I’m revisiting long-time Cohort poster Curtis Perry’s older uploads, and there’s a whole lot of excellent shots I’ll be sharing with you. This one is of a Rambler Marlin, one of the most abysmal flops of the go-go ’60s. Rambler tried to be cool with a me-too fastback, but it was wrong on so many levels. But it sure makes a great photography subject.
Here’s my take on it: CC Rambler Marlin: The Rambler Classic Shows Up With an Expensive Bad Wig and Gets Laughed Off the Stage
Lacking the “long hood, short deck” style of the era..
And, how did the WWs remain so white?
In that rear quarter shot it really looks like its older brother, the 1951 Nash Airflyte. Fastback and fender blades, plus a similar curve to the rear quarter window.
Love those rear doors – narrower at the bottom than the top!
My inspection guy has two V8 4 speed Marlins and other odd ball Ramblers one Marlin has just had a repaint it looks quite good I’m hoping to catch it for some pics when its reassembled and back on the road, unusual cars the styling isnt quite right.
Call me weird—you won’t be the first—but I like these, especially as viewed side-on. The front’s a little too plain and the rear’s a little too busy; the Charger did both ends better, but I do like the greenhouse. And the vestigial tailfins.
I do too. But I also liked the 71-73 boat tail Riv and the Chrysler Crossfire…
See, but that’s what makes this weird: for me the ’65 Marlin’s a yes, the ’66 Charger’s a yes, the ’64 Barracuda’s a yes…but the C2 Corvette is a “meh”, the Crossfire is a “LOL whatever”, and the ’71-’73 Riviera is an “Eek…hell no”.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ve always thought that the fast back was more like a hunch back on these, and that was what made them look slightly awkward to me. I thought the two tone treatment was cool, though, and the looks of the later models improved somewhat. 🙂
I’m not sure the Marlin was all that bad but, like the A-body Barracuda with its Valiant front end, it seems no one was interested in a sporty car created by tacking a fastback onto the back of an economy car.
It makes me wonder how the 1st gen Dodge Charger would have faired if Chrysler had just stuck with the Coronet front end instead of the more stylish ‘electric razor’ grille with the hidden headlights.
I liked the unique 1967 Marlin, based on the Ambasador. I think the longer length of the ’67 gave the car better proportions.
But those vertical headlights. . . .Ugh!
You’re right about the ’67 Marlin with it’s Ambassador front end being better looking than the earlier ones.
If loving the Marlin is wrong, I don’t wanna be right!
The one car that would have looked right at home if AMC had still been called Nash. An ungainly fastback that looked like nothing else.
My question is how the paint on the horizontal surfaces looks so great while all of the vertical surfaces are rusty. It is usually the opposite.
AMC’s first deadly sin? It wasn’t just that it was a failure, it was the opportunity cost it represented. AMC in early 1962 could have bought from Studebaker the rights to the Packard name and used Marlin’s investment to make a 116 wb Packard series with classic vertical grill and maybe hidden headlights like Predictor. The Ambassador that year was basically a Packard design, only needed a different hood and bumper/fascia/grill. The rest of the upgrades would have been on the interior and chassis as Paul N. suggested in his earlier Marlin post. Would have compared favorably to M-B 220 and avoided direct competition with the Big 3.
You can’t discuss the Marlin without mentioning the Rambler Tarpon, a fastback version of the Rambler American similar in vein to the Plymouth Valiant Barracuda that reached concept stage. Some of the pictures that I’ve seen of the Tarpon show what looks like Marlin’s fastback roof grafted onto an American, but most show a fastback that features a longer and larger rear side window and awkward proportions. It’s one of those cars that you want to like, but it still seems a bit off styling-wise. If you want to see the Tarpon, I’d recommend that you go to the “Google Images” search engine and type in “Rambler Tarpon.”
After the unfortunate Marlin and Tarpon AMC did get things right with the Javelin and AMX.