Oh, no. Not another Rambler Marlin.
I know I don't need to further lament my feelings toward these funky—and not in a good way—cars American Motors came out with in 1965. This one popped up on Hagerty's auction site, and after cruising through the photos, I found something unique, different and interesting about it that makes writing another blog about these wretched cars worthwhile.
First, we review...
American Motors came out with the Marlin in 1965 as an answer, of sorts, to the Ford Mustang and Plymouth Barracuda, both of which had debuted in 1964. Fun fact: the Barracuda beat the Mustang to market, debuting on April 1, while the Mustang arrived on April 17.
The biggest difference between the Ford Mustang, Plymouth Barracuda and the Marlin was that, unlike Ford and Plymouth, which essentially based their new sporty cars on existing compact-car platforms, AMC President Roy Abernethy insisted that the Marlin seat six passengers. That meant designers and engineers were forced to use the larger Rambler Classic platform rather than the smaller Rambler American.
To give rear-seat passengers adequate headroom, designers raised the rear portion of the roofline so they wouldn't have to sit back there with their necks bent forward.
The rest is history.
What makes this '65 Marlin blog-worthy, though, is its "Twin-Stick" floor-shift, three-speed manual transmission with overdrive.
As the name implies, the Twin-Stick has two shift levers. The lever on the left operates the three-speed manual transmission, while the lever on the right controls the overdrive.
The clever part is that the overdrive can be used with both second and third gears. That gives the driver five forward ratios: first, second, second-overdrive, third and third-overdrive. So, in theory at least, this is a five-speed manual transmission—although not in the conventional sense.
There was also an electric kickdown switch on top of the main shift lever. Hit it, and the car could instantly drop out of overdrive without the driver having to depress the clutch. That was handy when accelerating or passing.
If this sounds like a ton of work for the driver, well, yeah, it was. Even in a day and age when many cars came with manual transmissions, the Twin-Stick required a little more thought and coordination than a conventional three-speed.
Chevrolet offered a somewhat similar setup on Corvettes from 1984 through 1988. The Doug Nash 4+3 was a four-speed manual transmission with an electronically controlled overdrive that operated on second, third and fourth gears. It was clever in theory, but the system developed a reputation for being troublesome. Chevrolet replaced it in 1989 with a conventional ZF six-speed manual.
While similar-looking, the "Lightning Rod" shifters Oldsmobile sold on the 1983 and 1984 Hurst/Olds Cutlass models had nothing in common with the AMC Twin-Stick. The Hurst Lightning Rods controlled a four-speed automatic transmission and allowed drivers to manually control the upshifts. Or not.
American Motors offered the Twin-Stick across much of its lineup from 1963 through 1965, but apparently there weren't enough buyers willing to embrace the idea. AMC dropped it for 1966 and made a conventional Borg-Warner T-10 four-speed available instead.
AMC redesigned the Marlin for 1967, moving it onto the larger Ambassador platform. The longer front end made the fastback's proportions look considerably more balanced, but it didn't help sales much. AMC sold only 2,545 Marlins in 1967, and the company dropped the nameplate.
Crawling From The Wreckage: 1965 Rambler Marlin - BOGO
Crawling From The Wreckage: 1965 Rambler Marlin - Raise The Roof
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