The 1971 small comparison starts here with the winner, the 1971 Vega (but also a GM Deadly Sin)
Was a car ever born with the odds so stacked against it? Its name is defined as “a small gnome held to be responsible for malfunction of equipment”. Its design was penned on an air-sickness bag during a (bumpy?) flight. It carries almost 60% of its weight over the front wheels despite being RWD. Its steering has six turns lock to lock. And it looks exactly like what it is: a perfectly normal-looking sedan that had its rear end amputated by a cleaver. The Gremlin would have had to create a pretty major malfunction in my PC (and C/D’s typewriters) for it not to end dead last.
The little gnome was born out of desperate expediency. AMC knew that GM and Ford had all-new small cars (Vega and Pinto) due in 1971. There was no way they could afford one themselves.
But their new Hornet (top, in photo above) compact sedan was due to arrive in 1970. Necessity being the mother of malfunction, AMC chief designer Dick Teague penned a solution in the oxygen-thin air of an airliner. Shorten the Hornet’s wheelbase from 108” to 96”, and cut everything off behind the rear wheels in a dramatic Kammback. The result looks so nose heavy, that you are advised not to casually plop yourself on the front half of the hood, lest the whole car tip up.
At least AMC’s sense of humor was intact: the Gremlin was introduced on April Fool’s Day 1970, six months ahead of the upcoming Pinto and Vega. AMC explained the name with a vain attempt to re-write Webster’s: “a pal to its friends and an ogre to its enemies”.
An ogre to anyone other than the front seat passengers too. In a bow to reality (and cost cutting), the back seat is optional; seriously. The base Gremlin comes with a front bench seat only, and not a comfortable one at that. And that optional back seat is strictly for children. It does fold down to increase the otherwise tiny cargo space, which is accessible from the outside only if you order the optional fold-up hatch window. The desire to have a base list price ($1879) competitive with the VW involved some serious compromises: the Gremlin effectively was a two-seater station wagon (with the optional hatch). Or an update on the “business coupe”,without the business.
Well, the Gremlin certainly offset its cramped back end with the front end. Under that long nose sits AMC’s 232 cubic inch (3.8 liter) inline six. It’s a solid and reliable performer, and brings torque and power levels unheard of to the small car arena. As per C/D: “compared to the others, the Gremlin feels like a fuel-burning Hemi on the dragstrip, almost a full second and 4 mph faster then…the second quickest car”. Well, everything is highly relative, if a 0-60 time of 10.5 seconds and the quarter mile in 17.8 sec. @78 mph feels like a Hemi. But then we’re comparing it to some cars with less than one-third the engine size. C/D’s observed consumption of 19.3 mpg results in the pregnant question “what kind of economy car is this?”
At least with all that torque, shifting is as optional as the back seat. Good thing, what with the Gremlin’s three-speed stick being unsynchronized in low gear, and balky in the other two. The bigger problem is putting all that power to the road, with that lightly loaded rear end. Not recommended for snow-country folks. But it comes highly recommended for lovers of burning rubber, especially with the V8 that became optional in 1972.
One of my favorite car movie scenes from that era is from Robert Altman’s 1971 release “Brewster McCloud”. Sally Kellerman drives a candy-apple red Gremlin shod with Cragar S/S’s that just can’t seem to stop its rear wheels from going up in smoke, while successfully eluding, and eventually causing the demise of a beautiful new 1970.5 LT-1 powered Camaro Z-28. Gremlin strike!
With its “incredibly heavy clutch” and super-slow unassisted steering (6.25 turns lock-to-lock), the Gremlin is utterly devoid of the typical small car nimble feeling. “Its handling is ponderous, and in braking, the weight transfers to the front wheels to such a degree that the rears lock up and the car yaws sideways”.
The Gremlin does have one virtue: it will cruise effortlessly at 70 mph on the freeway with good directional stability. Just don’t try to change direction or stop suddenly. But as we well know, Americans like to cruise their freeways at seventy. And as we’ll find out too, a number of the competing small cars of 1971 don’t.
That probably explains why the Gremlin sold reasonably well enough, in AMC’s scale of things anyway. 671k of the little gnomes/pals went out the door at Kenosha until 1978, and in 1979 it reappeared with some new sheet metal and a new name: the AMC Spirit. But it was still an ogre to anyone trying to sit in the back, or enjoy driving from the front.
[this is actually a '74. Should I ever run into a genuine 1971, I'll update the pictures]
See related Automotive History article here
Neighbors down the state hwy had one (they were vauguely related to my father’s side of the family. Never actually saw it run (being born in 1977) but it was aways under a tarp sitting in their concrete driveway. It was a V8 model and my father claimed the patriach of the family had managed to make the little bugger do a 360 spin during a NW Ohio ice storm because he got a little too agressive on the throttle from a stop sign. (No limited slip + V8 torque + ice = spin city.)
