Might the Rambler Tarpon have sold better than the Plymouth Barracuda?

1965 Plymouth Barracuda and Rambler Tarpon

(EXPANDED FROM 7/2/2021)

Patrick Foster has questioned whether the 1964 Rambler Tarpon show car would have sold better than the Plymouth Barracuda if it had reached production. His rationale was that neither compact sporty coupe had distinctive styling like the Ford Mustang.

The “Mustang was successful,” Foster (2021) argued, “because it had a gorgeous, unique body with no visual connection to the Falcon” even though it used many of its underlying components.

That argument makes a certain amount of sense — but is too heavily colored by Detroit groupthink. Foster implies that the only road to success was to basically copy Ford’s playbook. Yet the luxury of hindsight suggests that a goodly number of the Mustang’s competitors sold poorly enough that they may had made little, if any, money for their automakers. Why? Because the pony car market went bust with remarkable speed.

1964-73 U.S. pony car production

We car buffs tend to fall in love with stylish cars, so it makes sense that many would assume American Motors needed to come up a direct Mustang competitor. However, what almost always gets lost in the conversation is that AMC was entirely too small to do so.

How small was it? So small that the 1966 Mustang sold more than twice as many cars as the entire American Motors lineup. Think about that for a moment: The Mustang was a niche car only offered in two-door body styles and a few trim packages. In contrast, American Motors fielded two platforms, five nameplates, 11 body styles and — even after some cuts in 1966 — 11 trim series.

If American Motors couldn’t afford to play follow the leader, might it have found at least some success by trying something different? Like a Tarpon without some of the show car’s flaws? Let’s take a closer look.

1965 Ford Mustang rear quarter

1964 Ford Futura
The first Ford Mustang was unusual because it did not share components such as a windshield, doors and floorpan with any other car. That required the Mustang to sell in more significant numbers than the Valiant-based Barracuda.

The Mustang’s newness partly reflected the Falcon’s age

It’s true that the Mustang would have looked much less sporty if had shared any sheetmetal with the Falcon. However, we should note that by 1965 the Falcon had the oldest body in the compact field — and its age was showing.

For example, the Mustang was given curved side glass because the Falcon still had the flat variety. The redesigned 1964 Rambler American beat the Mustang to market with curved glass by six months. The Chevrolet Corvair would follow suit in 1965, but the rest of the compact field would wait two to three years.

Also see ‘Lee Iacocca got lucky with the 1964-66 Ford Mustang’

The most obvious difference between the Mustang and regular compacts was that it had a long hood and short deck. In contrast, the Barracuda and Tarpon had family-car proportions that maximized rear-seat room and trunk space. You could not achieve the Mustang’s proportions without lengthening the wheelbase ahead of the cowl, shortening the deck, and cutting the wheelbase aft of the B-pillar. However, you didn’t have to copy the Mustang to be “successful.”

The dirty little secret of the pony car field was that the Barracuda or Tarpon did not need to sell in stratospheric numbers. Ford was under pressure to maximize Mustang sales in order to recover the costs of a stand-alone body, which may have reached $75 million (Halberstam, 1986). In addition, the Mustang’s early success appears to have been partly due to cannibalizing the sales of other Fords.

1965 Plymouth Barracuda

1964 Rambler Tarpon
Both the Barracuda and Tarpon explored the fishtail look, but the latter was more sharply tapered — and was less versatile in carrying cargo (Old Car Brochures and AMC press photo courtesy Marlin Auto Club).

The Tarpon had advantages over the Barracuda

Production of the first-generation Barracuda peaked at over 64,000 units in 1965 but then fell back to roughly 38,000 for its final year in 1966. Why couldn’t the Tarpon have done as well — if not better?

Keep in mind is that the Rambler brand was still fresh from its success in the early-60s, when it topped Plymouth twice in output. And even after American Motors lost altitude in the late-60s and early-70s, the Javelin mostly outsold the Barracuda. This suggests that Tarpon could have done well if the car that reached production had decent styling and was well-positioned in the market.

