Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
AMC Gremlin
The AMC Gremlin was the first U.S. subcompact car. Made by the American Motors Corporation for eight years from April 1, 1970 through the 1978 model year, a total of 671,475 Gremlins were made.
AMC knew that Ford and General Motors were coming out with subcompact cars in 1971 but didn't have the resources to respond with one of their own. Chief stylist Richard Teague came up with an ingenious solution; chop off the back end of a Javelin (legend has it that Teague first sketched out the design on the back of a Northwest Orient air sickness bag ). The resulting car was the AMX-GT and was first shown at the New York International Auto Show in April, 1968. The AMX-GT was never produced and the new subcompact, designed by future Chief of Design, Bob Nixon , was instead based on the Hornet. The Hornet wheelbase was reduced from 108 inches to 96 inches (2,743 mm to 2,438 mm) and the overall length was reduced from 179 inches to 161 inches (4,547 mm to 4,089 mm). The resulting Gremlin hit the market six months before Ford and GM were able to introduce their subcompacts. The car came only in a two-door model priced at $1,879.
Although a subcompact based on the wheelbase, the Gremlin was a midsize car from the seatbacks forward and in every other dimension. The back seat was nearly non-existent (suitable only for children) and the cargo area was smaller than that of a Volkswagen Beetle (although folding the rear seat doubled the cargo area). The kammback design was radical for the time and spawned jokes like, "What happened to the rest of your car?". However it was surprisingly aerodynamic and the kammback was adopted by many other popular subcompacts in following years. Its handling suffered from being front-heavy and its ride was a bit stiff because of the shortened rear springs. It had a roomy engine compartment for its standard 199 cubic inch (3.3 litre) six-cylinder engine and was available with a 304 cubic inch (5.0 litre) V8. Some owners easily dropped-in engines as large as 390 cubic inches (6.4 litres) and a hemi Gremlin is rumored to have existed. It wasn't as economical as smaller, lighter, subcompacts with four cylinder engines but did get a reasonable 28 to 30 miles per gallon with the small six cylinder engine. The Gremlin far outperformed other subcompacts. Mechanix Illustrated magazine clocked it at zero to 60 mph in 11.9 seconds with the 232 cubic inch (3.8 litre) engine, where the Pinto took half-again as long. The V-8 reduced this time to 8.5 seconds. In 1977 the Gremlin was available with a Porsche-derived 2.0 litre four-cylinder engine. This gave the Gremlin the distinction of having one of the widest ranges of engine sizes of all time, 2.0 to 5.0 litres.
The Gremlin was a popular testbed for experiments with alternative fuels. Many universities converted them to natural gas, hydrogen and electric power. Engineers at Coleman Products Corporation in Coleman, Wisconsin created a non-drivable Plexiglas Gremlin as a demonstrator of the placement and function of electrical wiring harnesses.
The Gremlin was restyled and renamed the "AMC Spirit" and continued in production through 1983. The basic design was also revived as the Eagle Kammback.
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