photoshop by Barry Koch (Barko)
My biggest beef with the Gremlin is that Dr. Dick Teague got a wee bit carried away with his scalpel when he cut away on the back of a Hornet to create his little impish “pal to its friends and an ogre to its enemies” (AMC PR quote). The Hornet’s 108″ wheelbase was carved all the way back to 96″; the result being that the rear seat that truly was impossible for an adult to use. In fact, the rear seat was optional the first year or two.
But what if the wheelbase had been trimmed back to only about 102″? That would have added a whole 6″ to the rear seat leg room, making it more comparable to its sub-compact competitors. It would undoubtedly also have improved weight distribution some too. Objectively, it’s a much better Gremlin? Maybe too much so? Which means it would have had to have a different name, as this one is perhaps no longer an “ogre to its enemies” or back seat passengers.
Since Eric didn’t shoot (or just show) the back seat of the Gremlin he wrote up yesterday, here’s one from another ’77 that I have. Take a good look; that is not a legitimate seat, and that’s not “lumbar support” on the bottom of the backrest; it’s a hump needed to clear the rear axle.
Given the decent sales of the Gremlin, presumably plenty of folks didn’t care all that much. The Gremlin was targeted to younger buyers, although I seem to remember older folks buying them too; either way, not much need to carry adults regularly. But still. Just another 6-8″ more would have made a very significant difference.
And what would it have cost more? Six inches of steel all round, and a wee bit more vinyl on the inside? In my opinion, gremlin sales would have even been higher if it had been a legitimate four seater, and the very small difference in cost more than offset by higher sales.
And a longer Gremlin would still have been just as unique in its styling, if not quite so impertinent. But then maybe that was precisely the appeal?
It looks like AMC was trying to get the Gremlin down to Pinto/Vega size by sacrificing the back seat. Also, don’t forget that the Hornet hatchback was in the pipeline for 1973, and a bigger Gremlin might have been too close for comfort in size.
+1
+2
In retrospect it’s surprising that AMC spent (indeed, had…) the money to give the Gremlin, Hornet hatchback and Hornet Sportabout such distinct rear treatments rather than offering the same for all in short, long 2-door and long 4-door versions.
Your argument is rationality itself. This would have been a much better car. But that stretch just kills the thing’s visual appeal. Something about the short version works, where this one just looks a little off. If the Gremlin sold on its looks (as I believe it did) and not on practicality, the stretch would have killed it.
Or maybe I’m just too used to looking at the original.
+1
The Gremlin appealed to first time buyers or young singles who were not concerned about the backseat leg room. They were more concerned about affordability!!!
There is something odd about the looks, though as JPC noted, it may be that we’re used to looking at the original. Maybe a 3″ stretch, which would at least allow a full-length bottom seat cushion in the rear, and then raise the rear seat to allow for a flat cushion instead of that ungainly hump? Stadium seating, if you will. Of course that would require a taller roofline, and this is starting to sound like a proto-CUV!
If you stretch it, and gain leg room, you’ll still have that “Axle hump” intruding into the back seat so it would be uncomfortable. If you more the seat forward to avoid the hump, you won’t gain any leg room…losing proposition either way.
I have to agree. Because of the way it was styled, I doubt very much that anyone except for small children would’ve fit comfortably in that back seat.
Not sure the “axle hump” theory is correct. There was no hump in the 70-72 back seat (and I’m pretty sure it also had a rear axle . . .). I believe it was added for lower back support.
I’ve always liked the Kammback styling of the AMC Gremlin. I had a neighbour when I was a boy who had one that looked just like this, same colour.
The problem wasn’t just lack of leg room; the seat also sat considerably higher than the front seats. One of my brothers had a new ’70 Gremlin, and I had the (dis)pleasure to ride in the back seat from Kenosha to Beloit- about 70 miles each way. I’m not a big guy, but the only way to make that trip semi-bearable was to ride side-saddle.
I still bear the emotional scars.
