(first posted 2/23/2016) It’s always noteworthy when one sees an AMC Gremlin in the wild, and even though Gremlins have been examined previously on this site, there can always be more said about what is one of the most distinctive and polarizing cars in recent memory. This particular car is from the Gremlin’s penultimate year of 1977, and – as if being a Gremlin wasn’t startling enough – is painted in firecracker red.
Modern references to Gremlins usually take the form of being on someone’s Top 10 list of ugliest/worst/most shameful/etc. cars ever made. To name two such lists, Time magazine called the Gremlin one of the worst cars of all time, and Hagerty Insurance named it the 6th “most questionable car design of all time.” Yet, despite this ignominy, the Gremlin sold well over its 9-year lifespan: about 650,000 were produced. Far from being a failure, the Gremlin was a remarkable and underappreciated success for a company that was perpetually on the verge of collapse. Its story is more interesting than one might imagine.
To start, let’s briefly look over the Gremlin’s origins. American Motors Corporation had long been associated with smaller cars, and was set to introduce its new compact, the Hornet, in 1970. Sensing a need for a still-smaller car to battle the increasingly popular imports, a plan was devised to create a subcompact version of the Hornet. The concept was essentially a truncated Hornet, and AMC’s VP of Design, Richard Teague, evidently first sketched the Gremlin’s design on an airplane air-sickness bag.
The design featured the Hornet’s long hood and mid-section mated to a wedge-shaped rear that AMC termed a “chopback.” Wheelbase and length were over a foot shorter than the Hornet. The size difference all came from the passenger/cargo area, and the above ad is revealing: the rear seat was only suitable for small children, and a pet could occupy the cargo area — as long as it didn’t move.
Its angular rear was unusual, but that was the point. AMC gambled that a new type of buyer was purchasing subcompact cars, and such a buyer wanted something unconventional – something that didn’t resemble mom and dad’s car (for a modern analogy, think of present-day companies trying to anticipate millennials’ consumer preferences).
Due to its roots in an existing product, the Gremlin was almost comically cheap to bring to market (total tooling costs came in at $5 million). That was very much in line with AMC’s new product approach, since in the 20-year period between 1960 and 1980, the firm spent a paltry 1.8% of its revenue on research and development.
Initially aimed squarely at the Volkswagen Beetle, early marketing materials pointed out that the Gremlin was lower, wider and heavier than the Beetle, and came standard with a 6-cylinder engine. In other words, it was marketed as a more substantial car. The Gremlin was a subcompact that felt bigger and sturdier than it was, and that paradox became a selling point.
Unfortunately, sturdiness did not bestow roadworthiness, and the Gremlin wasn’t exactly delightful to drive. Nose-heavy, with a choppy ride and notoriously slow steering, Gremlins had driving characteristics that would doom most other cars. In addition, interior space, while ample for the driver and passenger, was compromised. The rear seat was small and uncomfortable (6” less legroom than a Hornet), while luggage room was meager (6.4 cu. ft. with the rear seat up) and difficult to access through the high liftgate. The wide C-pillars created large blind spots. Still, Gremlins sold well. Why?
Because of price. The Gremlin was the most affordable American-made car when introduced, and stayed price-competitive throughout its life. Its core market of young, slightly unconventional buyers placed a low priority on space efficiency, and the low price and operational affordability compensated for its drivability shortcomings.
In fact, the Gremlin was a masterpiece of marketing. Take the name, for example. “Gremlin” had its origin in WWII British aviation slang, initially meaning a mythical creature that caused mechanical problems in airplanes. The term caught on, and in 1943, Roald Dahl wrote a wartime children’s book called “The Gremlins,” complete with illustrations of impish critters. Gremlins then surfaced as creative plane nose art as well, usually represented by mischievous characters. The name became fixed in the English language, with a negative, but rascally connotation.
Like its aviation predecessors, AMC’s Gremlin debuted with a critter mascot, found on early models’ gas caps (which became a frequent target for thieves) and fenders. In a world of magniloquent automotive names and symbols, Gremlin stood out.
AMC published the Gremlin’s initial press release on Thursday, February 12, 1970 – beating Friday the 13th by one day. Consumer sales began on April Fools’ Day of that year. In the marketplace, Gremlin had the advantage of being the first domestic subcompact – beating its GM and Ford rivals (Vega and Pinto) by several months. That helped to spring the Gremlin to popularity upon introduction; orders outpaced production capacity for much of the first year.
