC.
THE LIGHT BLUE BROCADE SPLIT BENCH WAS ON MY DAD’S 1967 AMBASSADOR WAGON.HE HAD A HEAVY BUILD AND SWEATED HEAVILY, SO THE DRIVER’S SEAT BROCADE SHOWED A LOT OF WEAR BY THE TIME HE SOLD IT TO A WORK COLLEAGUE IN 1971.