The Gremlin in the details

I just finished the June 1, 2022, issue of Old Cars and found the “Vintage Ad of the Week” article, on the introduction of the AMC Gremlin, tickling my peeves.

I have a ‘73 Gremlin X in my garage that my son and I built into a 401 four-speed “screamer.” As such, we were gifted the April 1970 Life magazine issue in which the centerfold is the very ad Old Cars recently published.

So, where is my peeve? It’s in the ad itself, and one phrase you commented on: “The Gremlin gets the best gas mileage of any car made in America. It goes about 500 miles without stopping for gas. That is great gas mileage....” It then goes on to compare the Gremlin to the VW “Bug” of the same year, which was the given target for AMC.

However, I’ll never understand how AMC got away with that misinformation. The Gremlin, with its base 199-cid sixcylinder engine, may have had the best gas mileage of any car built in the United States, at least until the Vega and Pinto were introduced later that same year, both with four-cylinder motors. But the Gremlin’s ability to go over 500 miles was not due to gas mileage, or miles per gallon, but because of the fact that the Gremlin, the smallest car built by American Motors, had the largest gas tank of any car in its inventory! It had a 21-gallon tank! The much larger Matador and Ambassador only had a 19.5-gallon tank, and the Javelin of ’71 and later had a 16-gallon tank. AMC’s smallest car had the biggest tank. That’s why it could go 500 miles — it had range! The VW that the ad compared the Gremlin to only had a 10-gallon tank. The VW had better miles per gallon, but could only go half the distance due to the small tank. The difference is range, not gas mileage.

As I said, I’ll never know how AMC got away with that incorrect claim. And yet, I enjoyed the article since I have both the car and the Life magazine! Thanks!