I almost choked when I saw this! We owned a 1976 model, same color, but our interior was all (torn) vinyl. Boy, this brings back memories! Another solid CC, Paul. I remember wanting one of these for the sheer uniqueness of it back in 1970, when in the USAF. My buddies thought I was crazy, and a month or so later, I bought the 1964 Impala SS convertible I used to use as an avatar. The one we had was bought in November 1977, a couple of months after I married, and at the time I owned a tank of a ¾-ton Chevy truck purchased new two years before, and it was killing me on gas. I sold it exactly two years to the day I bought it and found the Gremlin we bought in the neighborhood. We had our fun with that, some of which I shared in an earlier post, but we really did enjoy that car, FWIW.
Exactly this comparison series is what originally hooked me up to CCs. This one transported me to a time before I was born when these ludicrous oddballs were actually possible and someone actually bought them.
I would love to see similar comparisons if at all possible. Competition in various eras in various market segments, mid, full size …
I’ve been wanting to do so too for some time, and I will. I just need to put the article and cars together, and am almost there.
I had never really realized just how weird-looking these things are. In their time, they were just hatchbacks, and the disproportionate nose didn’t stand out the way it does now. I’ve not seen one in real life for years.
(both the “business coupe” and the “AMC Spirit” links come back as a 403, and the AMC page seems to be completely abandoned and non-functional)
That’s the problem with linking to other sites; they disappear or go stale. I will upload all future link pictures into the media library, and will fix these. Thanks for the heads up. And I will put in a picture of the Hornet in this piece, to show the Gremlin’s donor car.
I’d like to have a Gremlin X with the 304 V-8.
Marc: your avatar – are you kidding me? “Bob” Dobbs? Ask Paul about that! Too funny! Congratulations on having the second best avatar after Educator Dan’s on TTAC! I’d like to have another Gremlin, too.
A long dead friend told me about the Church of the Subgenius.
I’d rather have it with a 401!
I wonder how a Gremlin would take to a 4.0 liter injected six out of a XJ Cherokee or a TJ Wrangler.
That motor is essentially an evolution of the old AMC 258 ci unit that made its home in the Gremlin. Would be interesting (and probably entertaining with a 5-speed manual gearbox out of a Cherokee/Wrangler – 190 horsepower in such a short wheelbase could be madness).
That’s a popular swap. Saw an 1960s Rambler convertible that had the engine and trans from a 2wd Cherokee swapped in. Fit like a 350V8 under the hood of an old Jaguar.
Sorta fell in love with the look of the Gremlin back when I was a video game freak. The game Vigilante 8 had a ’76 Leprechaun in brown with bright yellow stripes and because it was small and relatively quick, it was hard for the heat-seeking missiles to hit.
Great Curbside Classic, Paul. See any Corvairs in those parts? Would make an excellent feature!
What I wonder is, who in their right minds bought this back then as an economy car? I mean, it’s got a 3.8 litre straight six, and 19 mpg. Isn’t the whole raidon d’être with economy cars their ability to be, you know, economic? I really don’t get this, and I don’t understand the demographic. As a second car I understand, grocery commuter, but as an economy alternative?
I’ll give a shot at it: Gas was at an almost historic (inflation adjusted) low in 1971-1972. For Americans,”economy” was really much more about being cheap to buy, and hopefully cheap to maintain The Gremlin actually scored fairly well in that regard. It cost the same as a VW Beetle, and was made of the most common components. For Americans adverse to imports, of which many still were, this was a somehow strangely pragmatic decision.
Most likely, it was for a single person, or as a second car, to provide the necessary minimum personal transportation so necessary in the US.
It’s not the choice I would have made, but I hope this helps a bit. I know from a European perspective the Gremlin is about as bizarre a car as it gets. But…
At the time, a typical big car got about 12-14 mpg.
Spot on, Paul. The vast majority of the people I knew that had Gremmys were single women. Or as a second car. Even though I knew they could be pretty hairy to drive, I’d still like to have one of the 72′s with the 304. It could only have been slightly more twitchy than my 5.0L Mercury Capri…
The large barges were much worse for mpg. My 1964 Chevy Impala SS convertible with a 283 2bbl powerglide, PS, BB got 16 mpg to and from base and around town. That included 35-40 mile runs to and from Sacramento and running around in the country on Sundays. A friend borrowed it for the weekend for a trip to the Bay Area with his wife and he reported 19.5 mpg. So, yeah, 19-20 mpg was an improvement. Gas out there was 24 – 25.9 for regular. It jumped to 31.9 in March, 1973 and never looked back. SIGH…Did I say that I loved the ’76 Gremlin I owned? Yeah, I did!