Kenosha-Bradford alum of the ’70s here. The school was downtown, about midway between the two AMC plants. Don’t recall how many classmates drove Gremlins, more than 1 for sure. With the open lunch hour, we often piled into whomever’s car was available & had space, and went off-campus somewhere. I rode in the back of a Grem at least once. No, it was not a good experience. My recollection is, it was all-but impossible to ride in a normal posture. And I was not big either. I did drive one once. The manual steering was about as heavy as that of a Hornet, which the word ‘Armstrong’ was invented for. Also had a Nova with Armstrong steering but somehow it was nowhere near as stiff as a Hornet’s.
You did not improve weight distribution. You made it worse.
john, with this comment of yours, you have just proven what many of us have repeatedly noticed: you’re lacking in the basic logic and knowledge to comment here. It happens over and over….
Don’t you see that by lengthening the wheelbase, the inherent front end weight bias of the Gremlin will be improved? The longer the wheelbase is stretched, the more the weight will be carried equally. Imagine this Gremlin with a 50′ wheelbase. Do you think that the engine in the front at that point makes anything but the slightest difference in what the wheels will be carrying proportionately?
Or think about making the wheelbase shorter. That will mean that the rear axle has even less weight to carry, and thus the weight bias will be even worse. It’s logic 101: the longer the wheelbase, the more the weight will tend to be more evenly distributed.
Think about that for a while…if you can.
Paul I don’t get your point. Maybe I didn’t understand something in your arguments, but what John says is not wrong, from a static (not dynamic) point of view.
Considering that weight and center of gravity (CoG) would remain equal (only 2 passengers and neglecting the weight of the rear axle), moving the rear wheels to the back means a longer arm from CoG, i.e., less weight for that axle. The more you move the axle forward to the CoG, the more weight it has to carry (right to 100% when directly below CoG).
The (static) problem of the bad weight distribution of a car like the Gremlin is perhaps not the position of the wheels, but the position of the CoG. A heavy front engine and a (at least percieved) light rear brings the CoG forward. That can be solved by moving the front wheels forward (or the engine backwards), or moving more weight to the rear (e.g. moving the battery or other items).
But in no case you can increase the weight force on the rear wheels by moving them backwards (considering equal weight and CoG), besides the weight you are moving by moving the axle itself. Was that what you meant?
Now, from the dynamic point of view, things may become different, since it’s not only about weight and CoG, it’s also about weight distribution (or, better said, moment of inertia), and there, a longer wheelbase is always better!
The problem is that you assumes that weight won’t increase with a change in wheelbase. But that’s not the case, if the whole vehicle is extended, as in the proposal for the Gremlin.
If you extend the wheelbase, you increase the total weight of the vehicle. That additional weight is all between the wheels. The longer you extend it, the more relative weight the rear wheels carry.
Let’s say hypothetically that the stock Gremlin carries 2000 lbs on the front wheels and 1000 on the rear (yes, this is just hypothetical, although the ratio is not far from reality). This results in a 66/33% F/R weight ratio.
If we extend the wheelbase by say 20″, or whatever is going to add an additional 1000 lbs, then the axles will be carrying 2500 and 1500 lbs, or 62.5%/37.5% F/R distribution. In reality, since the Gremlin’s roof is more over the rear than the front, more of that additional weight would be towards the rear, but we can leave that out for this exercise.
If we add 40″ to the wheelbase, the car now carries 3000/2000 lbs F/R, or 60%/40%. The more we add to the wheelbase, the more the additional weight being carried equally by both axles offsets to some extent the original distribution.
So yes, adding 6″ will only improve the weight distribution very slightly, but my point is this: whenever a car carries unequal weight F/R, lengthening the wheelbase will improve the distribution ratio, and shortening it will make it worse.
It explains why VW buses that had radically shortened wheelbases could pop wheelies. Good luck trying that with a stock VW bus. 🙂
Agree. I didn’t notice that the whole body was lengthened at a first look. My fault. In your reply to john, you only mention the lengthened wheelbase, not the lenghtened body, and that confused me.
