To me, the fastback Rambler Marlin has always been a kind of Rodney Dangerfield character. It didn’t get much respect when it made its debut back in 1965, and it still doesn’t some 61 years later. I always liked the rear end fastback treatment. But the bland front end styling and its side view (and overall proportions) are what kept the Marlin from being a big seller. Introduced in March of 1965, a total of 10,327 first-year Marlins were snagged, and this has to be one of the best highly-original examples around. It was featured on Barn Finds back in March for $21,000, but is being advertised again for $19,900. It’s located in Finley, California, and is listed for sale here on craigslist. Thanks again to T.J. for reeling in this cool Marlin and sending it our way!
Other than being a California car, no other information is shared about how this Marlin became a time capsule. The original Antigua Red paint with its contrasting Classic Black sweeping fastback roof treatment looks terrific. I’m not spotting any rust or major bumps and bruises, and the chrome, trim, badging (I’ve always liked that Marlin logo) and glass look to be in ship shape.
The Marlin’s originality theme continues inside with the original black interior. The driver’s seat shows some deterioration, but overall, what we can see of the front bucket seats, rear seat, arm rests, door panels, instrument panel and steering wheel looks remarkable good for a 61-year-old car. The seller says the Marlin has power disc brakes and power steering, and that the factory air conditioning works well.
Although the 232-cubic-inch six-cylinder was the base engine, this fish has the desirable 327-cubic-inch V8 that generates 270 horsepower and 360 ft/lbs of torque. 106,000 miles are on the odometer and it’s mated to a floor shifting automatic transmission. The seller says the Marlin “runs as it should” and this first-year survivor doesn’t appear to need anything but a new owner. The red and black paint scheme looks terrific and you won’t find many survivors like this still around. The Marlin was inspired by a 1964 fastback show car called the Rambler Tarpon. It was based on the smaller Rambler America and was a sleek, sharp-looking 2+2. (Color photos of the Tarpon show that it was painted in the exact red/black paint scheme.) Unfortunately, the “suits” at AMC meddled with it and changed it from a pony car to compete with the Mustang, to an intermediate sized Rambler Classic “luxury car” for six with a stretched-out fastback. Too bad.
The plane of that “stretched out fastback” (IMO) is what makes this car look awkward, kind of like a hump backed whale. The ’67 body rectified this problem with a slight rise in the rear hips and a sleeker look but it was too late, and this fish was thrown back! This ’65 does look to be in exceptional condition though, GLWTS!! :-)
AMC CEO Roy Abernethy is responsible for that humpbacked look; a large man at 6’4″, he insisted on adding enough headroom to wear his hat in the back seat. Stylist Dick Teague was away in Europe at the time and could not be present to talk him out of it, and by the time he returned it was too late.
Abernethy is also responsible for the Marlin being based on the midsize Rambler Classic, rather than the compact Rambler American basis of the original Tarpon concept car. Failing to anticipate the imminent emergence of the pony car segment, he felt it would have more market appeal as a larger personal luxury coupe targeted to young married couples about to start a family.
That fateful decision left AMC without a ready answer to the Mustang phenomenon, leaving them to respond only belatedly with the Javelin a few years later, meanwhile saddling them with the
AlbatrossMarlin that never saw much success over an abbreviated three-year model run.“The Marlin was inspired by a 1964 fastback show car called the Rambler Tarpon.”
With a name that close to Tampon (along with the shape of that show car), ambitious AMC would have soon released the “Kotex Special Edition Rambler for ’65”.
Certainly askew. Car is removed or sold. It was too red for me but a nice car.
Gone. ”Removed by the poster.”
I Miss AMC.
these are popping up all over for sale. these are either you like them or you don’t.
I have always liked the look of the Marlin, being it looked muck like the Charger back then. If I did not already have a fun car I would look into buying this. I like different.
Listing removed :/
Nice example! My dad was a Rambler dealer back then. Besides the somewhat awkward styling, the car was too expensive compared to its competition. Not to mention AMC was not top-of-mind when you thought about sporty performance. The Tarpon was the way they should have gone. But AMC’s management knew better…
They look great from the side/rear and beat the Charger to market.
327 4bbl and pwr disc brakes! Red/blk was sharp.
Always reminded me of what a grown up Henry J would look like
I seem to remember that Cale Yarbrough tried one of these on the NASCAR circuit????
