In May 1967, Motor Trend examined the range of domestic sporty cars, trying to make sense of the ever-growing array of models by pairing likely competitors against each other (e.g., Mustang vs. Camaro). The most interesting of those comparisons was this one between the AMC Marlin and the Dodge Charger, two big fastbacks that were already clear commercial failures in a crowded marketplace.


The AMC/Rambler Marlin and the 1966–1967 Dodge Charger were remarkably similar, and not only because of their shape. Both cars were the product of the same impulse: Their respective maker had recognized an emerging market for compact sporty cars, but deliberately decided to go a different direction, hoping to create their own niche. Neither was successful, for mostly the same reasons: The Marlin and the Charger were largish fastbacks at a time the market was mad for compact coupes with long hoods, short decks, and notchback profiles.
Editor Bob Schilling began:
CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE, but far from homeless, are the Marlin from AMC and Dodge’s Charger. Neither has the compactness of the basic sports-personal archtypes [sic] such as Mustang and Camaro, nor the posh elegance to social climb their way into the company of the luxury-personals: Eldorado, Riviera, et al. Nor, it should be added, do they attempt to.
Each is looking for its own home in this fast-growing market. Most likely competition (in philosophy rather than sales volume) comes from Cougar and Firebird, both upgraded variations of smaller cars but with more of a performance image. Both aim at the driver who wants a sporty-type car, but who doesn’t want to give up room and comfort and isn’t ready to move into the more expensive category.
Charger assumes that the man interested in such a car also wants performance and will spring for bigger engines. American Motors takes a more conservative view of Marlin’s prospective buyer, believing him more interested in the sporty look rather than the sporty reality. Both are large cars which fill all of the average marked parking space but neither drives like a monster, so they have some justification in claiming the sporty image.
To an extent, Dodge and AMC were right that most sporty car buyers were more interested in image than in actual performance — a significant minority of Mustang and Camaro sales were sixes, and base V-8 cars greatly outnumbered the hotter versions — but they couldn’t have been more wrong about buyers not wanting to sacrifice. size and space. Big cars were what many Mustang and Corvair Monza buyers were trying to escape. Utility was a very low priority in this segment, and buyers who wanted a full-size sporty car had lots of other choices, most of them also slow sellers by this time.

The following passage is, probably unintentionally, a succinct summary of the failure of the Marlin as a product:
Seeking a corner of this market untouched by the competition, AMC emphasizes Marlin as a sports-personal car for the entire family. This isn’t quite the contradiction in terms that it seems, for the head of the family spends a fair part of the day alone in the car. It is the only sports/personal car capable of transporting six adults, so a family with several children does not have to be a 2-car family, though it probably will be anyway.
As the sales trajectories of station wagons and minivans in the past 40 years have demonstrated, vehicles “for the entire family” can be a surprisingly tough sell for family buyers. Having to trade in a sporty personal coupe for a minivan is a sitcom episode plot, not an effective sales pitch, and even buyers who have kids to haul may sacrifice a fair bit of utility just to avoid the ego-blow of “joining the herd” with a family hauler.

A key selling point of the original Mustang and its ilk was youth: Not everyone who bought a Mustang or other compact sporty cars of the ’60s was young, but nearly all wanted to feel young. The very last thing they wanted in a sporty car was for it to make them feel like a Head of Household, whether they were or not. It was just as severe a miscalculation as the styling:
Neither [car] has shied away from controversial styling. Both are fastbacks, considered to be the sportiest shape and the most “in,” thanks to the Sting Ray and several generations of Ferrari. They have their own distinctive interpretations of the form, and as with anything different, provoke much dispute over what is really a matter of personal taste.
Given how out of step these cars were with the styling trends of the period, calling either the Marlin or the first-generation Charger “in” seems like a MAD Magazine joke. The 1967 Marlin was better-proportioned than the somewhat smaller 1965–1966 car, which had strayed perilously close to Camp, but the big fish was still odd-looking, and its design still had enough lapses in taste to deter the serious-minded. The Charger tried a bit harder, sometimes managing to look purposeful and muscular, but less-flattering angles revealed the fundamental awkwardness of its proportions. To modern eyes, both cars are fun, but neither really qualifies as handsome, and if snobbish U.S. Ferrari importer Luigi Chinetti had seen these cars likened to “several generations of Ferrari,” he might have considered sending the publisher a cease-and-desist letter. (Talk about invidious comparisons!)

