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Rambler Marlin - Password: Spearfish

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Created on July 23, 2021

Text:

Paul Krüger

Photos:

Patrick Ernzen – Courtesy RM Sotheby's

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Patrick Ernzen – Courtesy RM Sotheby's

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The Rambler Marlin was AMC's first and only "Personal Luxury Car"

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AMC marketed it as a sports coupé suitable for families.

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Snub nose: the front lacks twenty centimeters to compensate for the dominant rear.

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The best side: the high roof is not so noticeable from the rear.

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No large purchases, please: only the narrow trapezoid under the rear window provides access to the trunk.

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In its first year, the Rambler Marlin was unrivaled.

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10,327 units produced of the 1965 model

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From the front, the Marlin resembles its technology donor, the Rambler Classic

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As the car grew, so did the number of headlights. Unlike the Tarpon, the Marlin has four.

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The Marlin was only sold as a Rambler in 1965. From 1966 it was called the AMC Marlin.

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They were a bit out of fashion by the mid-sixties, but a car named after a fish naturally needs fins.

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The Marlin has its own hubcaps with an M in the center instead of the Rambler-R

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Not only the roof, but also the clasp behind the side windows was painted in a contrasting color, here Antigua Red.

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The nameplate proudly refers to the self-supporting body. The color code 72A for Frost White proves that the red contrasting sections were added later.

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Luxury at a low price: the interior of the Marlin was taken from the top-of-the-range Rambler Ambassador model.

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Individual seats were standard. Bucket seats with center armrests were available for an additional charge.

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Spacious: American Motors wanted to set the Marlin apart from the coupé competition by making it suitable for families.

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The brake pedal proudly points to the power-assisted disc brakes on the front axle. A CD radio and rev counter have been retrofitted.

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Here, the selector lever for the three-speed Flash-O-Matic is located on the steering column. Those who ordered bucket seats were able to select the gearshifts on the center tunnel.

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In contrast to the brakes, hydraulic steering assistance cost extra.

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Round instruments as a feature of classic sportiness. However, a rev counter was not available until 1966.

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Almost standard equipment: only 221 of 10,327 Marlins were ordered without a radio in 1965.

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Caught in the net: Marlins are popular edible fish.

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More elegant than the competition: stainless steel trim strips and aluminum inlay with tenon finish.

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The manual exterior mirror was part of "Visibility Group A". If you wanted an electrically adjustable mirror, you had to tick "Visibility Group B".

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Hood ornament with marlin in a swirl of turquoise-green Plexiglas.

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Nameplate and name giver on the front mudguard

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The spearfish can also be found in a circle at the stern.

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Most Marlin customers opted for a V8. Here is the most powerful version with 274 SAE horsepower

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Below the 327 with a displacement of 5.4 liters, there was also a 4.7-liter V8 with 201 SAE hp and a 157 SAE hp 3.8-liter six-cylinder engine

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A high roof and small wheels make the Marlin look cumbersome.

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The Dodge Charger introduced in 1966 had a much sleeker roofline, even without Playboy Playmate Allison Parks on it.

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With the longer front end of the AMC Ambassador, the Marlin immediately looked much more elegant. Unfortunately, it didn't help much.

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One size smaller: The Barracuda was the coupé version of the Plymouth Valiant.

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Bull's eye: the Rambler Tarpon designed by Dick Teague on the basis of the compact American was extremely successful.

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The rear in particular, with its narrowly converging roof, already bore a strong resemblance to the Marlin. There was no trunk lid.

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A picture of a sensible car: Rambler Classic 4-Door Sedan from 1963

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For a long time, the Rambler American was the only domestic "compact" and therefore sold well.

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Summary

With the unconventional Marlin hatchback coupé, Rambler wanted to break away from its boring image in 1965 and appeal to a young target group for whom the Ford Mustang was too small. At first the plan seemed to work, but then the competition caught up. This article tells the brief history of the car, which started life as a Rambler and left as an AMC, and shows it in many pictures.

This article contains the following chapters

The prototype with six cylinders
Predatory fish the size of a whale
1 x 6, 2 x 8
The competitor of Dodge
Full size for 1967

Estimated reading time: 7min

Preview (beginning of the article)

Roy Abernathy wanted more. His predecessor George W. Romney had established American Motors on the American market in the 1950s with sensible small and compact cars, thus ensuring stable production figures. The slim Rambler also sold so well because the "Big Three" had no cars of this format in their range at the time and only offered full-size models, which were also getting bigger every year. But with the Chevrolet Corvair, Ford Falcon, Dodge Lancer and Plymouth Valiant, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler suddenly invaded AMC territory from 1960 onwards. When Abernathy took over as chairman of American Motors Corporation in February 1962, he wanted to turn the tables. If the Detroit giants were expanding their model range downwards, AMC would supplement its own upwards. The first step was to be a sporty mid-size coupé for young people. Like Lee Iacocca at Ford, Roy Abernathy had recognized that the children who had once been born out of the reunion of thousands of G.I.s returning from the war were now of an age where they could afford their own car. Only: they didn't want the cars they could afford. The unadorned Rambler American was more for the modest pensioner.

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