Histories about the 1965 Rambler Marlin’s origins illustrate how seemingly basic facts can be difficult to nail down. Differences of opinion linger over when and why the Marlin was developed as well as what happened to its controversial roofline.
What’s particularly interesting is how scenarios can morph into odd directions when retold multiple times. Let’s see if we can sort through the various perspectives.
Was the Tarpon concept a response to the Mustang?
Historians — professional and armchair — appear to all agree that the Marlin was inspired by a series of American Motors’ concept cars based on the compact American platform. The most prominent design was called the Tarpon, which was similar to a previous concept car called the Sceptre (Foster, 2013). From here on out the narratives begin to vary.
The Tarpon was based on the compact American platform but given a fairly long and fishtailed fastback roofline similar to what the Marlin would use (AMC press photo courtesy Marlin Auto Club).
As a case in point, an article in the AMCRC Rambler Reader republished by the Marlin Auto Club (1996) stated that the Tarpon was born after AMC’s head designer Richard Teague was asked to “develop something similar to the Ford Mustang that had introduced America to what was to become known as the ‘pony car.’ The Mustang had become an instant sales success and caught all other auto manufacturers flatfooted. The scramble to catch up was on, and AMC was not going to be left out.”
The problem with the above scenario is that the Tarpon was reportedly completed in June of 1963 and was displayed at the Chicago Auto Show the following February (Foster, 2013; Howard, 2008; Hadsall, 1999). This was well before the Mustang was introduced in April, 1964.
The historical record is still unclear as to whether AMC designers knew that Ford and Plymouth were planning to introduce sporty compact coupes when they were developing the Tarpon (Old Car Brochures).
Another republished article on the Marlin Auto Club website further muddies the waters. Joe Howard (2008) quoted AMC designer Vince Geraci as stating that Teague “wanted a fighter for the Mustang. [And] we didn’t have the wherewithal that Ford had to retool. We either had to take it off the American body, or off the Classic body.” If he was talking about the Tarpon, how could that have been “Teague’s answer” to the Mustang given the above timeline, which appears to be pretty well documented?
Jim Alexander, another AMC designer, was quoted as saying that “Teague chose a compact fastback because he had heard about Plymouth’s soon-to-be-released Barracuda ‘and felt that we could do something like that, too'” (Howard, 2008). This sounds plausible, but Howard noted that Geraci “couldn’t recall any mention of the Barracuda at that time.”
Meanwhile, in a question-and-answer interview with Patrick R. Foster, AMC designer Bob Nixon was quoted as saying that the Tarpon concept car was developed prior to knowing about the Mustang (Foster, 2014).
Let’s add one more factor. According to David Halberstam (1986), when Lee Iacocca faced internal resistance to the Mustang, he began to leak information about the proposed car to Detroit auto writers. Perhaps those leaks didn’t occur until after Tarpon was completed. However, another nine months would pass before the Mustang was introduced. During that time period AMC would surely have gotten wind of the impending car and strategized about how to respond.
Why did AMC switch from the Tarpon to the Marlin?
Way back in 1992 Richard Langworth and James Flammang wrote that no one had yet published an explanation for why AMC head Roy Abernethy killed the compact-based Tarpon in favor of the mid-sized Marlin.
These historians went on to speculate that the Marlin was given the go-ahead before the Mustang was introduced “and the Barracuda fastback hadn’t done particularly well” (Langworth and Flammang, 1992, p. 14). It’s hard to see how that could have happened given that the Barracuda was launched on April 1, 1964 — only two weeks before the Mustang’s introduction (Wikipedia, 2015b).
The Marlin was marketed as a luxurious sporty coupe rather than as a high-performance car akin to a Pontiac GTO. The Marlin was introduced in mid-1965 as a Rambler but the brand name was removed in 1966 (Old Car Brochures).
Over the last two decades we have learned more about the Marlin’s origins, although the historical record is still murky in spots. AMC public relations executive Guy Hadsall Jr. summed up the dominant narrative by stating that Abernethy insisted upon using AMC’s mid-sized platform for the sporty fastback because the compact platform would not fit the existing V8 engine — and a new, more compact V8 would not be ready for a year to a year-and-a-half after the Tarpon was slated for launch. “Mr. Abernethy felt that this product would need a V8 option from the start of production” (Hadsall, 1999; p. 66).
Teague (2015a) suggested that there was a deeper reason why the Tarpon was nixed: “Roy Abernethy didn’t like little cars. Never did. He liked big cars, because he was a big guy — hell of a nice guy. And he felt that this car was too small, so he said, ‘Well, heck, Teague, why don’t you just put it on the Rambler Classic wheel-base? That way you’ve got V-8 availability and you’ve got more room inside it.'”