Source of production figures: Standard Catalog of American Motors, 1902-1987
Sales boomed during the 1973-74 energy crisis, when over 100,000 Gremlins were produced each year. Those two years alone, when small cars’ desirability suddenly surged, accounted for 45% of total Gremlin production. For the non-energy crisis years during Gremlin’s 9-year model run, sales averaged about 45,000 units, still not a shabby number. For our featured year of 1977, AMC produced 46,171 Gremlins.
While it’s impressive that an odd-looking car with poor space layout and questionable handling sold well at introduction, it’s amazing that sales held up for many years afterwards as well. Gremlins received only minor updates for its first 7 model years.
1977, our featured car’s year, saw the Gremlin’s first significant styling update. True to form, it flew in the face of convention. When introduced, the Gremlin was angular in a world of rounded cars. Then for ’77, when the boxy look was coming into vogue, AMC slightly softened the Gremlin’s edges.
Larger, more rounded tail lights, a bigger liftgate and a new slanted grille distinguished the 1977 models, along with a 4-inch shortening of the Gremlin’s long nose. But the Gremlin still looked very much like a Gremlin.
While 1977 saw the introduction of an optional 4-cylinder engine, 83% of Gremlins were powered by one of the two available 6-cylinder power plants. Standard was a 232-cu. in. engine developing 88 hp, while an optional 258-cu. in. engine produced 26 more hp. Both sixes were available with a 3-speed, 4-speed or automatic (floor- or column-shift) transmission. The previous V-8 option disappeared for 1977.
This particular car is a fairly well equipped example, with optional wheels, a column-shift automatic and some convenience options. Its red paint, gold rally stripe and matching red-and-cream perforated vinyl bucket seats provide an eye-catching look.
The 1977 Gremlin carried a base price of $2,995 – a good bargain for the time, and the biggest reason why the car continued to sell well even 7 years after its introduction. But sales didn’t grow profits at AMC, and the company’s passenger car business generated a pretax loss of $90 million that year. In business articles of the day, AMC was often called “troubled AMC” or “imperiled AMC,” an indication of the company’s travails. Still, the Gremlin soldiered on.
By 1977, though, the Gremlin was clearly outdated, and became hard pressed to keep up with newly innovative small cars such as VW’s Rabbit or Ford’s Fiesta. Its shortcomings were finally catching up to it.
1978 was the Gremlin’s last year. Sort of. While an 9-model-year run for this odd-looking car would have been improbable enough, AMC rebranded the Gremlin as the “Spirit sedan,” and kept producing it with only detail changes through 1982.
Though often maligned (both then and since), the Gremlin was a fascinating car. It is perhaps the best example of a car succeeding despite itself. For all of its obvious faults, the car sold well to its targeted audience of young, budget-conscious buyers, and perhaps the very hostility generated by the car propelled it to a degree of counterculture acceptability.
It’s easy to think of the Gremlin today as an embarrassment. But a certain amount of genius lurks under the awkward body and the driveability faults. For its minimal initial investment, AMC got a car that generated showroom traffic, and significant sales, for a decade. In due course, it was not enough to sustain AMC’s independence, as Renault bought a controlling interest in the company in 1979. However, the Gremlin did more than its fair share to stave off AMC’s demise.
Years later, the most memorable aspect of the Gremlin is still the design; no one has ever mistaken a Gremlin for anything else. AMC President William Luneburg once called the Gremlin’s design “purposely contentious,” a phrase that’s hard to beat in describing this car’s character. Ultimately, that character proved to be the car’s ticket to success – if the Gremlin were conservatively designed, it’s doubtful the car would have sold as many copies, or for so many years. Many of us may laugh at AMC Gremlins, but just like the mythical creatures in the 1943 children’s book, the Gremlins had the last laugh.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: AMC Gremlin – 1971 Small Car Comparison Number 6 Paul Niedermeyer
Curbside Classic: 1977 AMC Gremlin – Pay 8% More And Get 13% Less HP And 33% Fewer Cylinders Paul Niedermeyer
COAL: 1977 AMC Gremlin – Very Easy To Find In A Parking Lot Nelson James
The Gremlin sucked in virtually every measurable category but, besides the Mopar A-body, what early seventies domestic small car didn’t? In that context, the Gremlin was okay, considering the car company from which it sprang, i.e., those lovable losers at AMC.
When I was four, my folks talked over getting a second car so mom wouldn’t be stranded at home when dad drove to work. There was at least one Gremlin in our neighborhood, and one evening while we were out on a walk, I pointed to a Gremlin and said “Please don’t get that kind of car”. One or the other of my parents said “How come?” and I said “Because it hurts my eyes”. They wound up adding a ’77 Cutlass to their ’78 Caprice.