Regarding the vw buses (as well as gremlins), it’s all about equilibrium of forces and moments!
I was referring to the altered image, which clearly has a longer body as a result of the longer wheelbase. But yes, just changing the wheelbase and not the body is a different issue altogether. In fact, it would have the opposite effect: increasing the front end weight bias.
I’m sorry if I came off a bit snippy with john, but he has a long habit of disagreeing without any rationale, among other of his commenting etiquette shortcomings. It’s getting a bit old….
“It explains why VW buses that had radically shortened wheelbases could pop wheelies. Good luck trying that with a stock VW bus.”
Popping wheelies is a function of polar moment of inertia about the rear axle, and vertical moment arm from the rear tire contact patch to CG as well as the horizontal moment arm. The vertical moment arm become important when you consider inertia of the vehicle.
Paul you are the one here on this thread exhibiting the poorest posting etiquette, not to mention professional etiquette seeing how you are running this place and are in a position of authority. You of all people should be above this sort of thing and when a person in a position of authority behaves as you have on this thread it is considered abuse of authority.
Now, lets get back to your wheelbase dissertation shall we? You are not fully understanding the situation, Paul. This is a reoccurring problem with you whenever the discussion turns to something that requires knowledge of physics or advanced technical knowledge. Ok, back to your dissertation Paul, and my critique of it.
Imagine a hypothetical car with the engine and transmission missing. Lets pretend the engineless body of the car is constructed so that exactly 50% of the weight is on the front wheels and 50% of the weight is on the rear wheels. Doing so will make it easier for you to grasp, trust me on this. Now lets put the engine/tranny in the car. Now lets imagine the addition of the engine/tranny weight skews the weight distribution to being two thirds on the front wheels. I will let you figure out the fraction on the rear wheels; I think you can handle that. Now lets take the engine/tranny out again. We are back to 50-50 again. Now lets increase the length of the body/wheelbase. The body is still 50-50 front/rear. Now put the engine&tranny back in. Guess what Paul? You just made the front/rear weight distribution worse because the engine/tranny is further from the rear wheels.
Now let me explain something else to you Paul. You have behaved as a bully and you should be ashamed of yourself. Poor GonzoT knew your post was complete nonsense when you attempted to bully me, but you then bullied him so badly he decided it just isn’t worth talking about anymore and for expediency he let you think you were right.
Here is where you went wrong Paul…increasing the length of the car’s wheelbase increases the weight on BOTH front and rear axles…not just the rear axles.
Here’s another thing you did not realize, Paul. A VW bus is not a good example to use in this discussion because the engine weight is actually not between the front and rear axles. It is behind the rear axle so removing the engine will actually increase the weight on the front axle. Obviously, for the extremely odd case of the VW bus, lengthening the wheelbase will improve weight distribution, but this is not a typically constructed vehicle. You missed that little tidbit, I know, it could happen to anyone.
I hope I have helped you to better understand things now.
??? John, that is just silly. Go play with a lever.
john: I got bad news for you. Your argument doesn’t work, period. It’s flat out wrong.
So instead of turning this into a pissing match, I’ve spent the time to make a drawing, which will hopefully enlighten you. Please look at it closely and follow along:
In the top drawing, the “body” has a wheelbase of 10′, and weighs 3000 lbs. We now add 800 lbs in the front for engine, transmission and other underhood ancillaries. (obviously, these are just rough numbers for demonstration purposes only). And we add 200 lbs to the rear for the rear axle.
The total weight is now 4000 lbs. The body is distributed 50/50, which means 1500 lbs on each axle. Then we add the 800 to the front and the 200 to the back. That makes 2300 lbs on the front wheels (58%), and 1700 lbs on rear wheels, or 42%.
In the second drawing, we lengthened the body by 50%, to 15 feet of wheelbase. The body wight goes up the same proportional amount (50%), to 4500 lbs. Now there are 2250 lbs of body on each axle. Then add back the 800 for the front engine and 200 for the rear axle. That adds up to 3050 lbs on the front wheels (55%) and 2450 lbs on the rear wheels (45%).