For these comparison tests, Motor Trend drove each car with several different engines. They tried a Charger with the base 318, which they found “peppy” and adequate for most real-world use, and with the optional 383-4V, which they called “a very reasonable compromise.”

The 383 was the hottest engine most Charger buyers cared to order, but Motor Trend also drove a Hemi Charger, which broke 100 mph in the quarter mile without any special preparation, and the new 440-4V engine, which “ran close to the Hemi and may be a bit faster out of the hole.” Schilling described the 440 as “very rare,” but it ended up being more common than the 426 Hemi: 660 ’67 Chargers had the 440, while a mere 118 had the Hemi.
So you don’t have to squint, here’s what the photo captions say:
- “Performance is part of the Charger image. Here our Hemi-powered test car is shown charging out of the hole at the drag strip. Stopping power was equally impressive.”
- “Marlin profile shows how esthetic qualities of fastback are employed on a larger car.”
- From this angle Marlin (above) and Charger look almost identical. Biggest difference is the Charger’s better rear visibility, thanks to full-width rear window, but both are restricted compared to notchbacks despite great glass area. Charger has bigger trunk.”


The main text continued:
American Motors, which has eschewed any kind of competition in the past (but may change its mind under new management), offers nothing bigger than 343-cu.-in. in 235- and 280-hp versions. This puts the hottest Marlin in about the same class as the Charger with the 2-bbl. 383, a thought borne out by the performance tests. There was little to choose between them on the strip. The standard Marlin V-8 is a 200-hp engine of 290-cu.-in.
Motor Trend noted that there was a new factory camshaft kit for the 343, although I don’t know how many went into the Marlin. The arrival of the Javelin and the AMX would bring a greatly expanded array of factory and aftermarket performance parts for the AMC Typhoon V-8, along with the rumored 390.

As far as I can recall, I haven’t seen any period road tests of the 290 in the bigger AMC models, although I assume it would be in roughly the same performance category as the Chevrolet 283-2V or Ford 289-2V.

Schilling continued:
Unlike Charger, Marlin offers a 6. In fact, they offer a pair of them. The difference between the 145- and 155-hp versions is a 1- versus 2-bbl. carburetor; both displace 232 cubic inches. The performance of these engines in our tests will start no rush of hot rodders to AMC showrooms, but they were not intended to. It was flat-out impossible to burn rubber (not surprising, since the biggest V-8 couldn’t either), which made for a long, thoughtful 20-second plus ride down the strip. Even more thought-provoking is the problem of trying to accelerate into a hole in another lane of expressway traffic.
Who would buy such an engine? Someone who wants a sporty car, but belongs to the growing legion which commutes ever increasing distances from the suburbs to the city, while paying more and more for gas. So far, however, these people seem more inclined to solve their dilemma with a Mustang 6 or an import — and Marlin 6 sales are very low.
Fourteen percent of 1967 Marlins had a six-cylinder engine, although production was SO low for ’67 that that amounted to very little: only about 356 cars!

The 15.4-second 0 to 60 time Motor Trend quoted for their 155 hp six-cylinder Merlin was really not bad for a car of this size, but the quarter-mile performance (20.3 seconds at 68 mph) suggests that it quickly ran out of steam above 60 mph. This was something Car Life had noted with their six-cylinder Rebel: Asthma started setting in even at legal freeway speeds. The AMC six would go on to a very long and successful career, but in this era, its breathing was too restricted to give decent performance in midsize and large cars.

On the handling front:
Getting a Charger or Marlin around a turn is no great problem. Neither is a real sports car in this respect, but they don’t throw the driver any curves either. On the straight we were pleased to notice that both were suitably shocked. There was none of the wallow that makes a long trip seem even longer. If one of the cars is better than the rest, it is the Charger 318 by virtue of its weight distribution. With the small V-8, it comes very close to 50-50 distribution. Going to the bigger engines steals some of this, but even the Hemi version, which adds over 300 pounds to the front end and more than 400 to the whole car, had no strong tendency to push the front end.
The Hemi Charger came with a heavy-duty suspension with much stiffer rear springs (with six leaves rather than four and a half), which helped to mitigate the understeer caused by the heavier engine.
The captions of the photos in the upper right read, “Marlin rear seat (above) was meant to hold three. Charger has rear buckets, but various fold-down combinations lend versatility to luggage/passenger capacity.”

