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By Jim Donnelly
How a bold move by AMC invented the
subcompact street fighter If you accept the notion that people into
American Motors performance cars represent departures from the mainstream
-- and virtually all of them will agree cheerily with that postulate --
then you've also got to believe that people into V8 Gremlins are the most
iconoclastic of all. Yet the few of them who still survive hark back to an
incredibly nervy move by AMC, which managed to embarrass the Big Three by
creating this extremely quirky car.
It's undeniable that in introducing the
basic, six-cylinder 1970 Gremlin, on April Fool's Day, no less, AMC
invented the modern American subcompact. Those of us who were around to
recall its debut will remember the polarizing reaction to the little
Gremmie. People either instantly swooned over the jarring Kramm-type rear
treatment, or ridiculed it pitilessly. But in those days, small that
didn't swill gas like derelicts downing MD 20/20 were becoming hip. AMC
rolled out an in-your-face advertising campaign that entertainingly dared
young buyers to embrace the Gremlin just because it was so, um, eagerly
different, and from the industry's favorite underdog. The grinning little
goblin that was the Gremlin mascot added to the jauntiness of the whole
exercise.
AMC's design vice president personally
approved the Gremlin's looks, under extreme management pressure to both do
something memorable and beat Chrysler, GM and Ford to the subcompact
market. More than any other car, the Gremlin stands as the defining
product of AMC's final years. In 1971, AMC introduced the Gremlin X trim
package, adding sportiness to the originally Spartan little creature. The
following year, AMC took the Gremlin another step, and invented the
subcompact muscle car by offering it with the 304-cu.in. V-8 as an option.
Laugh if you choose, but realize this: A V-8 Gremmie can more than hold
it's own when chest-banging, NFL big-play style, with any small-bore V-8
cars from that era.
Donnie Solomon proved it by taking a
Homerian odyssey to perfect restore a 1974 Gremlin X, which could be the
ultimate "bitsa" car: Bitsa this Gremlin, bitsa that one.
That's because Donnie opted top take on one
of the most challenging late-model restorations imaginable, even though he
started out with a largely intact Gremlin that had spent its entire life
in the Deep South. It was a heart rendering attempt to recreate his first
car, a 1972 Gremlin X in Trans-AM Red, which + bought new, and he still
chides himself for letting go.
In 1999, he copped a 1974 Gremlin X at the
big AutoFest at Low's Motor Speedway outside Charlotte. At the same show,
he learned the same lesson that all AMC-philes eventually do: Finding
parts for a restoration project can be difficult. As an aside, it's worth
noting that the untold scores of Gremlins, particularly in the Northeast,
were chopped up through the late Seventies and Eighties because their
bodies were popular with dirt-track Modified racers.
Over the next several months, he replaced
the brakes, shocks, tires, exhaust system and pulled the transmission for
an overhaul. After reinstalling the rejuvenated gearbox, he took the
Gremlin X out for a test drive, and promptly stuffed it broadside into
another car whose driver had doddered out of a side street into his path
near his hometown of Roxboro, North Carolina. Donnie ended up in the
hospital, and later while trying to convince the insurance company that a
28 year old American Motors product actually had some residual value as a
collector car, he stumbled across yet another Southern-kept Gremlin X.
This one is identical to his first Gremlin
in everyway but the year of origin. It was a 1974 Gremlin X painted in the
Trans-AM Red of his youth with a black vinyl interior, and optioned with
the 304 cu.in. V-8 and Torque Command three-speed automatic. Located
in Mississippi, it was in the hands of the original owner, who still
had the original window sticker, bill of sale and all maintenance records.
"It had one little rust spot in the
driver's side rear that we had to cut metal for a weld in, but replacement
panels are so hard to find; other than that, it was a very solid
car," Donnie Said. the '74's odometer read 72,491 apparently original
miles.
The search for parts led Donnie to purchase
eight Gremlin parts cars before he could actually begin restoring the '74
car. As he put it, "I found parts everywhere from Florida to Canada.
The thing is, the drivetrain parts aren't really that hard to find, and
performance parts are even less hard to find than that, because a lot of
Jeeps had the 304 as an option. What is hard is finding parts from other
AMC vehicles like the body parts, interior, the outside moldings, the
interior parts are probably the hardest of all; they're very scarce."
It didn't diminish the degree of
difficulty, but Donnie was effusive in his good tidings toward the
close-knit AMC muscle community, especially the American Motors Owners
Association of Janesville Wisconsin. Through AMC contacts, and a lot of
long-distance salvage yard scrounging, he found the parts he needed for a
through restoration of the X.
"I jokingly call my place the Gremlin
Graveyard. Sometimes, the Gremlin owners would pay me to get rid of
them," he remarked. "The grille was brand-new new-old stock,
still in the box, that I found at a junkyard in Florida for about $150.
The roof rack was also new, from Texas for $100. The roof spoiler I found
new at a swap meet in Maryland. One of the tail lamps, I think the left
one, I found at the same swap meet, and the other one in Canada."
