Rambler Marlin Sports Fastback

Let's move the story along a little. I've attacked the suspension sag and cured it, this time pretty well I think. I drilled out the rivets, replaced the broken plastic suspension with wire and re-assembled the model using dummy rivets. Finally using my new mini-studio to photograph the rebuilt car, all in a Bank Holiday afternoon. Story below:

	Here we have the interior plastics and you can see the suspension lugs broken away at the rear, the front ones went the same way soon afterwards. The car was really dirty inside and looks a lot better now it has been thoroughly cleaned. The cream coloured plastic interior moulding has a separate piece in front of the firewall which has springs to hold the doors closed. Unsurprisingly one of these is broken away too, which explains why one door does not close that well.
	Just the body, window unit & doors
	This is the seat unit, look how dirty it was when it came out. Both seat backs are still present, which is good, but the separate piece at the front has only one of the door springs remaining. I did not replace this piece. I washed the seat unit using water and plain soap, which worked well. I was really impressed with the standard of the interior detail, the only way you can see this is to take it out, but it is very good.
	Here is a shot of the seat unit once cleaned, I wanted to capture the detail, partially successful I think.
	All the components laid out before reassembly
	My plan was to replace the broken plastic suspension pieces with wires. These are wires from Steve Flowers cut to size. However to trap these between the brightwork unit and the seat unit I would have to make some space. I planned to do this using the cutting disc in the Dremel. There are two lugs on the brightwork which locate into the front seats, these would need a groove to be cut in them to accept the wires.
	Here the seat unit has been placed over the brightwork unit - it does not sit comfortably with the wires in place, Slots will have to be cut into the seat unit as well to take the wires.
	This is the brightwork unit with the grooves cut into the seat location lugs with a wire placed in one of them.
	Same shot from above
	Here begins reassembly. The body unit has been cleaned as have the windows. I've also done the hardest bit. I plan to use dummy rivets so I have drilled a 2mm hole in each of the old rivet posts. This was unspeakably hard to do. I also made the dummy rivets fit at this stage. I used rivets from Steve Flowers that appear to be cast in a two piece mould which leaves excess metal or flash behind. This has to be cleaned away before they can be used. As they are tiny this was hard. I tried to hold them in pliers but in the end I had to hold them between finger and thumb while grinding away the excess metal with the Dremel. These items are about 3mm long so this was really very hard indeed and they got hot. I broke three of them either in the process of grinding them or testing them in the holes. One broke off in the hole and had to be drilled out.. Reassembly is almost complete. You can see the wires in place. This part took a long time to get right. The suspension wires were running nicely through the slots I had made and the parts going back together nicely, but they were not sitting right to get the car at the right height. In the end I superglued the broken off plastic suspension bits to the bottom of the seat unit to space them. Significant fiddly bit this.
	Now the base plate is back on and the rivets in place. The car is sitting up at the right height once again


	When I was putting together my own database of Corgis I researched and found pictures of all the original vehicles and this one is a startling looking car in the actual metal, the model just does not convey how odd it looks, here it just looks like another mid-sixties US coupe. Go on Google and see for yourself, the Rambler Marlin was not middle of the road - nor was it beautiful! However this was a good Corgi, moving the standards forward as ever, lots of brightwork, excellent detailed interior, clever paint job - BUT one of the ones where they used the plastic bits to power the suspension and got the MGB sag as a result, nevertheless a solid, hardcore Corgi.	CORGI TOYS OPENING DOORS DETAILED SEATS AND INTERIOR TILTING SEAT BACKS PLATED BUMPERS TOWING HOOK SPRING SUSPENSION
The Marlin was added to the Corgi range in 1966 and remained in production until 1969. The core range car was always red with a black roof and black detailing. However you will see it in metallic blue and white. This car was part of a gift set, GS10, where it was given a roof rack with some Kayaks and a version of the Pennyburn Trailer as a camping trailer. Apart from this there are no listed variations. The example in the pictures below had a severe case of suspension sag when I got it, all the plastic springs were broken. There is a picture story below of how I opened up the car and replaced the sorry and saggy springs.