JavelinAMX.com (2009) offered a twist on this narrative by stating that Abernethy spiked the Tarpon in favor of the Marlin “while Teague was out of the country on vacation.” The non-bylined article added that “this was a forced-decision as the Tarpon had the looks, but no room for a V8, and what V8s AMC had were underpowered and out-dated. If produced, the Tarpon might have simply been gift wrap on a turd, as it were.”
If, as stated above, AMC’s V8s were “underpowered and out-dated,” then why would it have been an advantage to shift the sporty fastback to a heavier platform? Click on image to enlarge (Automotive History Preservation Society).
If we go by Teague’s recollection, JavelinAMX.com conflated Abernethy’s decision to go with a mid-sized fastback with a subsequent order to increase the Marlin’s height. We will come back to the latter topic near the end of this post.
Tarpon or Marlin: Which did Teague support?
Nixon added a provocative turn to the discussion by stating that Teague “was a strong advocate of the Marlin” (2014, p. 76). The wording of Nixon’s comment could lead one to wonder whether Teague supported a mid-sized sporty fastback over the compact Tarpon.
In contrast, Teague is quoted by Langworth as supporting the Tarpon. Hadsall concurred, stating that he and Teague argued against the Marlin because “increasing the size of the vehicle would make it lose some of its unique look” (1999, p. 66).
The Marlin was advertised as a “man’s-size,” six-passenger coupe. The nerdy threesomes are more interesting than the bland front-end design, which was inherited from the utilitarian Classic (Old Car Brochures).
What was really going on with AMC’s V8s?
I would question JavelinAMX.com’s (2009) view that AMC’s V8s were outdated and underpowered. The 287 cubic-inch version was introduced in 1956 (with 250 cubic inches) and the 327 came the following year. That’s not terribly old. And while AMC’s 287 only had 198 horsepower in 1965, that was only two horsepower less than the Mustang’s base 289 cubic-inch V8.
The idea that AMC couldn’t fit an existing V8 into the American has been repeated by so many company sources that I assume it is likely true. What’s perplexing is that the new-for-1964 American body was almost 71 inches wide. That was average for a compact and only slightly narrower than the previous-generation senior Rambler, which fit both the 287 and 327 engines. In theory, at least one of those should have fit, but perhaps the car wasn’t specifically engineered for it.
Once Abernethy took over he reportedly increased the size of the 1964 American from what his predecessor, George Romney, had proposed (Foster, 1993). Thus, it seems odd that an AMC V8 wouldn’t fit in the car (Old Car Brochures).
If so, AMC took a calculated risk. General Motors had offered a V8 in its compact Buick Special and Oldsmobile F-85 as far back as 1961. Ford’s Falcon and Mercury Comet got a V8 option in late-February of 1963 (Consumer Reports, 1963). Meanwhile, the Chevy II and Plymouth Valiant both gained V8s for the 1964 model year. Surely AMC had heard the buzz about compact V8s as the new American was being designed. Did they choose to ignore it?
In a comment in Mac’s Motor City Garage, Mike Pluta (2016) argued that a V8 could have been used. “Funny thing is, several rambler dealerships did fit the first gen v8 in the American, although the big brass ignored this fact.”
The Marlin used the Ambassador’s instrument cluster and bucket seats with either a center console or a cushion between the seats (presumably for a third person). Note how thick the roofline looks (Automotive History Preservation Society).
What did Abernethy do to that roofline?
Another debate is about the height of the Marlin’s roofline. In Foster’s 2013 history of American Motors, he wrote that “Abernethy dictated that the roof be raised by three inches” (p. 85). This is at variance with his 1993 book, which stated that the roof was raised one inch. The latter story has been most prevalent in auto histories.
The 1965 Rambler Classic hardtop’s roofline was almost level with the top of the windshield, whereas the Marlin’s roofline curved upwards.
Teague stated that Abernethy “added an inch to the roof while I was in Europe. I still have never gotten over that. . . .” (Wikipedia, 2015a).
Meanwhile, Daniel Strohl (2014) reported that Vince Geraci, who headed the large-car design studio that developed the Marlin, said that Abernethy asked him to “raise the slope of the rear roof by an inch and a half to create more headroom in the backseat.”
Note that Strohl said “slope” — not roof height. Judging from Paul Niedermeyer’s (2014) close-up photographs, it looks possible that the roof was raised more than one inch but not three. Or are we really talking about height and slope?
The chrome-and-black (or silver) insert around the windows may have been designed to reduce the overly thick look of the roofline above the windows. If so, it didn’t work very well (Old Car Brochures).
What to make of these lingering debates?