A “mullet “ car lol
This is a nice example for sure. They did make some special ones in ’66-’67. You could get a 4-speed, 327-343 HO engine, and traction lock with a gear choice. Very low production numbers, it is an odd car.
A great and noble effort from a company on a shoestring budget. AMC deserved so much better especially having produced the incredible AMX a few years later.
Bought mine via Barn Finds in 2022. Same colour’s. It’s always a big hit at car shows. Love it! Original 54000 miles
The 65 Marlin has always confounded me. From some angles it looks fantastic, from others it looks quite unfortunate. The rear view is best. The detailing of the inset chrome on the fastback, the gorgeous taillamps are excellent. I can see why they thought the boomerang side window shape was they way to go, but it comes off as weird and instead if disguising the too-tall roof, it accentuates it. And why they didnt go the extra mile and give it an attractive front clip, I’ll never know. The grille and headlamp bezels on this thing are so incredibly homely.
This example looks exactly like the brochure cover car, and is about as handsome as one of these can be.
Along with some other AMC’s, I always keep in mind that AMC didn’t have the deep pockets that the Big 3 did and had to improvise a bit. I think they did a pretty good job given their restrictive resources, like with the Javelin and AMX, Hornet and Gremlin. The Gremlin and AMX were chopped versions of the Hornet and Javelin, but they did what they could.
The 65 Marlin remains one of my several automotive regrets.
In 1965, my parents were at the local Rambler dealer to replace their 62 Classic. My intensive lobbying for the Marlin fell on dear ears, of course, and we came home with a 65 Classic. Strike one.
In 1975, on an extended trip to SoCal, I found a 65 in a junkyard in Fontana (closer to the desert). 100% rust-free, V8 was running, power windows, factory air – just a slight bit of wear around the edges. He said $250 – take it home. Except home was 2500+ miles away. I had another car I was to drive back home for someone, not sure when I’d get back to retrieve the Marlin, and not even sure if it would actually make it back. Now I wish I hadn’t passed on it. Strike two.
If we didn’t have some automotive regrets, where would we get the stories we tell? I’m sure strike three will happen, but maybe I’ll be well into dementia by then and won’t care…
I owned a 1965 Marlin from the late 1980s until a couple of years ago. Very comfortable road car and you certainly get lots of looks from people. Nice breezes when all the windows are rolled down.
Strange to see what looks like a drum master cylinder under the hood. Maybe that’s what was easy to obtain when the original went bad. (Or maybe the standard disks were converted to drum?)
This one has the rare electric wiper option, not that you’d want to drive this in bad weather. I see an aftermarket air conditioner under the dash and a crazy big fan shroud that I don’t think is factory.
The ad has been pulled so maybe it sold already.
I think front discs were an optional upgrade? The wiki article on the Marlin says they were standard but cites a Popular Science article that actually only states they were available as an option on the Classic, which the Marlin was based on.
Elsewhere it cites another PS article criticizing the Marlin’s standard drum brakes as inadequate and recommending the optional discs. This is consistent with something I remember reading long ago in some magazine, that the Marlin had one of the worst braking performances they’d ever tested, which seems unlikely if front discs were standard, so I’m pretty sure those results must have been with drums all around.
Front disk brakes were standard on the Marlin for 1965. (That’s one of the things that accounted for the high price.) They were made optional for 1966 and 1967. Chances are that the PS article you read for for a post-1965 model.
Having owned a 1965 Marlin I can tell you that the brakes were very good, the only downside being that the rotors were not vented so they could be prone to fade in heavy use (though not as bad as drums). It was a Bendix system with fixed 4-piston calipers.
A downside of the disk brake system is that AMC employed a unique “non-servo” drum brake in the rear rather then using a standard-type drums with a proportioning valve. Parts for that rear drum system are unobtainium. (The cure for serviceability is to retrofit standard Bendix drums with a proportioning valve. Parts are readily available for those.)
Personally, I think one of the worst things about the car is the tiny trunk opening.
I’ve put 2 sets of golf clubs in the trunk along with the carts for them. A challenge fitting the balls in though…
Funny last sentence.
The Tarpon, if released according to plan, would have beaten the Mustang to market by several weeks. What a different story for AMC, and our discussions now, if it had started the Pony Car rage!