The Gremlin was high tide and falling when I was in high school. As a stock stripper off the lot it was a boring if not ugly car. But I liked it when I saw one tricked out in mag wheels, side pipes, and it actually could move. The one I lusted for shot past my high school one day I think in 1977. Pretty car it was. Stranger vehicle, not a local. Looks like with some proper work, a Gremlin could be a semi-decent handling machine, too.
My parents had a Gremlin, don’t recall the year. During a snowstorm I had to move it out of the driveway so I could take my car – it got stuck on the level road. That car, and my Ford Aerostar were the worse I ever drove in snow since there was hardly any weight over the rear wheels. My parent’s friend saw me stuck – pushed the Gremlin with her Ford LTD wagon to the side of the road. The plastic grill which protruded a bit on that model year, I think a ’72 – broke.
My Dad was the International Traffic Manager for AMC in the 70’s. Being considered an upper level manager, he was given a company car as part of his compensation. I think we had every product produced by the company in our driveway at one point. I recall for several months he was given a fully-loaded Gremlin that you rarely saw in a dealership. It was a Nautical Blue Gremlin X 5.0 litre V8 with Levis interior. The 304ci engine was good for 150hp and a decent 220lbft of torque fed through the Chrysler-sourced torqueflite auto gave it some scoot. Dad loved tilt steering wheels which meant that the car had to have a column shift. The steering wheel was also leather wrapped with brushed steel spokes. It also had a roof rack and the aluminum wheels. The only thing I disliked was having to sit in the backseat for a roundtrip drive from Detroit to Baltimore. It was pure torture and that was sitting behind a 5’6″ father and a 5’5″ grandmother so their seats were not fully extended by any means. Of course when you grow up in a neighborhood of Dads who worked at mostly Ford or GM it was hard to see them put a new Mustang or Grand Prix in their driveway and me seeing my Dad bring home something like a new Matador station wagon. At least once we had a Jeep Cherokee Chief in bright orange. Now then I felt a little more cool. LOL Oh I probably should say prior to the AMC job my Dad worked for Chrysler and then International Harvester. I was too young to remember him bringing home one of the Chrysler Turbines, but I do recall one awesome Jensen that he snagged from the executive motor pool when Mopar was supplying Jensen powertrains for the Interceptor.
About a decade ago I owned an Eagle Kammback, a 4wd Gremlin. Great vehicle with a robust drivetrain. Was enjoyable in the snow!
The Spirit was what the Gremlin should have been from the start. Much better finished inside and more civilized to live with. Gremlin sold well and made a profit for AMC which was a good thing, but I just find myself lamenting the fact that it could have been so much more than it was, had AMC put a little more effort into it.
I like the Gremlin, too. It was during the classic, quirky, try-anything desperation period of AMC. But I mainly like the inaugural year version with no back seat, fixed rear glass, 199cid engine for the princely sum of $1879. Likewise, my favorite Maverick is the pre-Pinto, 170cid $1995 car. Those base, ultra-strippo models were just so…pure and elemental – nothing more than seats and a steering wheel.
I recall a very special Gremlin to this day. I was working at the Pine Street Post Office in Lower Manhattan near Wall Street for a company doing extensive interior renovations. Being the youngest in the crew, it was my job to take the coffee order for morning break. Across the street was the “New Bambi Coffee Shop”. The owner and all of the staff were rather flagrantly gay. The owner always parked his Gremlin on the street in front of the shop. It was bright purple, but what set it apart from others was that the hood, roof, and panel under the rear window was done in a synthetic zebra skin-furry to the touch. The seats and door panels also were done this way. How I wish I had taken a photo or two. Believe me-this car stood out to make me remember it so vividly after 42 years.
My last year of college, 1972, I traded my 1963 AMC Rambler Classic for a 6 month old 1971 Gremlin-X with 3 on the floor and a roof rack. Bought for $2000 and sold for $950 in 1979 and spent practically nothing on repairs besides basic maintenance. Car still looked very good when I sold it, no rust & good paint. In 1976 I moved and bolted a 4×8 piece of plywood to the roof rack and moved everything (sofa, desk, chests, etc) in multiple trips. I carried a Honda CT-70 trail bike in the back seat on several occasions, it was a very tight fit! I loved the car all the way to the bank! Bought a 1976 Renault-5 LeCar in 1979 and saw a lot more trips to the mechanic and the tiny aluminum Renault engine was crappy compared to the durable all cast iron AMC 232CID straight 6 I had in the Gremlin.