I must admit that I was surprised to see so much variance around basic questions. This may primarily reflect that most auto histories are written by car buffs . . . with varying levels of skill in precisely documenting events.
In addition, the writers cited here have often depended upon the recollections of participants, such as former AMC designers. Oral histories are valuable but should not be taken as gospel because interviewees may not always remember things accurately. Or, out of self-interest, they might put a “spin” on their narrative.
At least in theory, it would be great if more scholars wrote automotive histories because they presumably possess a higher level of research skills. Unfortunately, too few venture into this realm — and those that do tend to visit rather than live here. Thus, their writings may in some respects display even less detailed knowledge about an automaker than those of car buffs (go here for further discussion).
This is the case with Charles K. Hyde’s (2009) book about American Motors, which covers the Marlin in such a parenthetical fashion that it doesn’t help resolve any of the topics discussed here. That’s too bad because a better understanding of the Marlin’s origins could clarify what went wrong at AMC during the mid-60s.
NOTES:
This is an expanded version of an article originally posted on May 6, 2015 and expanded on Aug. 14, 2019. Specifications are from Gunnell (2002) and the Classic Car Database (2019).
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Good analysis, Steve. It seems fairly reasonable to deduce that since the Marlin was such a flop, no one really wanted to take credit for it, much less give the facts about the who, what, when, where and why. Had it been a success, I’m sure there would also have been varying accounts as several individuals likely might have wanted to take credit. But as I learned after enough reading many years ago, the truth about who really designed Car-A or Car-B was easily obscured or buried, especially if there was someone like a Bill Mitchell at the helm of a styling department.
I do have one other observation to make based on your article, which is that if Abernethy preferred big cars, as per Teague, why did he not think to take the ’67 Marlin re-design a step further by ditching the fastback roofline and creating a personal luxury coupe? AMC could have dropped the 2-door Ambassador, renamed it (how about Barcelona?) and marketed it as a competitor to the Grand Prix and even T-Bird, but “priced below” the competition, as they used to say. This would have left Ambassador as a line of practical 4-doors and wagons only while the Barcelona would have been an aspirational car for very little development money and potentially lots of profit. Abernethy must not have paid attention to how mid-size cars were quickly becoming much more luxurious by the end of the 60s.
CJ, they could also have done luxury compact thing with the Hornet, which they promoted as “The Little Rich Car” and beaten Ford to the punch with the Maverick LDO, Granada and their own, wayyyy too late Concord.
Plaid fabric just never said “rich” to me.
I agree with you about the Marlin having the potential to be AMC’s personal luxury offering.
So many wasted opportunities, just a shame.
CJ, your scenario would certainly have made more sense than the Marlin. As discussed in another Marlin story (go here), for 1967 both the top-end Rebel SST and the Ambassador DPL two-door hardtops vastly outsold the Marlin even after it was given better-looking sheetmetal. However, we’re still not talking about terribly high sales. So for 1968 the top-end Ambassador (renamed the SST) was decontented in some ways.
Abernethy got that the market was shifting to luxury cars but he seemed to assume that AMC could best tap it by competing against the Big Three’s full-sized cars. Thus, beginning in 1967 the Ambassador was marketed as a full-sized car despite being based on a mid-sized body with a longer wheelbase ahead of the cowl (go here for further discussion).
To follow your scenario, AMC could have kept the long snout and shortened the wheelbase behind the B-pillar two-to-four inches to get a brougham-style notchback coupe. That could have sold respectably, particularly once the public got used to the idea of AMC offering more than utilitarian economy cars.
Just a quick comment that the 287 cid version of the AMC V8 was introduced midway through the 1963 model year as an option for the previously six-cylinder only Rambler Classic. The original small displacement version was a 250 cid unit that was offered from 1956-61.
You reminded me of another useful point: A V8 was once again offered on the Classic only after Abernethy took charge. Romney had dropped the 250 V8 option for 1962, and the Ambassador only offered the 327 engine.
Patrick Foster has lamented Abernethy’s move because it “began to unravel the carefully woven fabric of AMC’s image in the market” (1993, p. 297). I don’t find that argument terribly compelling given that V8s were increasingly popular on mid-sized cars.
‘The nerdy threesomes are more interesting than the bland front-end design’
Swingers, Steve. I think those are AMC’s version of “swingers”.
‘The non-bylined article added that “this was a forced-decision as the Tarpon had the looks,’
It did ? After all these years I cannot make my eyes make that design work. In profile it looks like it needs another door. An early iteration of a Chevy Citation, I swear.
The “looks”? Like a 62 Dodge Dart ? or ’61 DeSoto where one cannot make sense of what is going on?
I think the Marlin that appeared looked better than the Tarpon from more angles. And the ’67 finally got the proportions right.