The Tarpon would have had two advantages over the first-generation Barracuda. Whereas AMC’s compact platform gained curved side glass in 1964, Chrysler would not take that step until 1967. This gave the original Barracuda a dated look compared to the Tarpon. If the Tarpon had been introduced at the beginning of the 1965 model year — which Foster (2013) said was plausible — that would have given AMC a two-year head start.

Another Barracuda disadvantage was that it shared more sheetmetal with its donor car. Most notably, whereas the Tarpon had unique taillights, the Barracuda used the Valiant’s — and they were not terribly sporty.

1965 Rambler Marlin

1963 Rambler Tarpon concept
The Marlin’s roofline was taller (not good), but it had a gentler curve, a wider backlight and more rounded rear-quarter windows, all of which improved styling (Old Car Brochures and AMC press photo courtesy Marlin Auto Club)?

The Tarpon also major disadvantages

I should preface my comments with the acknowledgement that it is not fair to compare a show car with one that is in production. American Motors designers might very well have fixed some of the problems with the Tarpon itemized below. However, the sporty coupe that did go into production — the mid-sized Marlin — suggests that the Tarpon might have kept most of its stylistic quirks.

Also see ‘1965-66 AMC Marlin: How to fix beginner’s mistakes’

The late AMC designer Bob Nixon criticized the Marlin’s roof because it “went on forever” (Foster, 2014; p. 76). He was right, but it should be added that the Tarpon’s roofline was even worse — and it was based upon the concept car Nixon oversaw (Foster, 2021). The rationale for both cars’ rooflines — which gave them a stretched-toffee look — was to improve rear-seat headroom. However, if that was the overriding goal, then a semi-fastback greenhouse more akin to the Javelin could have worked a whole lot better.

1965 Plymouth Barracuda

1968 Plymouth Barracuda
Both the first- and second-generation Barracuda may have had less rear-seat headroom, but their greenhouses looked much less ponderous than either the Tarpon or Marlin. Pictured is a 1965 and 1968 model (Old Car Brochures).

The Barracuda offers a useful point of comparison. Both the first- and second-generation models had a full fastback and fishtail vaguely similar to the Tarpon, but their rooflines began to arch down toward the deck much more quickly.

In addition, the relatively small size of the 1965-66 Barracuda’s rear-quarter windows and the wraparound backlight gave the car a much less tail-heavy appearance than the Tarpon. Meanwhile, the 1967-69 fastback body style had a lovely tapered quality.

The single weirdest quirk of the Tarpon was the upward zig at the bottom of the rear-quarter windows. This was presumably designed to break up the windows’ excessive visual mass. It really didn’t work, so Marlin quite rightly switched to more rounded rear-quarter windows. They still looked entirely too long but were somewhat less ugly.

1967 Rambler American Rogue
The fundamental problem with the Tarpon — much like the Marlin — was that its styling was considerably weirder than AMC’s conventional two-door hardtops. That included the rather garish 1967 American Rogue (Old Car Brochures).

Market positioning was just as important as styling

One reason why the Barracuda didn’t sell very well could have been because it only came in a high-end model priced above the base Mustang notchback. Although the Plymouth arguably had better engineering, its biggest claim to fame was the added utility of a fold-down rear seat and cargo pass-through to the trunk.

1965 Plymouth Barracuda cargo area
The Barracuda was exceptionally versatile for a sporty coupe of the late-60s. Ironically, Plymouth outflanked the Rambler in what had been one of its greatest strengths, which was the practicality of its cars (Old Car Brochures).

If American Motors had positioned the Tarpon a bit higher than the 1966-67 American’s top-of-line Rogue two-door hardtop, it would have directly competed against the Mustang price-wise. In light of the Rogue’s minuscule sales, it’s hard to see how the Tarpon would have done a whole lot better.