Schilling continued:
The Marlins also handled well compared to the opposition and far better than the other AMC products we’ve driven. Again, weight distribution is a major part of the story, for the 6 felt better than the V-8, at least going into a turn. But, lack of torque sometimes gave us a moment getting out of the turn.
Stopping the cars was an interesting problem. We’ve often found that a small-engine car with drums stops better than the same car with a bigger engine and discs. This proved out in the Marlins where the drum-braked 6 pulled up slightly shorter at 60 mph than the V-8 with power discs, though not as straight.
The Dodges were even more interesting and less predictable. The 318 stopped in an almost straight line in 147 feet; eight less than the best Marlin. This was with drums. The 383, also with drums, took eight feet more, the same as the Marlin 6. No surprise so far. The Hemi-Charger with discs did the same test in an amazing 133 feet, despite its greater front-end weight.
Heavy-duty suspension probably also aided the Hemi Charger in braking: Despite the extra weight on the nose, the stiffer front springs helped to resist nosedive, while the stiffer rear springs did a better job of keeping the axle on the ground in hard stops. Their 440 car, which shared the Hemi suspension, also had front discs, which were available but not common — just 5.2 percent of 1967 Chargers had discs.

As for the interiors:
Both Marlin and Charger have done better than average by the driver and front-seat passenger. All the seat and upholstery variations we tried were comfortable, although we would give the edge to the Charger’s buckets over the full-width seat that permits the Marlin to bill itself as a 6-passenger personal car. We also have some second thoughts about the fancy cloth that is standard in the Marlin. How fancy will it look in two years or so? The vinyl upholstery in the Charger has the texture and feel of real leather. The vinyl in the Marlin has a basket weave embossed on it which leaves room for some air to circulate and gives a non-skid effect. Instruments and controls are well laid out on both cars.
Both the Marlin and the Charger had a jukeboxiness to their dashboard designs, although the Charger benefited from having a full set of real gauges.


The Charger had by far the fancier rear-seat treatment, with fold-down bucket seats and a center console for backseaters:

This particular Marlin has a relatively subdued two-tone vinyl interior rather than the absurd brocade fabric AMC offered in this era. There were no throw pillows with this trim option.

Unfortunately, neither car was terribly roomy in back:
The problem of headroom for rear-seat passengers is the petard on which the fastbacks of the ’40s were hoisted. The concept of the sports-personal car is that the rear seat will be used only occasionally. We might add that that occasional passenger had better be less than 5-foot-8 and forget about wearing a hat. This was equally true of both cars, although part of their total bulk is doubtless due to the attempt to give the back-seat passenger as much room as possible. Neither does he have much foot room; he fairs better in the Marlin.
As far as luggage space is concerned, it’s less a space problem than it is getting to it. The deck opening in the Marlin is very small to fit inside the trim strips. We were just barely able to load our 5th wheel through it and getting at the space is also tricky. Charger has a bigger deck lid, but a combination body stiffener-sill intrudes into the opening.
Both trunk openings were inconveniently small:


In addition to limited rear headroom and poor luggage access:
Both [cars] suffer another fastback curse; restricted rear visibility. Rear windows are large, but the sloped angle limits the view to a slim slot. The Charger, with a wider window, has a slight edge, but neither is as good as the Mustang.
The performance figures in this article’s data panel would be of particular value because they actually sampled a wider range of the available engine options than usual. Unfortunately, the usefulness of these figures is hampered by the fact that neither the next nor the data table bothered to specify what transmissions the test cars had, much less their axle ratios or test weights!

Looking at the numbers, my guess is that all of the Chargers had TorqueFlite, probably with the standard 3.23 axle ratio. A four-speed manual transmission was available, but rare; 92 percent of 1967 Chargers had automatic.
Performance (2 aboard) | 318-2V | 383-4V | 440-4V | 426 Hemi |
---|---|---|---|---|
0–60 mph | 10.9 secs. | 8.9 secs. | 8.0 secs. | 7.6 secs. |
¼-mile | 18.6 secs., 76.0 mph | 16.5 secs., 86.4 mph | 15.5 secs., 93.0 mph | 14.4 secs., 100.3 mph |
Braking from 60 mph | 147 ft. | 155 ft. | 140 ft. | 133 ft. |
Avg. mileage, city | 13.3 mpg | 12.1 mpg | 11.7 mpg | 11.7 mpg |
Avg. mileage, highway | 17.9 mpg | 15.2 mpg | 14.4 mpg | 14.5 mpg |
Motor Trend tested only two Marlin versions: a six-cylinder car with the 155 hp two-barrel engine and a V-8 car with the 280 hp 343-4V and front discs.

