20th Oct 2005, 19:09
Uhm..it's a regular Gremlin with fiberglass ground effects (really radical in 1978, oh so common now), and some stripes. Rally wheels. A console with a gauge cluster.
That's about it. The rest was plain ol Gremlin. Same basic idea reappeared a couple years later as the Spirit-based AMX. You surely have seen some of those.
26th Oct 2005, 13:08
I am a amc fan, and would love to see a GT gremlin no matter what they have added to it! They are a very special car. Hope to see one sometime.
8th Feb 2006, 12:35
I am 17 years old and I have a chance to buy a 1975 Gremlin, in perfect shape, 30,000 original miles. My parents think I will have to spend a lot of money keeping it running, and that I won't be able to find parts for it. Does anyone have any ideas as to whether or not I should buy this car? I love retro!
8th Feb 2006, 18:19
Buy it. Those older cars are cheaper and easier to maintain. Even if you replace the starter and alternator, which you might on most higher mileage cars, it will still be cheaper than if you paid several grand for a newer Honda. And who wants to drive a Honda?
8th Feb 2006, 19:14
I would buy it. It has a fairly straightforward engine design. It's a relatively easy car to maintain. Make sure you get it undercoated and rustproofed or it'll decay in no time. Most components are easier to replace than on cars of today. They are also interchangeable with other AMC cars. If a salvage yard has a hornet, MANY of those parts will work. Mechanically, Spirit and concord components, maybe even eagle components, can be used. It's one of the best-priced antique cars out there, still cheap to buy, but still lots of fun if you get a well-preserved one, not an eaten-up hulk of rust.
14th Feb 2006, 08:57
I have a 1978 Gremlin GT (white with black & blue stripes). It was my second car and I am it's second owner; I have had it for 26 years. It has 68,000 original miles, but I have not always taken the best care of it and it has been outside all these years and the weather has taken it's toll. I have recently begun to restore the car and I am looking for parts (not a lot, the car is 99% complete). If anyone knows where I can find parts, I would appreciate it.
2nd Mar 2006, 09:18
From : The original Sun Orange '78 GT owner/poster, a new comment on March 2nd, 2006
To : the 17 year old about buying a low-mileage Gremlin, and update on my Gremlin GT (s)...
Only problem with Gremlins is finding body parts. Mechanically, it won't be too hard to keep running, due to Jeep cross-over parts availability (mention THAT to your parents!) and if it's a low mileage vehicle you found, it probably won't need any body parts for now. Depending on the asking price, it's worth it.
Status of my (two) Gremlin GT's - my orange one still sits, due to personal crisis now of having to move my parts and project car fleet off a relatives farm that is being sold, and my ailing elderly parents requiring more health care (and losing my job in January). I hope to get on it SERIOUSLY this year, once all my frantic scramblings are over with shortly (I hope!).
My 2nd GT, a Levi's interior baby blue with black accents, is a former Ohio wrecked salvage car, rust has eaten it away in the cow field it's been sitting in for 7 years, it was rust-eaten before, but now terminal. Parting it out when I have the time, it's been moved to it's new location, a piece of property I bought fall of '05. Rust in both front sub-frames, rear hatch roof, etc. Motor locked up. Interior is savable, so far. No GT specific trim on car when purchased, unfortunately. Already removed. Will be saving doors, fenders, engine/trans, interior, and misc. parts I can salvage. Sad to see it scrapped, but being as wrecked and rusty as it is, it's just too much of a project for me, and probably for anyone. Time to put it out of it's misery and let it go to make room for others. But I'm saving as many Gremlins as I can, currently 9, will be 8 when the parts GT is gone.
- Jerry -
3rd May 2006, 15:55
In 1978, I turned 16 and my parents bought a brand new Gremlin GT off the show room floor for me to drive. No, I wasn’t spoiled. My father had a company car which I wasn’t allowed to drive and my mom didn’t want to compete against a 16 year old for her car, so my parents bought a car for me and my 15 month younger sister. Knowing they’d have two teenagers wanting to drive within a year, they thought a third car was necessary. My parents made it clear the car was "their" car. We had to ask to drive it and we had to pay mileage.
Our Gremlin GT was white. It had a wide black stripe down the side where the “Gremlin GT” badging was displayed. Surrounding the black stripe was a double pin stripe. The inner pin stripe was light blue and the outer pin stripe was dark blue. The pin stripes were also on the hood, along the flared wheel wells and wrapped around the bottom of the front air dam. The back of the car was solid black with the blue double pin stripe wrap around. To add to the “sport appearance package” the car had stand out white letter tires, sport wheels with chrome trim rings, flared wheel wells, a front air dam, blacked out window frames (instead of chrome), blacked out grill, blacked out headlight frames and body colored (white) bumpers with black vertical and horizontal bumper moldings. Our car had the Levi denim blue interior with Levi (gold) stitching. It even had a genuine Levi tag on the side of the seat if I recall correctly (like the small tag seen along the side of a back pocket, not the leather tag at the waist). It had a blue dash board with blue carpeting and blue vinyl on the back of the bucket seats (Levi’s cloth was only on seating area, not seat backs). Our car had a sport steering wheel, a Tachometer and the sport gauges down the center console, which included vacuum gauge, oil pressure, temperature, etc., not the idiot lights. Our car was equipped with a manual four speed, manual steering, manual brakes, and dealer installed air conditioning which came out of a tray added to the bottom of the dash board.
Being 16, it wasn’t “cool” to drive a Gremlin. The “in” car at that time was the Trans Am, Camero, Thunderbird or Cougar. The Gremlin was a fun, dependable, car to drive, but a bit embarrassing (what can I say, I was a 16 year old male). I remember one weekend night I drove it to the University of Illinois, Champaign, campus and someone yelled at me while at a stop light; “who in their right mind would soup up a Gremlin?” I yelled back “it was factory built this way”. The car did turn heads because it was so rare. I drove it for a year. I put about three to five thousand miles on it (remember, I didn’t want to be seen in it) until I bought my first car, a Cougar. My younger sister drove the Gremlin GT until she graduated high school in 1981. My parents kept the car until 1983 when they sold it to my cousin with around 15,000 miles on it. What has happened with the car since my cousin bought it, I don’t know.
Looking back, I would LOVE to have a picture of me next to that car. I am a car nut and have often told my “car nut friends” about the Gremlin that I drove when I was 16. It was (and still is) a rare car that I didn’t appreciate at the time. I have only found one picture on the internet which looked like the one we owned, but the picture is in black and white. When I found it I forwarded it to my friends so they could actually see I wasn’t making up the story about the Gremlin GT, with factory built flared wheel wells, stand out white letter tires, front air dam, a Levi denim interior….
24th Apr 2005, 20:03
My 1978 Gremlin GT (robin's egg blue and black) was the best. Bought it brand new (and it was the only brand new car I've ever owned) off the floor without being a very good standard transmission driver. Learned quickly. I drove it for 8 years. It was a perfect size to have a car seat in the back. Could always reach my son. Would love to have it back, should have kept it.