9/25/2023 0 Comments Long grabberTime said, "like some other cars of less than standard size, the back seat is designed for small children only." The Gremlin's wider stance gave it "a stable, quiet and relatively comfortable ride-for the two front passengers", for whom, by small-car standards, there was more than average interior width, seat room, and legroom. ![]() Although it was only fractionally longer than the contemporary Volkswagen Beetle, Time said the length of its hood over the front-mounted engine made "the difference seem considerably more", adding that the car "resembles a sawed-off station wagon, with a long, low hood and swept-up rear, and is faintly reminiscent of the original Studebaker Avanti." As with the Volkswagen, the Gremlin's styling set it apart from other cars. įrom the front of the car to the B-pillars, the Gremlin was essentially the same as the AMC Hornet. The car was available as a "base" two-passenger version with no rear seat and a fixed rear window, at a suggested retail price of $1,879, and as a four-seat hatchback with an opening rear window, at $1,959 (US$14,762 in 2022 dollars ). The April 6, 1970, cover of Newsweek magazine featured a red Gremlin for its article, "Detroit Fights Back: The Gremlin". The design reduced the wheelbase from 108 to 96 inches (2,743 to 2,438 mm) and the overall length from 179 to 161 in (4,547 to 4,089 mm), making the Gremlin two inches (50 mm) longer than the Volkswagen Beetle and shorter than the Ford Pinto and Chevrolet Vega.Ĭapitalizing on AMC's advantage as a small car producer, the Gremlin was introduced on April 1, 1970. Instead, Bob Nixon, AMC's future Chief of Design, designed the new subcompact based on the automaker's Hornet model, a compact car. This version did not go into production, but the AMX name was used from 1968 through 1970 on a shortened, two-seat sports car built from the Javelin.ġ971 AMC Gremlin X, 1972 Ford Pinto Runabout, and 1973 Chevrolet Vega GT 1978 Gremlin X Teague's idea of using the pony car Javelin resulted in the AMX-GT concept, first shown at the New York International Auto Show in April 1968. įord and General Motors were to launch new subcompact cars for 1971, but AMC did not have the financial resources to compete with an entirely new design. ![]() Bob Nixon joined AMC as a 23-year-old and did the first formal design sketches in 1967 for the car that was to be the Gremlin. On an airline flight, Teague's solution, which he said he sketched on an air sickness bag, was to truncate the tail of a Javelin. The idea for the Gremlin began in 1966 when design chief at American Motors, Dick Teague, and stylist Bob Nixon discussed the possibility of a shortened version of AMC's compact car. The design of the Gremlin was inspired by the AMC AMX-GT concept car. This was long after the retirement of the Ford Pinto that suffered from stories about exploding gas tanks, as well as the Chevrolet Vega with its rusting bodies and durability problems with its aluminum engine. It was superseded by a restyled and revised variant, the AMC Spirit produced from 1979 through 1983. The Gremlin reached a total production of 671,475 over a single generation. ![]() The small domestic automaker marketed the Gremlin as "the first American-built import." Using a shortened Hornet platform and bodywork with a pronounced kammback tail, the Gremlin was classified as an economy car and competed with the Chevrolet Vega and Ford Pinto, as well as imported cars including the Volkswagen Beetle and Toyota Corolla. ![]() The AMC Gremlin (also American Motors Gremlin) is a subcompact automobile introduced in 1970, manufactured and marketed in a single, two-door body style (1970–1978) by American Motors Corporation (AMC), as well as in Mexico (1974–1983) by AMC's Vehículos Automotores Mexicanos (VAM) subsidiary.
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