Both AMC test cars probably had automatic, I assume with the standard axle ratio (3.15) — only 3.7 percent of 1967 Marlin production had four-speed manual transmissions.
Acceleration (2 aboard) | 232-2V | 343-4V |
---|---|---|
0–60 mph | 15.4 secs. | 9.6 secs. |
¼-mile | 20.3 secs., 68 mph | 17.6 secs., 82 mph |
Braking from 60 mph | 156 ft. | 161 ft. |
Avg. mileage, city | 17.3 mpg | 15.3 mpg |
Avg. mileage, highway | 20.4 mpg | 17.6 mpg |
Motor Trend preferred the Charger, mostly due to its greater range of performance options. However, they concluded:
Even with their biggest engine options, neither has the pretensions of sports car performance that the Sting Ray or Shelby cars (or even the hot Mustangs. Camaros and Firebirds) can claim. Both hedge short of being luxury cars. But even being betwixt and between, each seeks a special part of the market, though not the same one.
Neither model found what it was seeking in 1967. Marlin production ended in May, just weeks after this issue of Motor Trend went on sale. 1967 model year production totaled only 2,545 cars, bringing total Marlin production to 17,419 units in three model years.

Charger production for 1967, meanwhile, amounted to only 15,788 cars, which was better than the Marlin, but still not good. However, while the AMC fastback expired in ignominy, Dodge was subsequently able to reinvent the Charger as a more conventionally styled midsize muscle car, which quickly overshadowed the commercial disappointment of the 1966–1967 model.

The Charger is by far the easier of these two cars to take seriously, thanks mostly to the availability of the 426 Hemi, but at the end of the day, it’s almost as much of a kitsch object as the Marlin. It has its appealing points (the concealed headlights, the flashy interior), but most would have worked just as well or better on a regular Coronet hardtop, without the fastback roof.

