We’re speaking literally here. That chunky little doorstop of a car was launched on April 1, 1970. Looking backwards, it’s hard not to laugh, just as we do at all the various bad fashion decisions of the 1970s. Was AMC joking? It’d styled a car that looked like a shoe, and named it after a mythical creature associated with disastrous mechanical failure. Considering this was just three years after the so-called “Summer of Love,” clearly, somebody had been smoking something.
– the Gremlin was at the very least a successful prank. It took a dose of humour and some shoestring budget engineering and created a lasting cultural impact.To understand the Gremlin story better, we first have to take a look at the American Motors Corporation, better known as simply “AMC.” In the domestic market, there were the Big Three of Chrysler, Ford, and Chevrolet, and then there were these guys.
On a flight in the fall of 1966, Teague found himself pitching a new subcompact to then-AMC Vice President Gerry Meyers. Having neither Nixon’s concept sketches nor any other paper readily to hand, he sketched out a rough mockup on the back of an air-sickness bag. The key, he knew, was AMC building the sort of car that the bigger, more conservative automakers wouldn’t dare.
Further, the V8 Gremlin gave rise to a dealership-swapped version with an absolutely shocking 6.6L V8. Basically the Gremlin version of a Yenko Camaro, these handful of cars pitted 255 hp and 345 lb-ft of torque against about 1,200 kg of short-wheelbase vague-steering homely AMC hunchback subcompact. Sounds terrifying.
drivingdotca Ah, the Gremlin. Love this description (and hideous green color)
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