Great article. Thanks.
I still love Marlins, I just have to admit they’re awkward and lumpy.
The automotive equivalent of a mullet:’utilitarian Classic’ in front, party in back.
After the import car boom and the success of the Chevrolet Corvair Monza (which gave the Corvair a temporary stay of execution), sporty compacts were in the air around Detroit. I would not be surprised if those AMC personnel were, decades later, conflating “Mustang” with “sporty compacts” when they were asked what had inspired the Tarpon. By the 1980s, the Mustang was remembered as the first sporty compact, even though the Corvair Monz and bucket-seat versions of the GM senior compacts, Plymouth Valiant, Dodge Lancer/Dart, Ford Falcon and Comet had been there first.
American Motors had the Rambler American, which wasn’t remotely sporty, even after it offered a convertible (starting in 1961), followed by a hardtop coupe with bucket seats (1963). Those were obviously stopgap measures. Teague knew that an all-new – and very handsome – American was scheduled to debut for 1964. It therefore made sense to develop a show car based on the all-new 1964 American. That fits with the development date of the Tarpon. According to the article, it was finished by June 1963. Tooling for the 1964 American would have been finalized by that point.
Once AMC got wind of the Mustang, it may have felt that something was needed to counter it in the showroom. The success of the Mustang only confirmed this. The Tarpon was right there, and had been popular with car show crowds.
As for why AMC didn’t use the available V-8s in the Tarpon. Perhaps weight was an issue? It’s my understanding that the new AMC V-8s used thin-wall casting techniques, which saved weight without compromising strength and durability. The 290 V-8 was offered in the American, beginning with the 1966 model year. AMC even offered the 343 V-8 in the American Rogue for 1967, but I’ve read that it was too much for the car. Supposedly hard driving would result in a cracked windshield, as the body wasn’t strong enough to withstand the torque developed by that engine.
Perhaps AMC was concerned that the American body wasn’t strong enough to handle the heavy V-8s, particularly if AMC offered a hotter versions? AMC may have been playing it safe when it came to offering the old V-8 in any American-derived Tarpon. Dealers making engine swaps had no such concerns, particularly during the days of limited warranties and looser product liability case law.
Geeber, you make a good point about AMC switching to a thin-wall engine design. I just did a quick comparison of the weights of the 1958 Rambler and a Studebaker; a base senior Rambler with the 250 V8 was 340 pounds heavier than its six-cylinder sibling. This was only slightly less than a base Studebaker with the automaker’s 259 V8, which was 350 pounds heavier than the six. The Studebaker V8 was well known for being on the chunky side (go here for further discussion).
As a point of comparison, Consumer Reports stated that the V8 version of the Ford Falcon would add almost 300 pounds to the car’s weight — and that the car needed a “large amount of beefing up” to the chassis, body and drive train (1963, p. 176).
That said, the 1964 American wasn’t particularly small or light weight compared to the Falcon or other front-engined U.S. compacts yet was the only one that supposedly couldn’t fit a V8 then available. And when one of Abernethy’s first moves was to add back a V8 option to the Classic, that suggested that he was less concerned about maintaining the Rambler’s economy-car image than George Romney. So why wouldn’t Abernethy have had the American engineered to fit a V8 from the outset? He apparently had time to upsize the 1964 models over what Romney had wanted.
Whatever the reason, waiting until 1966 to give the American a V8 strikes me as a mistake even if Abernethy had still gone with the Marlin over the Tarpon.
Completely agree with your assessment, Steve. Abernathy must have snubbed the Tarpon because it was too small for his tastes, so instead of a competitor to the Mustang, AMC built a Charger a year before Dodge. At least Dodge knew where to go with the 2nd gen Charger and make it a success.
Let’s face it: After George Romney left, A.M.C. was rudderless in terms of visionary leadership. Abernathy inherited two great platforms: The brilliant 1963 Classic and the derivative 1964 American, with modern thin-wall casting O.H.V. sixes and V-8s that were less than ten-years-old. The 1965 and later Ambassadors were decent cars, but they were not comparable to Buicks, Oldsmobiles or Pontiacs. Competing with the Big Three with a full-car line was not a sound strategic plan for a company with limited means. A 250-cu.-in. V-8 reinforced American 440-H and a 287-cu.in. V-8 Classic 770-H should have been good sellers, properly optioned and marketed, but they weren’t.