In the third drawing, we’ve shortened the wheel base to 5′, which reduces the body weight to 1500 lbs, or 750 lbs per axle. Add in the front engine weight and the rear axle weight, and we now have 1550 lbs on the front wheels, 62%, and 950 lbs on the rear wheels, or 38%.
You could alter the body length in either direction, and the same effect will continue to occur. As the body is lengthened, its increased weight on both axles has the effect of diminishing the relative difference of the two different non-body axle loads (800 and 200 lbs). Likewise, if you shorten the wheelbase and body, the body gets lighter, and has the effect of exaggerating the difference of the other axle loads (800 and 200).
Please take the time and read my comment carefully, and look at the drawings. if you still don’t get it, I won’t be surprised, based on your past pattern of being very stubborn. But I challenge anyone here to prove me wrong.
PS: I admit that the issue with a very short bus pulling wheelies is in part polar inertia, but that’s not the whole story. It’s still the effective weight distribution that substantially contributes to this effect. It’s a combination of factors. But let’s leave out the wheelie-popping for this discussion, as that can really make the physics more complicated. What is true is that a shortened VW bus will have a more exaggerated weight distribution to the rear, because of the rear engine, just like the shortened Hornet (Gremlin) has a more exaggerated front weight distribution because its wheelbase was shortened.
Obviously, the specific numbers in my examples assume that the body weight will increase or decrease in direct proportion to it being extended or shortened. In the real world, it may not be exactly that, but the basic principle still applies. A longer wheelbase car will have a relative lower weight distribution imbalance than a shorter one, assuming that the axle loading is different due to a front or rear engine. Obviously, if the car has 50/50 weight distribution to start with, changing the length of the body/wheelbase will have no effect on that distribution.
Got it now??
Paul is correct, and Engineer approved on this one.
Although diagrams might be better if you added a center of gravity mark and dimensioned it, but as Dr. Emmett Brown said in Back to the Future please excuse the crudity, I didn’t have time to build to scale and paint 🙂
I highly recommend the *plonk* button at this point, Paul.
I actually think the stretch looks a bit odd, maybe stretched a little too much. A 99 inch wheelbase would have been a good compromise, that would have added 3 inches to the back seat area, same difference between a basic K-car and the stretched E-class.
How many people actually bought Gremlins thinking of rear seat passengers? Most were bought by young singles and couples so for most people the back seat was probably an afterthought. Ask yourself: how many people bought Pintos thinking of who was going to ride in the back seat?
Amen. Paul is right !! Think of a forward control van, with the driver sitting over the front wheels along with engine and overhang weight,. They sure handle bad. That’s one reason they redesigned them around 1970, with the front wheels and engine ahead of the driver. Lengthened wheel base put some more weight on the rear axle. You can experiment with this at home with a brick and 2 dowels .Stick the 2 dowels close together under the brick, and it will be a little unstable. Move the 2 dowels to each end, and the brick is more stable . The weight is better distributed on those dowels.
Just a thought, but would those extra inches have pushed the Gremlin into “compact” rather than “sub-compact” category? And if so, what impact might that have had on marketing, customer demographic, etc?
(I may be grasping at straws, but looking at that rear “seat” pic just makes me think there HAD to have been some kind of twisted logic behind that decision making besides just dollars and cents. Maybe? Or am I trying to give credit where it isn’t due?)
Shoulda, coulda, but AMC did the right thing by doing what they did and saving precious dollars in the process. Not having a fold down bench but a 60/40 split rear seat would have been the best solution, but likely more expensive to engineer.
Really back then nobody thought much about hauling someone in the back seat of their car. When I was young little two door compacts were cool, muscle cars were “out.” A back seat was for throwing your stuff in a convenient place. The Gremlin got a lot of sneers from me and my buddies back then. Years later I read the car was a sales success. And now I kinda like the Gremlin, it certainly stood out from every other compact on the road.
