The idea for the AMC Gremlin began in 1966 when design chief at American Motors, Dick Teague, and stylist Bob Nixon discussed the possibility of a shortened version of AMC's compact car. On an airline flight, Teague's solution, which he said he sketched on an air sickness bag, was to truncate the tail of a Javelin. Bob Nixon joined AMC as a 23yearold and did the first formal design sketches in 1967 for the car that was to be the Gremlin.

Ford and General Motors were to launch new subcompact cars for 1971, but AMC did not have the financial resources to compete with an entirely new design. Teague's idea of using the pony car Javelin resulted in the AMXGT concept, first shown at the New York International Auto Show in April 1968. This version did not go into production, but the AMX name was used from 1968 to 1970 on a shortened, twoseat sports car built from the Javelin.
1971 AMC Gremlin X, 1972 Ford Pinto Runabout and 1973 Chevrolet Vega GT
1978 Gremlin X
Instead, Bob Nixon, AMC's future Chief of Design, designed the new subcompact based on the automaker's Hornet model, a compact car. The design reduced the wheelbase from 108 to 96 inches (2,743 to 2,438 mm) and the overall length from 179 to 161 in (4,547 to 4,089 mm), making the Gremlin two inches (50 mm) longer than the Volkswagen Beetle and shorter than the Ford Pinto and Chevrolet Vega.

Capitalizing on AMC's advantage as a small car producer, the Gremlin was introduced on April 1, 1970. The April 6, 1970, cover of Newsweek magazine featured a red Gremlin for its article, "Detroit Fights Back: The Gremlin". The car was available as a "base" twopassenger version with no rear seat and a fixed rear window, at a suggested retail price of $1,879, and as a fourseat hatchback with an opening rear window, at $1,959 (US$13,055 in 2020 dollars.


The AMC Gremlin was It's hard to find a car with more ignoble roots than the AMC Gremlin. It was named for the mythical creatures said to be responsible for crashing airplanes and breaking machinery. And as for the styling, AMC design chief Dick Teague made his first sketch of the AMC Gremlin on the back of a Northwest Orient Airlines barf bag.

Despite all that, the AMC Gremlin was arguably AMC's best car: It was inexpensive to develop and its timing was perfect. The AMC Gremlin was part of an uncoordinated response to the onslaught of the imports. Teague understood that the Gremlin was not going to win any styling awards and that the car at least had personality and character, and that it looked different. This is the story of the AMC GREMLIN.

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