Nope, that ain’t Bessie, and this ain’t her Gremlin, but it’s a mirror image of hers.
Text submitted by Ted Mathis.
Bessie loved her Gremlin. She bought it new in 1971 and it was equipped very nicely.
She had the larger 258 ci engine, roof rack, power steering, automatic transmission, a rear spoiler and the Weather Eye air conditioner. Her Gremlin also had other options such as a back seat and a rear opening glass window. I mention this as while I was researching this article I found that the base models had no rear seat, no opening back window or even a synchronized transmission. Wow.
While Bessie did not have the Gremlin X package, a $300 option that made the Gremlin look more sporty with bucket seats and more, she did have a better than average Gremlin. That is, until she had to give it up.
As is often the fate of many of us, we grow old and become unable to drive and this happened to Bessie. She moved into assisted living and sold her Gremlin to a dealer friend of mine who was not only a used car salesman but a preacher as well. Make of that what you will. Around this time (1982), my 1971 Toyota Corona was hit and totaled while I was at a stop light. I was still a young newlywed then and had little to no money to buy a newer car, but my dealer/preacher friend sold me the Gremlin and it was a very nice trouble-free little car.
But back to Bessie… She attended the same church I did and soon found out I now owned her Gremlin. She very often mentioned how proud she was of that car, how she hated to give it up, and did I like it? Yes, of course. I didn’t understand then but I do now; giving up driving is often a life changing experience for the worse. I now see that Bessie was grieving for that Gremlin. Years later my mother-in-law moved from her home into assisted living and her car keys were taken away. I think she missed driving more than she missed her home. Driving represents freedom and if that is gone, then what?
I should add that Gremlins were not new to my life. My cousin also had one and I’ll guess it was maybe a 1974 model, but his was the Gremlin X with bucket seats and a 3 speed on the floor. My uncle was a long-time fan of Nash, Rambler and AMC cars and he bought it for his son. I remember how he asked me how I liked my Rambler. I guess old habits really do die hard.
Anyway, I found this online picture of a 1971 Gremlin exactly like mine and found it strange that Wednesday Addams owned one just like it.
Maybe her and I are alike in other ways as well, but I won’t go into that.
One thing that did go wrong with my Gremlin was when the rear glass hatch fell off and shattered while driving down the road one day. I later found that this was a problem with Gremlins as they just had two small aluminum hinges that held the window on (see them above?), and after enough openings and closings, they gave way.
“Luckily, I didn’t live where it snowed very often…” – Image from the web.
As everyone knows, the Gremlin was basically a hatchback Hornet with not much of anything over the rear wheels. One snowy day I attempted to pull into my driveway. That attempt failed and I left the Gremlin halfway in the driveway and halfway in the street. Luckily I didn’t live where it snowed very often, but I’ve always wondered how and if Gremlin owners managed to drive in snow and ice.
In 1985 I was able to afford a newer vehicle and so, the time came to say goodbye to Bessie’s Gremlin.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1971 AMC Gremlin – Small Car Comparison Number 6
Vintage Snapshots: A Gremlin Owners Gallery – Quirky Devotion
CC Capsule: 1974 AMC Gremlin X – Perhaps Not Quite As Advertised
The hatch was unquestionably a problem. After a few years most Gremlins had a ductaped sheet of plastic in place of the hatch.
I was car styling obsessed, as a kid. And always gave the Gremlin, an ‘A+’ for its originality. I consider its design, a ’70s icon. Covered in heavy snow, or spotted at extremely long highway distance, impossible to confuse it with any other car. As one of its strongest virtues, they eternally convey youthfulness. I consider it, one of AMC’s most significant, and lasting designs. It got people talking about AMC.
Its size was an unfortunate compromise, between a subcompact, and compact. A child could clearly see, the front half, was that of a Hornet. It came across as a misfit, and increasingly impractical, competing against much more modern cars. But it was different, in a good way. Cleverly marketed, with loads of charm. I likely would have bought one over the Pinto, Vega or Beetle. Would not have considered it, after the VW Rabbit was introduced.
I also gave AMC an ‘A’, for its packaging on these. The ‘Levi’ and ‘X’ packages were well conceived, and genuinely aided in their popularity. Colours, wheel options, and stripe patterns were all interesting , and flattering.
I had no problem with the name ‘Gremlin’. They felt they needed to stand out. Of course with this name, the car had the extra burden of being reasonably reliable.