It’s easy to see why neither of these cars was successful in its day, but the same off-the-beaten-track eccentricity that made them flops in the ’60s has made them interesting collectibles today, with well-kept survivors now commanding good but generally not outrageous prices. Decades after their initial failure, the Marlin and the first-generation Charger finally seem to have found the niche they were always seeking: as a change of pace for jaded collectors who roll their eyes or shake their heads at the thought of yet another Mustang or first-generation Camaro.
Related Reading
Vintage Review: 1966 Dodge Charger – A Better Marlin (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1967 Dodge Charger – Chrysler’s Marlin (by Lee Wilcox)
Vintage Car Life Review: 1967 AMC Marlin – Beating A Dead Fish (by me)
I must be an outlier, because I have always considered the 66-67 Charger to be attractive. Perhaps it imprinted on me at an early age, because I can remember seeing it being advertised on TV when it first came out, and I thought (at probably age 7 or so) that it was just the coolest thing! To this day I think it is the best executed of any of the larger fastbacks that came out of Detroit in those years (also including the 66 Toronado).
The 67 Marlin is by far the best looking of the run – it is interesting how they adapted the Marlin body to the new-for-1967 styling. From the sales figures, they needn’t have bothered.
I keep forgetting about that copper interior that Chrysler offered then – I love it! That would look absolutely perfect with a black car.
I’m with you. I loved the 66-67 Charger, and although the 68 model was a great looker too, I was sorry to see the fastback go. Biggest downside of the 67 was losing the center front-t0-back console.
The Marlin is not a bad looking car at all. The two tone paint job would take some getting used to, amid insults from the Chevelle crowd.
Interesting that you included the Toronado in your comments. I never really thought of that as a competitor to the Charger, but in retrospect, it certainly was.
Great article Aaron.
Add me to the 66-67 Charger fan club. My step brother had a 67 and I thought it was super cool.
I dunno…I like the Marlin too.
The 67 Marlin was certainly an improvement over their 1965 design. An updated frontage, and improved rear passenger window treatment to de-emphasize the curvature helped.
They made it look less like an old Rambler.
I remember when the first – gen Charger came out, and it was IMO pretty cool… Dodge also had a “performance” image, so that was a factor…
The Marlin was ugly from the start, and the ’67 was little better, although it was not quite as hideous as the previous models… it also had the “stench” of still being a Rambler, as by that time the brand couldn’t recover from being a car for “cheapskates”…
In HS circa 1969 – 70 the Driver’s Ed cars had traditionally been Pontiac Catalinas, but when they switched to Ambassadors, even the Driver’s Ed teacher groaned, lol…
My childhood perceptions of these cars were not very positive, but the two were quite different. The Charger at least had a performance image derived from NASCAR and drag racing success of big-block Dodge Coronets as well Chargers themselves. The Marlin, well to this ten year old, it had two strikes against it. First, those two-tone color schemes. They reminded me of 1950’s a DJ early ‘60’s “Nash Ramblers”, as my mom continued to call them well into the AMC era. And then the fact that this was ultimately a Rambler. A fastback Rambler, but still a Rambler. Absolutely no cool factor, and that had nothing to do with how it was marketed or how passengers it could hold. But I did have the Corgi Toys 1/43rd scale toy Marlin. Red and black.
I’m 13 years old when these cars came out so I am not part of the car buying public. Therefore my 13 year old opinion doesn’t count for much. Now I can say that I rarely saw these cars back in the day and most likely never saw a Marlin at the time. Their profile view seems fine to me as well as their frontal view. Although I take issue with the stupid medallion on the hood of the Marlin. However, when it comes to the rear view all I can say about the Marlin is ugh, ugh, and more ugh. Those lines and the two tone I can’t get past.
Ive never seen that model Marlin, my inspection guy had a couple of earlier cars one mint car was nade from the pair, he is a lunatic who still races motorbikes and ha claimed his V8 Marlin drove ok not great but a good enough car,
A guy I knew at primary school has a 67 SST hardtop, why did AMC build two similar cars with different badges,
Charger? well I like those better but thats mostly due to performance rumours than anything else, they both share awkward styling that wasnt really on trend.
Discussion of the 1st gen Dodge Charger always reminds me of the idea that Chrysler cribbed some of the styling touches from the 1963 Studebaker Sceptre concept car, mainly the ‘electric razor’ hidden headlight grille and full-width tallight treatment.
The 1967 version of the Marlin looked much better than the earlier 1965-66 car simply because the roof’s high fastback meshed better with the longer length.
It’s worth noting that the awkward profile of the earlier car was due entirely to then AMC CEO Roy Abernethy’s tall height. The story goes Abernethy came down to the studio when they were finalizing the car and decided to try out the rear seat. He discovered that his 6’4″ frame was quite compromised by the lack of rear headroom and decreed that the stylists, much to their dismay, raise the roof with quite unfortunate results.
No one knows if Abernethy’s meddling is what ultimately killed Marlin sales, but it certainly didn’t help. It’s worth noting that Abernethy learned his lesson and did nothing similar with the Javelin’s styling.
Big reason these didnt sell was the General Motors. They offered WAY more stylish takes on this theme with the Impala, Catalina, 88, and Wildcat for 1967. Personally I would have bought a loaded big block Impala with bucket seats.
Still, Ford also adopted a fastback look for its revamped mid-size line-up for the 1968 model year featuring the Fairlane/Torino and Mercury Cyclone although they was still available with a notchback version and Dodge did bring back, well sort of, a fastback for the 1969 Charger with the Charger 500 (and later with the more memorable Charger Daytona) to compete against Ford in NASCAR.
