Also see ‘1965-66 AMC Marlin: Fixing beginner’s mistakes’
“Ad Nauseam” is a regular feature that parodies automotive ads and brochures. We start off with themes from actual ad copy and riff from there. For further discussion about what is real, go here.
Roger Sizemore had the feeling that Chrysler was going in the wrong direction. The product planners talked excitedly about selling at least 200,000 Plymouth Barracudas and Dodge Challengers annually. Yet the all-new 1970 pony cars […]
Would American Motors have continued to be successful in the second-half of the 1960s if George Romney had stuck around? He stepped down as CEO in 1962 to successfully run for governor of Michigan. This […]
This month’s lead story essentially explores the question: How come AMC died when it had such terrific designers? A related story offers commentary on a 2011 film about Fred Hudson, who was the chief exterior […]
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The Marlin’s standard interior held 6 swingin’ people? Rambler’s most exciting car ever? (l know – the “Rambler” name was about to get the “heave-hoe”.) It was not the most exciting in performance (remember the ’57 Rebel?) and the front end styling of the first two years of the exciting-ish Marlin were obviously and unfortunately VERY closely derived from the very “pedestrian”-styled Classic model.
Although the Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk was only made for a small orgy (5), it almost sold as many cars in it’s 2 and 1/3rd years than AMC sold Marlins in 3 seasons. Studebaker had fewer and less energetic dealers, but the GT Hawk seems to have been the better car for ’60s “swingers”, and much more of a “personal” car with it’s totally separate and elegant body (a la T-Bird and later ’69 Grand Prix and ’70 Monte Carlo).
As has been noted in other articles, the Marlin may have been a better seller if it had been put into production without change from the Tarpon concept car. Maybe they could have supercharged or turboed a six if they couldn’t shoe-horn an AMC V8 into an American body at the time. It would have beaten the Camaro/Firebird to the market and been in the thick of the pony car game. Opportunity lost.
And if Studebaker had ….. well, lots of opportunities lost there, too!