Just found these pictures of my car on your website, laughed when it said rare to see one in the wild…
Great to hear from the car’s owner! And good luck with your sale — the eBay ad clears up some of the car’s history for us (it’s origins in Florida explain its well-preserved body, and the redone interior.
Also, I’m glad to read that this Gremlin provided you with 6 years of good enjoyment — I hope another AMC enthusiast appreciates it every bit as much.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1977-AMC-Gremlin-/182550312877?hash=item2a80d8b7ad:g:3FQAAOSwr~lYrhz7&vxp=mtr
It’s very cute but looks pretty close to being a parts car…..pretty rough and old repaired rust is coming back again.
Heater disconnected, entire dash board ruined with Foo-Foo can paint job.
I hope you get a decent offer, these fun and inexpensive to run cars are getting thin on the ground.
-Nate
“… someone’s Top 10 list of ugliest/worst/most…”
Click bait junk, and usually with wrong facts about cars and market. Like the myth of “Chevy Nova was misread in Latin America as ‘Chevy no-go’.”
In 70’s Gremlins were popular small cars, but then in 80’s/90’s were out of style and became “Leno/Seinfeld jokes”, and the endless “Worst car” lists. geezz!
Pretty much every SUV I see has copied that upswept rear side window.
AMC was a just a few decades ahead of it’s time, trend-wise.
Except it looks like you can see better out of the Gremlin.
😲Top ten WORST cars of ALL TIME! Number 1 will SHOCK you 😲
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#2 AMC Gremlin, durr, amiright? So just for a short history, before the Dodge corporation bought them out AMC were actually car versions of Jeeps, and this was what they came up with, what were they thinking!!! Should have stuck to SUVs!
#1 Pontiac Aztec. 💩💩💩 amiright? This car was so ugly it single handedly sank the Pontiac brand! Even Walter White couldn’t make these cool!
And there you have it, the ten worst cars ever LULz. Thank’s for watching and don’t forget to smash that like button and subscribe to get your feed inundated with content from my growing channel. C’mon guys lets hit 11 million subscribers! Subscribe to my Patreon for literal minutes of exclusive content and buy our latest merch!
Brilliant! Nicely played.
Note that the author of “The Gremlins” is RAF Flight Lieutenant Roald Dahl. That is almost certainly the brilliant writer of the same name. His children’s books are delightful, his adult short stories are creepy and intriguing, and his autobiography “Boy” is brilliant.
Near the end of “Boy”, Dahl writes of his RAF service in North Africa.
Yes, it’s the same person. “The Gremlins” was his first children’s book.
It’s a great book – I checked it out of the library and read it while I was writing this article, and liked it so much I bought my own copy.
Good stuff! Thanks for the confirmation – I’ll look for the book.
I had a friend who was a bit of an “artsy” gal proto hipster who bought one used in the early ’90s. Orange. It had a manual choke as I recall.
I traded my 1st car, a 1963 AMC Rambler Classic with the old AMC 196 CID engine for a much smaller 1971 AMC Gremlin-X with the 232 CID engine . I liked that it was a really a mid-sized car chopped down to compact size with a durable big 6 cylinder cast iron engine and transmission and front and rear ends that were made for heavier cars. So, they were extra durable compared to the competition that had small 4 cylinder aluminum engines, small transmissions & toy like front suspensions. I put a couple of cinder blocks in the hatch when it was snowing to get better traction with the car due to the 60-40 weight distribution with the big cast iron standard engine in the front. Bought it for $2000 slightly used in 1972 and sold it in 1979 for $950. Car needed only regular maintenance, engine and trans never touched by a mechanic. I laughed all the way to the bank!
That’s right, that’s what the Gremlin was good for. Robust mechanicals and chassis that cost a little more fuel but would run 200,000 miles with minimal care. A bit truck-like handling but would eat up expressway miles with relative ease. I grew up in Kenosha & had an opportunity to see lots of these and I drove a friend’s, also drove Hornets which are very similar, so I have some experience and I agree with your sentiments.
My parents had a new ’61 traded for a ’63 Rambler Classic wagon back 5 years before the Gremlin debut. They bought the ’61 in Compton, Ca, though they later moved to Pittsburgh PA where the ’63 was bought…snowy climate. But FWD cars were really uncommon then, so in the winter they just dealt with the lack of traction.