In hindsight, I think that there is some potential for Abernathy to have been caught between a rock and a hard place. He surely saw how Detroit was as quick to abandon compact cars as they were to adopt them. By 1966, even the lowly Falcon was really out of the compact class. Valiant and Chevy II had also grown and would become even bigger in 1967 and 1968 respectively. As sales of US compacts slowed going further into the 1960s, Abernathy was not necessarily wrong to believe that AMC should catch up with Detroit by offering a broader, bigger range of cars that were closer to what Chrysler, Ford and GM were selling at the time. He was, however, not seeing the direction that I think AMC should have been driven towards.
What Abernathy likely wasn’t able to anticipate was how quickly the market was going to shift from compacts to mid-size cars. The biggest jump was in MY 1964 when GM abandoned 3 compact car lines, turning the F-85/Cutlass, Tempest/LeMans and Special/Skylark into intermediates. Mercury also began to shift its compact Comet upmarket in MY 1964 by introducing the Caliente and Cyclone luxury and performance models. AMC would have had their designs for the 1965-66 Classic and Ambassador locked in, therefore, it was too late to make them larger (yet not too late to spend money creating the too-niched Marlin).
Ford switched the Falcon/Comet over to their mid-size platform for the 1966 models and Mercury moved Comet up to the mid-size class. The Comet 202 became Mercury’s base ‘compact’ albeit on a 116 inch wheelbase. The marketing money was, however, spent promoting the 7″ longer “Big New Comet” models, Caliente, Capri, Cyclone and Cyclone GT (203″ vs 195.6″ in 1966). Mercury took things further in 1967 when all but the 202 were marketed as Mercurys, not Comets.
Intermediates were THE hot segment of the decade and initially, AMC was initially lacking cars as big and stylish as some of the competition. Even the scaled up 1965-66 Ambassador (on a 116″ wheelbase) was too small. A 1965 Olds F-85, for example, on a 1″ shorter wheelbase was nearly 4 inches longer but because the Ambassador was so square in appearance, it looked much shorter. AMC needed styling that was much better than that of the 1963-66 Classic/Ambassador. The 1967 Ambassador and newly-branded Rebel were steps in the right direction but a dubious 1970 facelift and Abernathy’s stretching of the Ambassador ahead of the firewall to make it appear as big or bigger than a Caprice/LTD, was not that step.
Instead, this is what I think Abernathy might have done…
Given AMC’s much smaller size, resources and market, the Mercury strategy mentioned above might have worked well for them. As I suggested in a previous comment on this post, sedans and wagons could have been branded Ambassadors, starting in MY 1967, with coupes (no convertibles, that was a waste of money for AMC) marketed under another cooler, hipper sounding name. A Rebel-branded version of the coupe could have been offered as AMC’s muscle car, akin to the Mercury Cyclone, et al, instead of the tepid Classic 770-H. This cancels out the Marlin and paves the way for the Tarpon, which could then eventually have become the all-new 1968 Javelin.
The enormous profit potential in the mid-size segment was evidenced by its growth throughout the 1960s. For instance, looking at how GM successfully marketed the same cars on 116 inch sedan/wagon wheelbases and 112 inch coupe/convertible wheelbases starting in MY 1968, could AMC have not done the same thing? Another possible path is illustrated by Ford’s creation of the Torino sub-brand in the Fairlane series of 1968. Torino gave mid-size buyers an affordable, aspirational car in the mid-size class. Eventually, the Torino was morphed into a baroque personal luxury coupe, the Gran Torino Elite of 1975. A similar plan at AMC could have resulted in their own profit-generating PLC at that time, instead of the money-losing ’74 Matador coupe.
By pairing down to just the Ambassador and American, I think that Abernathy would have saved the company considerable amounts of money during his tenure, allowing it to focus resources on engineering and quality improvements for the future. Abernathy wasn’t necessarily wrong in wanting AMC products to get bigger as that was definitely the trend throughout the US car industry during the 60s. What he didn’t seem to recognize was that for a company of AMCs size and limited finances, competing with Caprice/LTD was going too far up the size ladder; growth needed to stop at the mid-size rung.
AMC’s later success with the Hornet and and the many iterations of vehicles that were subsequently produced based on it, shows us that the company was able to be both flexible and profitable using a single platform. Unfortunately, as we have read here on Indie Auto so often, money diverted into failures like the bloated Ambassador, Pacer and ’74 Matador coupe prevented AMC from creating modern, versatile platforms to aid the company in becoming the successful niche player it needed to be in order to properly transition from the 70s to the 80s.
Of course, hindsight is what drives us to imagine these scenarios where we look for alternative paths that might have corrected the blunders of history. Abernathy doubtless needed to satisfy his own ego-ist vision of what he wanted AMC to be, vs Romney’s, but he was not alone in this. Even mighty GM was toppled by its failure to curb management errors and excesses, increase efficiencies and eliminate redundancies. The only lesson that doesn’t seem to have been learned by American car companies is that ego should not be the driving force behind what makes a car company good or great. Twenty-five to thirty years from now, history will inform us which American vehicle companies survived allowing us to speculate on what those companies should have done differently in 2022.