Oh crap, no edit function. I forgot, when my German cousins came to the US for an extended honeymoon in the late 1970′s, he bought an early Gremlin to tour the country in. He claimed that the AMC’s were the best handling cars in the US. (He drove a Volvo 144 back home in Germany at that time.) Long story short, he drove the thing all over the US, never a problem with the car. Sold it for about what he bought it for.
The comment editor was there the other day, but it seems to have slipped out again. Let me lift the hood…
BMW must have had the Gremlin’s afterbirth like emergence from the Hornet in mind when they made the 1-series out of the E46. They kept all the mass(and then some) and mechanicals while they sucked out the interior space and ruined the looks. Fortunately, I see about as many 135i and 128i BMWs on the road as I do Gremlins.
Gremmies had a face only a mother could love!
And myself of course, it’s required to be an AMC fan!
I always liked the Eagle Kammback version personally. Unusual looks and 4WD. Too bad they’re so dang rare..
I owned an orange ’76 Gremlin and that first paragraph made me laugh out loud. What a bizarre vehicle…
Amazing article about an amazing car, Mr. Neidermeyer. Makes wonder about so many things about the car, though.
Why the long overhang? The car is RWD. Did they intentionally put the engine ahead of the front axle? For what reason? Plus the heavy clutch, awful 3 speed tranny, super slow steering, and the styling… Almost like they were trying (hard) to win a worst possible car ever competition. Who designed/engineered these things? Who approved it for production? Were they sane? If so, what kind of drugs did they take? What kind of world did they live in? How did they get into their respective position? Truly a car that boggles the mind.
It’s hard to appreciate things out of context. These made more sense at the time than they appear to with 40 years of hindsight.
This car, and the later Pacer which was basically the same idea, were a good choice for a certain kind of buyer. Yes, they were economy cars. 19.5 is better than my 2006 Suburban gets now, and it was much better than the 8-12 that was typical for a full-sized American car in the late 60s.
Why this, instead of say a Pinto or Vega? Because those were genuinely small cars, no just short cars. Gremlins are much roomier in the front because they’re a compact-class (using the definitions from back then) instead of a subcompact. If you’re a large person, especially in girth, these are easier to deal with. They get better mileage than the equivalent compact because they shed a fair amount of weight. If you don’t need a trunk why pay to haul one around?
Why were they “designed” this way? They weren’t. As our host pointed out, they were a cheapo re-use of the compact (and very unappreciated) Hornet platform. AMC could afford to do this. They couldn’t afford to do a Vega or Pinto. Fundamentally, these are stronger cars than either of those, as underneath they are pretty standard Detroit fare, rather than a take on the euro way of doing things.
I’d rather have a Hornet, but I always sort of wanted one of these with a 401, for hooning.
The coolest part of the Gremlin was the little gremlin picture on the back… what year did they remove it?
The Gremlin in the picture is not a 1974 its a 1976. Hope this info helps!
I concur, it’s later model. Gremlins were huge sellers in ’74, but by 1976 people “got used to” 50-60 cent gas, [yeah i know], and GM/Ford came back swinging. Not to mention a new Honda called Accord.
And to youngins, ‘economy car’ back when gas was ‘affordable’ meant low purchase price, insurance, and maintenance costs.
We bought the comelier but no more comfortable version of this, a 1981 AMC Spirit, in 1984 when I was 8. The Spirit at least looked much better than the Gremlin, but . . . there wasn’t a whole lot of room to take out of a Hornet, and all the useful space had been taken out. My parents must have thought because it was small, it would be economical, right? That’s how small cars are! Nope, it was heavy, and cramped, and generally a miserable car. Nicely put together but not a nice car from what I distantly remember.
WHOA! Memories abounding here. . .
I had a 1974 when I was in the Air Force, and that car took me all over the western United States. That in-line six cylinder and three-speed manual transmission lasted and lasted and lasted.
I remember putting some “baby moons” sans the hub covers on the car along with some blackwall Michelins, a conservative strip package and the precursor to what is known today as “window tinting” and the little car actually looked pretty cool. It was a tan/beige same as the one in the pictures featured in this article.
The backseat was useless except as a light storage area. Most of the time, I left the seat folded down.
I remember really liking the car at the time. Had no idea what I was missing, if anything. Of course now, with today’s cars and luxuries, I’m sure the car seems primitive and a mistake in design.
But back then. . . great little car.
–AOA
I’ve owned maybe a hundred cars or more and my 75 Gremlin was the best. Paid 50 bucks in 1995 for it and 50 bucks for the teenaged mother of 3 who owned it to drive it over to my friend’s house. 232 and 3 on the floor. Actually there was no floor. But that sumgun ran like a top till I had to move and I can never pay off the karmic debt of driving that poor beautiful running soldier to the crusher. And it was purple. Mostly. Truly a thing of beauty.