I unironically like the looks of both cars, even I don’t love every angle. Aside from what seems to be a high leading edge of the header panel with its stacked headlamps, I think the Marlin has a clean, artful shape, particularly in its clean bodysides.
The Charger looks busy by comparison, but it also has its charms and details of visual interest, like it’s hidden headlamps and full-width taillamps. It’s interior is also undeniably cool, especially in back. A shame about the lack of headroom for such a large car.
For the Marlin, there seems to be such a relatively small gain in efficiency in going from the six to the V8. No matter most were V8s.
Nice write-up. I can remember being “underwhelmed” when both of these cars debuted, though I thought the Charger was more interesting. I think they both suffered from using the front clip of an existing intermediate.
What’s also interesting to me is the very similar-looking 68-69 Ford Torino fastback did fairly well in terms of sales.
I said it about the ’65 and ’66, and I’ll say it about the ’67-the two tone and the trim strips on the rear remind me of the ’49-’50 Airflyte. Back in the day-I was 15 when these came out, there was nothing cool about them. Retrospectively, I’d like to root for the underdog, but AMC just kept shooting itself in the foot in many ways.
This is a particularly nice Charger, Copper inside and out is a beautiful combination.
I do prefer the Coronet hardtop roof, but with that glorious interior, the (1966 model was even nicer) this would be a lovely car to have.
I know there is a Marlin in this article, the best I can say about it, it is nicer than the original version
The 1967 Marlin was esentially an all-new (and much better looking) car compared to the ’66 that only lasted one year. It makes you wonder why AMC bothered with the ’67 Marlin, because the ’68 Javelin must have been in the works while the ’67 Marlin was being developed. Was AMC intending to offer the new larger Marlin alongside the Javelin in ’68?
As for the ’67 Charger, I owned a base one with the 318. It was a neat car, I liked its ‘different’ look and it was quite practical offering reasonable perfomance and fuel economy and the ability to haul around large objects like bicycles. I was very happy I was able to get the electro-luminescent dash lighting to work, but the electric rotating hide-away headlight system was overly complex and not too reliable. At least when the headlights were exposed there was a bezel around them that matched the grille, so it didn’t look like something was amiss when the headlights were exposed but off.
Didn’t Dodge ditch the 1966 rear bucket seats for a more conventional 3-passenger rear bench in 1967?
Nope: The rear seats were still buckets (although the center console was no longer full-length), but you could order the front seat with a fixed center cushion and no console, so you could have 3+2 seating.
My dad had a “thing” about the utility of folding down the Charger’s rear seats and removing the panel from the trunk area. Just in case one needed to sleep or camp out in it overnight. He never got to test his theory but certainly mentioned it to his 5 year old impressionable son (me) many times when these vehicles were new.
Yeah, I think the changes in the rear seating area for 1967 was eliminating the full-length console so it was much easier to move from one side to the other without having to climb over the rear console. Likewise, I think the folding rear armrest was shortened, too.
I guess it was more practical (and probably cheaper, too), but the 1966 full-length console was more stylish and had a more ‘upscale’ look.
My guess is that the shorter rear console was also a little easier to assemble. The full-length console was more distinctive, but probably more of a hassle on the line.
Definitely. Having seen one out of the car, it’s HUGE, something like 5-6′ long. It was awkward, surprisingly heavy, and almost certainly took two (maybe three) people to install. It also made the already-tight rear seat even more crowded.
Agree: that copper is stunning and a color choice I’ve either not seen before or had forgotten. Looking now at the rear-end treatment, it strikes me that Dodge was a half-century early on the full-width taillight/reflector treatment, as well as the full-width branding across the back of the vehicle.
I caught this red ’67 a few years back, at a rest area in Southern Oregon. It reminds me how much I miss color, i.e. hues outside of the grayscale, in the current automotive palette,
The copper color caused me a good deal of consternation: Dodge actually offered two different copper colors in 1967, plus bronze, which is how the Mecum listing identified this car. I finally realized they were wrong mostly because you couldn’t combine the copper interior with a bronze exterior, and Mecum sellers are really bad about just including a picture of the trim plate.
The copper color looks to be yet another take on good ‘ole Turbine Bronze that Chrysler continued to offer for years after it first appeared on the 1963 Turbine Car, but under a variety of different names.
If the Turbine Car had one lasting legacy, it was that color.
I remember hitch hiking in Brookline, Ma. in 1978 and being picked up by two girls in a ’67 Charger, the back seat was okay .
The car turned out to be stolen so I asked to be let out in a few miles .
I’m surprised to hear these were considered flops as everyone was talking about them back then, very expensive .
I like the fastback treatment on the Marlin, fastbacks are always a fad thing that fades away quickly leaving behind hard to sell cars .
-Nate
The 1966-67 Dodge Charger might be a failure but still, we could wonder if the design of the 1966-67 Dodge Charger have played a part to influence the stylists of Chrysler Australia when they created their own version of the Charger Down Under?
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/australian-brands/curbside-classic-1972-73-chrysler-valiant-charger-770se-the-ultimate-australian-mopar-muscle-car/
The 1967 AMC Marlin is a seriously good looking car. Perhaps hit the market too late.