Save for the two years' difference in their
age, the 1974 Gremlin X project goal was to be otherwise identical to his
original 1972 model. The 304 cu.in. AMC V-8 is almost totally stock,
except for a .025-inch overbore for the well-seasoned block. Stock or
stock-spec replacement components were used throughout; including the
intake manifold or the Autolite 2100 two-barrel carburetor. "I wasn't
trying to build a performance engine," Donnie explained.
In 1974, Chrysler was supplying AMC with
automatic transmissions, an early harbinger of the Eighties buyout. The
model 998 Torque Command three-speed automatic was rebuilt to dead-stock
specifications, with a 10-3/4-inch torque converter. It turns the rear
live axle's 3.15:1 final drive gearing.
AMC had been testing prototypes of V-8
Gremlins as early as 1970, but the engineers quickly realized that the car
needed considerable development before it could be released to the buying
public. With just 96 inches of wheelbase, the little Gremlin was
overwhelmed by the V-8's nose-heaviness, and was experienced disturbingly
serious wheel hop under even moderate conditions. AMC's first fix was to
adapt the torque links from the 1968-70 AMX to the Gremlin and go to
staggered shock mounts. In the ensuring years, the list of changes would
also include an 8-7/8-inch rear, 10-inch brakes, wider wheels and a front
anti-roll bar.
The bog-slow manual steering was energized
by optional Saginaw power assist, which also included a quicker-ratio 20:1
steering box. The Gremlin X has simple 10-inch Wagner mechanical drum
brakes all around. The X-correct wheels are shod with Goodyear Polyglass
bias-ply tires, sized F70/14, perfectly fitting for a performance car of
this vintage.
Donnie can only guess that he has something
between $10,000 and $15,000, and about 2,000 man-hours of labor, in the
Gremlin X. His friend Bruce Chislom of Roxboro, applied two coats of Du
Pont primer, three color coats of Du Pont Trans-AM Red urethane enamel,
and a dozen clear coats to complete the restoration, including the
"hockey stick" side stripes that were the X package's signature.
Donnie said that despite its potentially
extreme vehicle dynamics, and lack of a four-barrel carburetor, the
Gremlin X is a credible performance car that would-be challengers ignore
at their peril. He motors about in it at least once per month, but
accumulates no more than 200 or 300 miles per annum.
"Back when I had my first one, the
guys I considered my peers mostly had Mavericks and Mustangs, and the
Gremlin would hold its own against them," he remembered. "It
could be a real little screamer that didn't look like one. The problem was
always traction".
"It has a very stiff ride, given that
it was built as a economy car," is how he evaluated his restored X's
road manners. "If you try to take a sharp curve at high speed, the
rear end will definitely want to get light with you. It has manual brakes,
and you really have to push them hard in a quick stop. If you try to do
several of them, the brakes will definitely fade on you. It has power
steering, and with that, it doesn't require much effort at all, regardless
of your speed, or even if you're standing still. Without power steering,
it's a real bear because of all that extra weight on the front. I've had
other people with V-8 Gremlins that have manual steering tell me that if
there was one thing they would change, it would be to switch to power
steering because the car is such a bear to drive without."
Donnie's network of AMC fanciers includes
Brian Moyer of Reinholds, Pennsylvania, one of the world's truest Gremlin
Acolytes, who owns 13 of them including three AMC factory Gremlin
prototypes. He's well versed in the limited numbers of V-8 Gremlins and
the challenge restoring them presents. For example, 171,128 Gremlins were
produced in 1974, but just 10,944 had the 304-cu.in. V-8. Just over 11,600
were built in 1972, the option's inaugural year; production peaked at
14,137 in 1973; it had slid to 3,410 by 1975; and in 1976, the V-8
Gremlin's final year, only 846 left the factory.
"I just drove all the way up to New
Hampshire to get a 1976 car, and it's a basket case," Brian said.
" You almost have to be a purest to find a stock one that's restored.
Probably 90 percent of them are modified because parts are so hard to
find. You have to be in a club, like AMO, and go to the shows. Every time
I go to one I buy two or three parts, just to stay ahead."
The UniBomber like length and intensity of
the search for NOS parts makes Donnie wonder whether he should have
undertaken the effort to recreate a 100 percent factory-stock Gremlin X.
His next restoration project is a 1968 AMX, for which parts location is
somewhat easier than a Gremlin, but still far from Camaro-simple. He may
end up doing the AMX as a built street machine, and he may even drop a big
bad AMC 401 -cu.in. V-8 into the Gremlin X at some future juncture.
"My advice would be that if you want
to restore one, take the time to find a rust-free car that has a complete,
or close to complete, interior," Donnie suggested. "Join AMO,
and use their vendor list for parts and assistance.
"I like the Gremlin mostly because
it's so different. When you see them all, most Gremlins are modified, not
stock like mine," he said. "I used to have a '69 Z-28 and I
loved it, but there are probably 50 of them in Person County, where I
live. There's only one Gremlin." |
