| Racing a Marlin |
| AMC
produced the Marlin in
1965 to "cheat the wind" and the 1966 Dodge Charger
was copied from
this design but neither were very successful on the tracks. |
| Did anyone ever race a Marlin? |
| A
Marlin was raced in the
1966 "24 Hours of Daytona" by the Hess brothers. One
of them was Larry
Hess. These are copies of photos from Larry and Don Hess. Larry told me that the car was basically stock (note antenna) with little more than the seats taken out, a roll bar put in and headers. He even said that the car was later sold at the dealership as a used car. They could not agree on the color of the car: blue or maroon.    Larry Hess in the #44 Ambassador Stock Car Racer  Photo Courtesy of Phil Heitman  Photo Courtesy of Phil Heitman |
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Links
to the 24 hours of Daytona in 1966 http://www.teamdan.com/archive/wsc/1966/66day.html http://wsrp.ic.cz/wsc1966.html
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| Stock Car Racing |
| Another
Marlin was
raced on
the circle track in Pictures of the car can be seen on the Victoria Motorsports Hall of Fame website (see below). http://www.victoriaautoracinghalloffame.com/royhaslam/royhaslam.html |
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| Bill Kraft A/FX Hemi Marlin |
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A Marlin was drag
raced by
Preston Honea and it was known as the Hemi Marlin.
Of course, it had a 426 Hemi
and had a
fiberglass flip-forward front
end.
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From Hemmings Auto
Blogs
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Always wondered why
fastbacks
weren’t more
popular as
altered-wheelbase early funny cars. Look at all that
weight
cantilevered over
the rear axle - should help tremendously with weight
transfer, doncha
think? Then again, you drop a big Hemi in between the front framerails and your weight equation gets thrown all askew. That’s what Preston Honea did with his Marlin, at least, racing it as the Bill Kraft Rambler - a successor to the Kraft Rambler we mentioned (Bill Kraft stuffed an Ambassador V-8, punched out to 418-cu.in., into a 1964 Rambler American, mounted four carbs to a special intake and ran 112 mph at Fontana) here a few months ago. The Marlin Site has scans of a couple old magazine articles featuring the Hemi Marlin, though I don’t see any dates or magazine titles attached to the articles. According to one of the articles, the combination was worth a 10.31-second run at 138 mph its first time out. |
| Preston Honea Racing Pictures from Steve Drucker and Phil Heitman | |
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Steve
Drucker's 66 Marlin
Tribute Car
Thought you guys might get a kick out of my tribute car to |
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| Preston
Honea ran
the Bill
Kraft Marlin from 1965 into mid 1966. In 1965, Honea ran
the car on
alky for
sure and maybe a little nitro, too.
Ran
9's at 138.90 in 1965 and went 9.83 at 135.33 in 1966. The
car had a 327 Rambler small block that was
replaced by a Plymouth Hemi rather quickly. Lefty
Mudersbach also drove the high sitting
car. NASA astronaut Gordon
Cooper was
rumored to have been offered a ride in the first AMC
funny car. Honea left
Southern California for |