Going forward another decade, we were living in Vermont; the Classic was a distant memory (actually was totalled outside our motel room when we’d vacated our home in Catonsville MD preparing to move to Vermont). My Dad bought his first FWD car, a ’76 Subaru DL (Saab, VWs, Hondas were really expensive, and I had a bad experience with a Fiat so that was also out). I still had a RWD Datsun 710, it was a light car, but it had a trunk where you could put something heavy (sand, cinder blocks and the like) in the winter to help with rear traction. It was my last automatic car and had a fast idle until it warmed up, such that I had to shift it into neutral at stoplights lest the rear end crab sideways in the winter due to slippery surface.
I would have liked a Gremlin or Hornet, especially with their old iron block and simplicity since I mostly couldn’t afford to have anyone but myself fix ailments while I was a student….but would have preferred the latter, since it had a normal back seat and trunk…especially the trunk since it had space to put the weight in the winter for better rear traction. Did have snow tires (before all season tires were common) and it was a pain to change over 2x/year and find space to store the tires.
My parents never bought another AMC after the ’63. We moved to the sunbelt 40 years ago, so winter traction is only a concern a couple days per year, so such a car would work OK for us, but the timing of our move south coincided with many common cars changing over from RWD to FWD, so the decision was made for us. I shopped for some RWD cars for my sisters, in fact my middle sister still has her ’97 Nissan 240SX which is RWD of course, but myself haven’t had a RWD car since that ’74 Datsun when I sold it and bought a ’78 Scirocco, 41 years ago.
In the mid to late 1970’s my dad bought an early Gremlin with a 4 speed and the small six as a work commuter car. He liked the car enough at first to repaint it metallic bronze, and a previous owner had put Cragars on it. My main memory of the car was the punishment of riding in the back seat as my dad was six foot, two inches tall and he adjusted the front seat accordingly. To this day, thinking of it sets off the claustrophobia that must have started from riding in that Gremlin. My younger brother and I were both teenagers at the time, and you can imagine there were fights over who would NOT ride in the back seat. No human above toddler size should ever ride in the back of a Gremlin. The car would have been better off as a business coupe and did away with the back seat altogether.
Over time, the Gremlin started living up to its name and my dad got tired of constantly having to repair it. He was a very good mechanic and none of his previous Mopars before or after gave him as much trouble as the Gremlin. None of us were sorry to see it go. In conversations about cars my dad used to own, he never waxed nostalgic about the Gremlin ever. It probably wasn’t as bad as my aunt’s brand new first year Vega, but my dad was frustrated with how with just a little more effort it could have been a lot better car.
In the late 80’s college friends of mine who married each other, got a Gremlin that I replaced a starter in a very hot parking lot. The attitude of the parts counter guy when I named the car the starter was for was pretty bad. One of the friends was a schoolteacher at a school where the kids were driving cars 2000 percent nicer than the Gremlin and they let him know it. When the car needed carburetor work, his wife rebuilt the carburetor on the kitchen table, and she got really good at filing points with her nail boards and eventually replacing them outright. She also changed tires and he never did. At the time he was driving the Gremlin, she was driving a ’68 Beetle that she and her brother fixed up together. She misses the Beetle to this day. An electrical fire put an end to that car on I-75 one day on her way to work.
Never a fan of Rambler, as I think of and refer to all AMC cars as, but I actually kind of like the styling of the Gremlin. No, not E Type gorgeous, but for what it was I liked it. Compare it to a Pacer and it’s downright good looking. Seems like it was under designed and engineered, no back seat or trunk? And just a little window to load things in, not a real hatchback? And the blind spot must have been the size of a semi looking at the C pillar, but just to look at it I don’t think it’s bad for the era.
Up until 2000-2002, used to encounter a Gremlin X , with the denim interior, near Va Ave/Rock Creek Pkway/PA ave over pass area.(in DC) Must a had a garage to shelter in.
Was a 75-76 model; was still looking good in the late 90’s.
Between the Hornet/Gremlin/Sportabout trifecta, AMC was actually doing okay at the time. 1970 was also the year AMC bought Kaiser-Jeep. The future truly looked bright for the last of the independents.
The downfall was when they decided to spend what precious development funds they had on the money-pit Pacer and Matador coupe. Imagine if that money had, instead, went into improving and modernizing their traditional compacts. If they had followed that path, the Renault merger might not have been necessary. Of course, a healthy AMC might not have been feasible to merge with Iacocca’s Chrysler, either.
I am an owner of a 1977 Gremlin and the above mentioned Vam Lerma, which is in no way a stretched Gremlin, it is simply a Concord hatchback. Someone above mentioned that the IMSA RS Gremlins had many of their shortcomings addressed through suspension mods which is true, This video is of a Showroom Stock race where a stock 1978 Gremlin is seen holding its own against the “modern” VW Golf (Rabbit)