AMC Gremlin
The AMC Gremlin (German goblin, dwarf) was an American subcompact car that was produced between 1 April 1970 and the summer of 1978 by the American Motors Corporation.
The Gremlin was a makeshift solution. Since the work lacked the money for a new development, made do with it, to shorten the wheelbase of a few months previously introduced AMC Hornet and to provide the car with a short steep tail. Front of the car and dashboard were virtually unchanged from the larger model.
This Gremlin for a small car ran very wide and heavy, and the engines, which also came from the Hornet, were anything but economical.
AMC tried to make a virtue of necessity, and referred in advertising that you with the Gremlin a lot more car for the same money got as a VW or Toyota. Trunk and back seat room, however, were tiny, the cheapest version was a two-seater with no back seat.
The Gremlin was available with the following engines:
- 3.8- liter in-line six-cylinder (232 ci/3800 cc ), 91 HP
- 4.2- liter in-line six-cylinder (258 cc ci/4230 ), 96-112 hp
- 5.0-liter V8 ( 304 ci/4980 cc ), 122 HP (up to and including model year 1976)
- 2.0 - liter in-line four-cylinder (121 cc ci/1980 purchased from Audi), 81 hp ( from February 1977)
Production ceased in the summer of 1978, until then 671 475 Gremlins were produced.
Trivia
The Gremlin in the U.S. has the image of a car for losers or failures. So he became as used in the animated series The Simpsons. Figures Comic Book Sellers and HansMaulwurf drive this model. In the film, Cars 2 includes several AMC Gremlin for bonds of cucumbers. Al Bundy has also for a short time instead of his Dodge was a gremlin ( Season 4, Episode 9, The piggy bank ).
Swell
- James Flammang, Ron Kowalke: Standard Catalog of American Cars. Krause Publishing, Iola (Wisconsin ) in 1999.