A better Gremlin? By making it bigger? AMC already had a bigger model, the Hornet.
The Gremlin, as it was, was developed on a shoestring. I think it is “Storied Independent Automakers”, which is a history of Jeffery/Nash/Hudson/AMC that talks about how little it cost to develop the Gremlin.
Bob Nixon’s small car group developed several appealing variations to the Gremlin’s funky styling.
Here is the Gremlin GII, a Gremlin with a Hornet front clip and a fastback roofline that finally saw the light of day on the Spirit. imho, the rear wheel bulges make it look like a cat ready to spring.
Rear view, showing the reason for the rear wheel bulges, to fit the back panel from a 74 Javelin.
Another riff: Gremlin with Hornet front clip and tailgate from a Sportabout.
Other side of the Hornet GT concept, with a different rear side window treatment.
More conventional than the Gremlin, but also far more attractive! Plus tooling costs wouldn’t have been all that much higher, one would think, due to sharing the tailgate assembly with the Sportabout.
The second side window treatment works better than the first.
This concept was mentioned in the comments from yesterday’s article, but without the pictures. To me, this is a great-looking (and probably practical car)… too bad it never saw the light of day.
There it is! I’ll take that over a stretched Gremlin any day. I’ll also echo the comments that no one bought the Gremlin for the back seat anyway.
VAM in Mexico made some Gremlins with Hornet front clips. There were all sorts of unusual AMC cocktails made by VAM.
Imagine if, instead of spending money on the Matador coupe, AMC had spent money to bring out the Gremlin G-II as a “downsized” 1974 Javelin.
Then imagine if, instead of spending money on the Pacer, AMC had spent money to stretch the Hornet, and give it styling and interior upgrades like those found on the 1980 Concord, to create a “downsized” 1975 Ambassador
The GII as a downsized Javelin, coming out in 74, head to head with the no V8 Mustang II has crossed my mind.
My favorite scenario remains AMC taking a look at the Landcrab, Saab 99 and Audi 100LS, then keeping the ex-Buick V6 they inherited when they bought Jeep, refining it the way GM did, bolting on the transverse version of the type 35 automatic that Borg Warner already had in production for BL, scaling up a Saab 99 suspension and creating, from that one platform, something that looks very much like a Chevy Citation hatchback to replace the Hornet/Gremlin platform, and something that looks very much like an 82 Buick Century to replace the Ambassador/Matador. Combine the leg up from a nearly off the shelf powertrain, with the money spent on the Pacer’s all new platform and the Matador coupe’s new sheetmetal, and they would probably be in the ballpark on budget.
No doubt this stretched version would have had a more hospitable back seat, and better weight distribution, than the Gremlin that AMC did bring to the market. But it looks somewhat awkward – the front window now looks too short in relation to the rear quarter window.
It reminds me of the stretched versions of the Chevrolet Trailblazer and GMC Envoy that GM offered in the early 2000s. They reminded me of dachsunds, and that is the impression I get when I look at this version of the Gremlin.
I agree. I know it’s weird to say but the stretch somehow ruins the proportions. Maybe I’ve stared a too many Gremlins though.
A modest stretch of the WB probably would have helped but I think a proper rear hatch would have helped more and been a better investment for AMC.
ETA: The Hornet GT above is what AMC really should have built, that was an attractive car.
We had the successor to the Gremlin, the Spirit, very briefly in around 84/85. It was very nicely finished with quality vinyls and carpet and beautiful burgundy metallic paint. The appeal of the car was that it was supposed to be small and economical, and of course because it was an AMC it was practically given away as a used car.
The Spirit did look much better than the Gremlin, but it was ridiculously cramped in the rear seat. Even when I was 8, it was too small. I don’t know how it compared with Pintos and Vegas but a Hornet didn’t have a lot of wasted space to begin with so cutting all the useful space out of a Hornet made for a really unusable car, particularly with the rear wheel drive chassis. On top of that, the components which had been developed for the Hornet were way too heavy and bulky for the Gremlin, so you ended up with a car which was curiously styled, if not downright ugly, ridiculously cramped and not thrifty or economical.