Didn’t know of the glass hatch issue. Interesting read. A mid,later 70’s one used to be a common sight (in the late 90,s) around the “foggy bottom”, neighborhood here in “DC”.Was the plum color. (White stripes)
A rugged little big car.
Picture the two seater with some suspension bits. Someone ran a 69 American in Baja. AMC had cheap suspension parts they never told us. Quick manual steering too.
3.73 gears on the 258 2 barrel, rubber floor with high back buckets. Tach. Michelins. Keep the 3 speed.!
This could have been done at a very low price.
Alas, AMC management was targeting the bottom instead of the top.
The actor James Garner ran 69 Ramblers in the Baja race…and won!
Wow, Bessies car was pretty well equipped for the day!
I fondly remember these, the C.O.L.A. purchased a fleet of them in the 1970’s, all were Gremlin’s so I made sure we had the replacement Grelin gas caps in stock as they often .
These also had issues where the front sub frames cracked over time, pretty much every one in our fleet got a new subframe by 60,000 miles .
-Nate
You must be thinking of a different brand of car. There are no subframes on a Gremlin, and the unibody and engine crossmember and front suspension were quite stout on those cars. I have never heard of one cracking and I’ve been around them since they were new (and still own 4 AMCs of that era.)
I always liked Gremlins. At least from the street, because I don’t think I ever rode in one. I remember them as amazingly common for something from AMC, and also remember how the optioned-up versions (like the Gremlin X) was a sharp looking little car.
My image of Gremlins remains the early 70s IMSA and SCCA races pitting the big heavy Gremlins against the smaller lighter Pintos with the occasional Datsun 510 for variety
I have a soft spot for Gremlins. Perhaps that’s because the first cars I ever actually drove were Hornets and Pacers on my high school driver’s ed “range”. We didn’t have a Gremlin, and soon enough the AMCs were replaced with Oldsmobiles, but somehow this managed to endear me to AMCs.
Wednesday Adams had one? Of course she did. I also cannot explain that, but it seems like it fits.
How did Gremlin owners manage in snow and ice? Maybe with a hatch area full of cinder blocks or 4 25 pound bags of sand…just like everyone else in New England back in the day.
Great story and you give the Gremlin some of the respect it deserves! (Especially compared to a Vega or Pinto of that era.) It is true that when introduced, the base Gremlin had a fixed hatch and no back seat. It’s also true that only a few hundred of them ever sold, vs. several hundred thousand 4 passenger versions. (The 2 passenger version was gone before the ’72 model year.)
One issue with the glass hatch was when AMC used only one spring lift cylinder instead of one for each side. (I don’t believe they were gas like lift supports are today). That put stress on those hinges, and usually the problem was the stainless steel hinge was welded to the stainless steel glass frame….little spot welds between two thin pieces of ss do not make the strongest bond.
That was Pugsly’s car. Wednesday borrowed it on the day of this picture.
I had a ’72 exactly like the one Wednesday has. I also had a yellow ’73 X. What a rocket it was. I loved them and, can’t tell you how much I wish I still had either one. Gremlins will always be in my top 5 favorite rides. They were an awesome little car.
One of the benefits of being a paperboy in the Seventies was seeing lots of cars up close, including the Gremlin. I agree with Daniel M. that it externally conveyed youthfulness. As a kid I was absolutely smitten with the rear design.
Looking back as grown-up, I now see the short rear overhang’d car as a half-@ssed effort on AMC’s part. Not the rear of the car, which looked fine. But AMC’s strategists, who seemed intent on spreading the company’s limited capital as thin as possible, to compete in as many segments as possible, with as little impact in each as possible. Maybe if they would have instead done one all-new 1970 FWD 3 and 5-door car, they might have carved out a lucrative place for AMC, as the company did in the late Fifties.
At my age, I dread the day they take away my keys, when I become a cowboy without a horse.
My parents had a gremlin in the late 70’s, and I was in the back seat when my mother hit a patch of ice going down a steep hill in northern NJ. Crashed it into a telephone pole, and I wacked the top of my head on the back of the front seat. Had a large bump there for many years. The car was totaled, and sat in the driveway for what seemed like a long time to me before it was towed away to the junkyard.
The Fox-body Ford wagons (Fairmont, mid-size LTD, etc) with the optional opening rear window had the same hinge issue, because of the single support strut. Oh, and JT: maybe – just maybe – that Gremlin you saw running around “Foggy Bottom”/Wash DC belonged to the “W”. That’s right…the leader of the world’s most powerful country once drove a Gremlin! One of George W. Bush’s fonder memories, perhaps?