For what it’s worth, I read an article several decades ago that stated the model name Rebel hurt sales. It seems AMC’s somewhat elderly customer base wasn’t interested in owning a car with that name.
That’s really interesting. Let me know if you remember (even vaguely) where you read that because I’d like to track down more information on the topic.
Good analysis, Steve. It seems fairly reasonable to deduce that since the Marlin was such a flop, no one really wanted to take credit for it, much less give the facts about the who, what, when, where and why. Had it been a success, I’m sure there would also have been varying accounts as several individuals likely might have wanted to take credit. But as I learned after enough reading many years ago, the truth about who really designed Car-A or Car-B was easily obscured or buried, especially if there was someone like a Bill Mitchell at the helm of a styling department.
I do have one other observation to make based on your article, which is that if Abernethy preferred big cars, as per Teague, why did he not think to take the ’67 Marlin re-design a step further by ditching the fastback roofline and creating a personal luxury coupe? AMC could have dropped the 2-door Ambassador, renamed it (how about Barcelona?) and marketed it as a competitor to the Grand Prix and even T-Bird, but “priced below” the competition, as they used to say. This would have left Ambassador as a line of practical 4-doors and wagons only while the Barcelona would have been an aspirational car for very little development money and potentially lots of profit. Abernethy must not have paid attention to how mid-size cars were quickly becoming much more luxurious by the end of the 60s.
What do you think?
CJ, they could also have done luxury compact thing with the Hornet, which they promoted as “The Little Rich Car” and beaten Ford to the punch with the Maverick LDO, Granada and their own, wayyyy too late Concord.
Plaid fabric just never said “rich” to me.
I agree with you about the Marlin having the potential to be AMC’s personal luxury offering.
So many wasted opportunities, just a shame.
CJ, your scenario would certainly have made more sense than the Marlin. As discussed in another Marlin story (go here), for 1967 both the top-end Rebel SST and the Ambassador DPL two-door hardtops vastly outsold the Marlin even after it was given better-looking sheetmetal. However, we’re still not talking about terribly high sales. So for 1968 the top-end Ambassador (renamed the SST) was decontented in some ways.
Abernethy got that the market was shifting to luxury cars but he seemed to assume that AMC could best tap it by competing against the Big Three’s full-sized cars. Thus, beginning in 1967 the Ambassador was marketed as a full-sized car despite being based on a mid-sized body with a longer wheelbase ahead of the cowl (go here for further discussion).
To follow your scenario, AMC could have kept the long snout and shortened the wheelbase behind the B-pillar two-to-four inches to get a brougham-style notchback coupe. That could have sold respectably, particularly once the public got used to the idea of AMC offering more than utilitarian economy cars.
Just a quick comment that the 287 cid version of the AMC V8 was introduced midway through the 1963 model year as an option for the previously six-cylinder only Rambler Classic. The original small displacement version was a 250 cid unit that was offered from 1956-61.
Good point; I have added a clarification.
You reminded me of another useful point: A V8 was once again offered on the Classic only after Abernethy took charge. Romney had dropped the 250 V8 option for 1962, and the Ambassador only offered the 327 engine.
Patrick Foster has lamented Abernethy’s move because it “began to unravel the carefully woven fabric of AMC’s image in the market” (1993, p. 297). I don’t find that argument terribly compelling given that V8s were increasingly popular on mid-sized cars.
‘The nerdy threesomes are more interesting than the bland front-end design’
Swingers, Steve. I think those are AMC’s version of “swingers”.
‘The non-bylined article added that “this was a forced-decision as the Tarpon had the looks,’
It did ? After all these years I cannot make my eyes make that design work. In profile it looks like it needs another door. An early iteration of a Chevy Citation, I swear.
The “looks”? Like a 62 Dodge Dart ? or ’61 DeSoto where one cannot make sense of what is going on?
I think the Marlin that appeared looked better than the Tarpon from more angles. And the ’67 finally got the proportions right.
Great article. Thanks.
I still love Marlins, I just have to admit they’re awkward and lumpy.
The automotive equivalent of a mullet:’utilitarian Classic’ in front, party in back.
The automotive equivalent to mullets… brilliant! And I love that you love Marlins, despite their being, as you say, lumpy & awkward. And
After the import car boom and the success of the Chevrolet Corvair Monza (which gave the Corvair a temporary stay of execution), sporty compacts were in the air around Detroit. I would not be surprised if those AMC personnel were, decades later, conflating “Mustang” with “sporty compacts” when they were asked what had inspired the Tarpon. By the 1980s, the Mustang was remembered as the first sporty compact, even though the Corvair Monz and bucket-seat versions of the GM senior compacts, Plymouth Valiant, Dodge Lancer/Dart, Ford Falcon and Comet had been there first.