The Tarpon might have found a bigger market if it had been priced lower and at least partly targeted import intenders. This would have also helped to inoculate American Motors against inevitable complaints from the car buff media because a V8 engine would not have been offered in the Tarpon until 1966, when a new-generation engine would fit in the car’s engine bay.

Also see ‘Richard Teague’s styling helped to kill American Motors’

One way to further emphasize the Tarpon’s import-fighter positioning would have been to reduce the car’s wheelbase by around three inches behind the B-pillar and trim the deck by a few more inches. That would have made the Tarpon the shortest car built by a U.S. automaker in the second half of the 1960s.

Conveniently, that would have also given the Tarpon a more long-hood, short-deck look. To offer a vague sense of what I mean, compare the proportions of the Tarpon with the Ford Maverick or Chrysler of Australia’s Valiant Charger coupe.

1970 Maverick

1975 Valiant VK Charger
The 1970 Ford Maverick (top image) was based upon the original Mustang but its wheelbase was reduced to 103 inches. Meanwhile, the Charger used a Valiant front end but sported a shorter, 105-inch wheelbase (Old Car Brochures).

Truth be told, the Tarpon and Marlin were distractions

Historians — professional and armchair — love to dwell on cars that never made it to production. One point that doesn’t get said often enough is that the Tarpon wouldn’t have been worth actually building unless the car looked good. Which it didn’t. The same could be said of the Marlin.

Foster has referred to the Marlin as “the greatest missed opportunity in AMC’s entire history” (2013, p.85). This strikes me as unduly harsh for what was merely an extra body style for an existing car line. The ill-fated 1974 Matador coupe, 1976 Pacer and 1967 mid-sized cars were far more expensive missed opportunities.

1964 Rambler Tarpon
The Tarpon appears to have an even smaller trunk lid than the Marlin. That would have needed to be reshaped in a production model. The rear window was unusually narrow, which was neither stylish nor practical (Wikipedia, 1963).

Even so, the money spent on either the Tarpon or the Marlin could have been more profitably used to update AMC’s standard two-door hardtops. By 1966 the American desperately needed a more modern greenhouse. Imagine an S-shaped semi-fastback with a coke-bottle rear-quarter treatment.

Perhaps even more importantly, imagine that the dowdy two-door sedan was ditched in favor of a pillared coupe that shared the hardtop’s greenhouse. Now add a sporty model with frameless door glass and flip-out rear windows.

1970 Plymouth Duster
The 1970 Duster gave Plymouth a foothold both in the bottom end of the compact market as well as a sporty-looking coupe that could be dressed up almost as much as a first-generation Barracuda (Old Car Brochures).

Under that scenario, the Tarpon could have been a high-end series. It presumably wouldn’t have outsold the Barracuda, but the entire range of American two-door models could have easily done so.

The bottom line is that AMC needed an entry-level, American sporty coupe much more than it needed to put the Tarpon show car into production. We flesh out a scenario in greater detail here.

NOTES:

This story was originally posted on July 2, 2021 and expanded on February 26, 2025. Production figures, prices and specifications are from Gunnell (2002).

Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.


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11 Comments

  1. I had seen this car in Collectible Automobile a number of years ago. It would certainly have needed more development and better proportions to be considered production ready. I mean, that’s how the Marlin made it from Tarpon showcar/prototype to showroom floor reality, right?

  2. I realized after reading this post that I couldn’t recall having read any history of how the first gen Barracuda came to be, so I went to Wikipedia and then to Chromefinsrestoration.com. The influence of the Corvair Monza is noted on Wiki and both sites refer to the pre-production hype surrounding what became the Mustang. Also mentioned was the limited budget available for creating Plymouth’s sporty compact.

    This got me thinking that in view of the time and financial constraints under which the Barracuda was developed, why did Plymouth marketing and advertising not focus on Barracuda as a separate brand/marque? Imagine if it had been marketed as “Barracuda by Plymouth”? Sure, it was a Valiant, but if a Barracuda logo had been added to the grille and rear deck (in ’64 instead of ’66), the Plymouth badging minimized, amber turn signal lenses added to give the tail a distinctive “Euro” styling touch, and any references to the Valiant eliminated, might that not have generated more interest and therefore more sales?