I agree with people who think the Gremlin would have been hugely improved by stretching it. I don’t know why people bought these things; the previous article claimed it was due to price but I remember the 1970 C/D article on the Gremlin explained that AMC had to get very creative with pricing and cutting because, as it was based on the Hornet, it cost the same to produce as a Hornet. I suppose it was due to styling, so I think that improving the space inside would have really made it popular.
I think for roughly the same price I probably would have bought a four door Maverick or gone all the way up to a Dart/Valiant.
I say shorten it, make it a two seater, use a 401…..and a lead rear bumper to improve both the weight distribution and traction. 🙂
They should have made the Gremlin a 2 seater and called it the Metropolitan
The original Gremlinback seat looks to my (uncalibrated) eyes to be about the size of the back seat in the 65 Mustang. It worked good enough for groceries, small children and pets. Does anyone have numbers for back seat room in other sub compacts?
Unlikely given the Mustang had the same 108″ wheelbase as the Hornet, even allowing for the long hood moving the firewall rearwards. This photo seems typical, and looks much more accommodating than the Gremlin shot above which has a really short seat cushion.
I wonder if the fact the 12″ wheelbase chop is the same number as what they did on the AMX from the Javelin has any significance? Would there have been any commonality in floorpan pressings that they could have recycled to save money?
the neat thing about the Gremlin was that due to the Hornet heritage, the big v8 could be gotten in it.
Back in 1974, when I was a student at WMU in Kalamazoo, a guy from my hometown, Manistee, would charge $2 to drive us home. Three hours in the back seat with luggage on my knees was not so much fun.
Back in 1974, when I was a student at WMU in Kalamazoo,
Well, your name doesn’t ring a bell, but I was also at Whatsa Matta U in 74, in the Mechanical Engineering program.
The Gremlin was quite successful in IMSA’s RS series. Radial Sedans were very close to production specifications. Cars generally raced with their warts and strengths intact. Mazda RX2s were fast but had no brakes. BMWs handled and stopped but were too slow. Vegas performed okay but drank oil and had single use engines. The Gremlins were fast because of their big I6 engines, but had the usual deficiencies in handling and braking. They were still competitive for years, with Amos Johnson in 1973 through Gene Felton in the mid ’70s, to Joe Varde towards the end of the RWD era in RS, IIRC.
Furthermore, George Alderman won the 1974 IMSA RS Challenge Championship in an AMC Gremlin. Here’s a good story about the series that documents the limited modifications allowed that didn’t prevent the Gremlin from beating the rotary Mazdas, BMW 2002s, Datsun 510s, Alfa-Romeo GTVs, Volvos, Pintos, and Colts:
http://alex62.typepad.com/imsablog/2009/10/imsa-rs-challenge-everybody-could-go-racing.html
How badly can any car handle that wins a road racing championship in near-stock condition? One race? Sure. A championship in a contested series with the best cars available from Europe and Japan?
Here is Gene Felton leading a BMW 2002 in 1975 on an infield road circuit at Talladega:
Anyone else think the stretched Gremlin gives off a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited vibe? I agree with an earlier poster that a 3″ increase might have resulted in a more attractive package.
The rear side window reminds me a bit of the Jeep Compass.
They could’ve slapped 4WD under the stretched Gremlin and had the first CUV!
They did, technically. The Concord and more conventionally-styled Spirit replaced the Hornet and Gremlin, respectively, and then AMC lifted them and put 4×4 underneath to make the Eagle line starting in 1980, which could be considered the first crossovers.
You’re correct; technically, they did.
And while I know that the Eagle offered 4WD, I didn’t mention them for this reason: Wouldn’t you agree that AMC was really selling these as cars meant for snow and ice, with no pretense of casting them in the “utility vehicle” role?
But I could be wrong; after all, it has been a few years (or perhaps decades) since I’ve seen one! ?