American Motors had the Rambler American, which wasn’t remotely sporty, even after it offered a convertible (starting in 1961), followed by a hardtop coupe with bucket seats (1963). Those were obviously stopgap measures. Teague knew that an all-new – and very handsome – American was scheduled to debut for 1964. It therefore made sense to develop a show car based on the all-new 1964 American. That fits with the development date of the Tarpon. According to the article, it was finished by June 1963. Tooling for the 1964 American would have been finalized by that point.
Once AMC got wind of the Mustang, it may have felt that something was needed to counter it in the showroom. The success of the Mustang only confirmed this. The Tarpon was right there, and had been popular with car show crowds.
As for why AMC didn’t use the available V-8s in the Tarpon. Perhaps weight was an issue? It’s my understanding that the new AMC V-8s used thin-wall casting techniques, which saved weight without compromising strength and durability. The 290 V-8 was offered in the American, beginning with the 1966 model year. AMC even offered the 343 V-8 in the American Rogue for 1967, but I’ve read that it was too much for the car. Supposedly hard driving would result in a cracked windshield, as the body wasn’t strong enough to withstand the torque developed by that engine.
Perhaps AMC was concerned that the American body wasn’t strong enough to handle the heavy V-8s, particularly if AMC offered a hotter versions? AMC may have been playing it safe when it came to offering the old V-8 in any American-derived Tarpon. Dealers making engine swaps had no such concerns, particularly during the days of limited warranties and looser product liability case law.
Geeber, you make a good point about AMC switching to a thin-wall engine design. I just did a quick comparison of the weights of the 1958 Rambler and a Studebaker; a base senior Rambler with the 250 V8 was 340 pounds heavier than its six-cylinder sibling. This was only slightly less than a base Studebaker with the automaker’s 259 V8, which was 350 pounds heavier than the six. The Studebaker V8 was well known for being on the chunky side (go here for further discussion).
As a point of comparison, Consumer Reports stated that the V8 version of the Ford Falcon would add almost 300 pounds to the car’s weight — and that the car needed a “large amount of beefing up” to the chassis, body and drive train (1963, p. 176).
That said, the 1964 American wasn’t particularly small or light weight compared to the Falcon or other front-engined U.S. compacts yet was the only one that supposedly couldn’t fit a V8 then available. And when one of Abernethy’s first moves was to add back a V8 option to the Classic, that suggested that he was less concerned about maintaining the Rambler’s economy-car image than George Romney. So why wouldn’t Abernethy have had the American engineered to fit a V8 from the outset? He apparently had time to upsize the 1964 models over what Romney had wanted.
Whatever the reason, waiting until 1966 to give the American a V8 strikes me as a mistake even if Abernethy had still gone with the Marlin over the Tarpon.
Completely agree with your assessment, Steve. Abernathy must have snubbed the Tarpon because it was too small for his tastes, so instead of a competitor to the Mustang, AMC built a Charger a year before Dodge. At least Dodge knew where to go with the 2nd gen Charger and make it a success.
Let’s face it: After George Romney left, A.M.C. was rudderless in terms of visionary leadership. Abernathy inherited two great platforms: The brilliant 1963 Classic and the derivative 1964 American, with modern thin-wall casting O.H.V. sixes and V-8s that were less than ten-years-old. The 1965 and later Ambassadors were decent cars, but they were not comparable to Buicks, Oldsmobiles or Pontiacs. Competing with the Big Three with a full-car line was not a sound strategic plan for a company with limited means. A 250-cu.-in. V-8 reinforced American 440-H and a 287-cu.in. V-8 Classic 770-H should have been good sellers, properly optioned and marketed, but they weren’t.
In hindsight, I think that there is some potential for Abernathy to have been caught between a rock and a hard place. He surely saw how Detroit was as quick to abandon compact cars as they were to adopt them. By 1966, even the lowly Falcon was really out of the compact class. Valiant and Chevy II had also grown and would become even bigger in 1967 and 1968 respectively. As sales of US compacts slowed going further into the 1960s, Abernathy was not necessarily wrong to believe that AMC should catch up with Detroit by offering a broader, bigger range of cars that were closer to what Chrysler, Ford and GM were selling at the time. He was, however, not seeing the direction that I think AMC should have been driven towards.