    What I don’t understand is why Detroit has continually spent time and money on niche vehicles only to fail at exploiting the niches and the cars created to fill them. The Barracuda might have had a better chance against the Mustang had it been positioned as a kind of budget American GT instead of a family friendly sporty compact.

    At least the designers got the Barracuda’s fastback roofline right, unlike that of the Tarpon. If you squint, even just a little, the Tarpon looks a lot like a bathtub Nash. No telling where the Tarpon might have evolved from there! Sadly, the Barracuda turned into a needlessly bloated muscle car and any semblance of what might have been in 1964, disappeared along with the nameplate a short decade later.

    • Good points, CJ. I suspect that a big reason why Chrysler management inched so slowly into making the Barracuda’s branding more distinctive was because it didn’t have Ford’s experience with niche vehicles. Up until 1964, Chrysler’s idea of a halo car was the 300 — a family car with a few extra doodads.

      Chrysler also seemed to be more in tune with the street-racing scene rather than the grand-touring crowd (perhaps epitomized by Road & Track readers). The former was viewed as all-American whereas the latter had an exotic, European vibe. As of the mid-60s the only U.S. cars that made much of an effort to appeal to the GT crowd were the Corvette and Corvair. Chrysler never really got on the bandwagon, e.g., the biggest priority of the redesigned 1970 Barracuda was apparently to fit big-block V8s.

    • I agree, CJ. The Valiant badging sucks. I have a ’65 Barracuda and I’m deleting all Valiant badging. I’m replacing the rear window trim with a ’66 Barracuda trim that has the fish on it. The horn button and front turn signals will change too. What I really love about this car is the 7′ space in the back. Plymouth did a fantastic job with this feature.

  3. Once the v8 was available in the Valiant in 64, a Signet was everything the Barracuda was without the fancy roofline. I’ve had a 63 Signet 2 door hardtop for many years, part of the deluxe compact market segment that was started by the Chevy Corvair Monza, followed by the Futura, S-22, Dart GT, etc. Buckets, extra chrome, maybe a console, vinyl,carpeting, full wheel covers. Barracuda was barely an effort on Chrysler’s part as the Signet was already on the market.
    The Tarpon … I can’t make my eyes reconcile that design.
    The tail lights are pure platinum though, it’s single positive feature.
    In profile it looks like it should have two more doors for it to make sense.

  4. BTW: even the brochures for the 64 Barracuda show the name “Valiant” on the rear panel. As well as the red and blue “V” under the rear window just like the ones on the front grille and rear deck of my ’63 Signet [and the Signet hubcaps].
    Chrysler was taking zero chances.
    http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Plymouth/1964%20Plymouth/1964%20Plymouth%20Barracuda/1964%20Plymouth%20Barracuda-02-03.html
    The “V”s still appear on the ’65 below the rear window and steering wheel horn, it’s spinner hubcaps as well as the name “Valiant” on the radio.
    http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Plymouth/1964%20Plymouth/1964%20Plymouth%20Barracuda/1964%20Plymouth%20Barracuda-02-03.html

  5. From certain angles, the Tarpon looks good. The problem is with the profile view.

    I’ve always thought that the 1964-65 Rambler American is a very attractive car – among domestic compacts of that era, only the second-generation Corvair is more handsome. As the article notes, AMC would have been better off updating the roofline of the American two-door hardtop, instead of spending money on either the Marlin or Tarpon.

  6. Here’s a thought. The humped fastback reminded many people, perhaps unconsciously of the fastback first postwar generation cars of Hudson, Nash and Packard. Although production stopped a good decade ago there were plenty on the road until recently. The Tarpon (and Marlin) rear decks look good until you try to put something in the trunk. The Tarpon would need something to liven up the front end. How about the quad headlite look of the IKA Rambler?

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