What Abernathy likely wasn’t able to anticipate was how quickly the market was going to shift from compacts to mid-size cars. The biggest jump was in MY 1964 when GM abandoned 3 compact car lines, turning the F-85/Cutlass, Tempest/LeMans and Special/Skylark into intermediates. Mercury also began to shift its compact Comet upmarket in MY 1964 by introducing the Caliente and Cyclone luxury and performance models. AMC would have had their designs for the 1965-66 Classic and Ambassador locked in, therefore, it was too late to make them larger (yet not too late to spend money creating the too-niched Marlin).
Ford switched the Falcon/Comet over to their mid-size platform for the 1966 models and Mercury moved Comet up to the mid-size class. The Comet 202 became Mercury’s base ‘compact’ albeit on a 116 inch wheelbase. The marketing money was, however, spent promoting the 7″ longer “Big New Comet” models, Caliente, Capri, Cyclone and Cyclone GT (203″ vs 195.6″ in 1966). Mercury took things further in 1967 when all but the 202 were marketed as Mercurys, not Comets.
Intermediates were THE hot segment of the decade and initially, AMC was initially lacking cars as big and stylish as some of the competition. Even the scaled up 1965-66 Ambassador (on a 116″ wheelbase) was too small. A 1965 Olds F-85, for example, on a 1″ shorter wheelbase was nearly 4 inches longer but because the Ambassador was so square in appearance, it looked much shorter. AMC needed styling that was much better than that of the 1963-66 Classic/Ambassador. The 1967 Ambassador and newly-branded Rebel were steps in the right direction but a dubious 1970 facelift and Abernathy’s stretching of the Ambassador ahead of the firewall to make it appear as big or bigger than a Caprice/LTD, was not that step.
Instead, this is what I think Abernathy might have done…
Given AMC’s much smaller size, resources and market, the Mercury strategy mentioned above might have worked well for them. As I suggested in a previous comment on this post, sedans and wagons could have been branded Ambassadors, starting in MY 1967, with coupes (no convertibles, that was a waste of money for AMC) marketed under another cooler, hipper sounding name. A Rebel-branded version of the coupe could have been offered as AMC’s muscle car, akin to the Mercury Cyclone, et al, instead of the tepid Classic 770-H. This cancels out the Marlin and paves the way for the Tarpon, which could then eventually have become the all-new 1968 Javelin.
The enormous profit potential in the mid-size segment was evidenced by its growth throughout the 1960s. For instance, looking at how GM successfully marketed the same cars on 116 inch sedan/wagon wheelbases and 112 inch coupe/convertible wheelbases starting in MY 1968, could AMC have not done the same thing? Another possible path is illustrated by Ford’s creation of the Torino sub-brand in the Fairlane series of 1968. Torino gave mid-size buyers an affordable, aspirational car in the mid-size class. Eventually, the Torino was morphed into a baroque personal luxury coupe, the Gran Torino Elite of 1975. A similar plan at AMC could have resulted in their own profit-generating PLC at that time, instead of the money-losing ’74 Matador coupe.
By pairing down to just the Ambassador and American, I think that Abernathy would have saved the company considerable amounts of money during his tenure, allowing it to focus resources on engineering and quality improvements for the future. Abernathy wasn’t necessarily wrong in wanting AMC products to get bigger as that was definitely the trend throughout the US car industry during the 60s. What he didn’t seem to recognize was that for a company of AMCs size and limited finances, competing with Caprice/LTD was going too far up the size ladder; growth needed to stop at the mid-size rung.
AMC’s later success with the Hornet and and the many iterations of vehicles that were subsequently produced based on it, shows us that the company was able to be both flexible and profitable using a single platform. Unfortunately, as we have read here on Indie Auto so often, money diverted into failures like the bloated Ambassador, Pacer and ’74 Matador coupe prevented AMC from creating modern, versatile platforms to aid the company in becoming the successful niche player it needed to be in order to properly transition from the 70s to the 80s.
Of course, hindsight is what drives us to imagine these scenarios where we look for alternative paths that might have corrected the blunders of history. Abernathy doubtless needed to satisfy his own ego-ist vision of what he wanted AMC to be, vs Romney’s, but he was not alone in this. Even mighty GM was toppled by its failure to curb management errors and excesses, increase efficiencies and eliminate redundancies. The only lesson that doesn’t seem to have been learned by American car companies is that ego should not be the driving force behind what makes a car company good or great. Twenty-five to thirty years from now, history will inform us which American vehicle companies survived allowing us to speculate on what those companies should have done differently in 2022.
For what it’s worth, I read an article several decades ago that stated the model name Rebel hurt sales. It seems AMC’s somewhat elderly customer base wasn’t interested in owning a car with that name.
That’s really interesting. Let me know if you remember (even vaguely) where you read that because I’d like to track down more information on the topic.