I’ve always wondered what it would have been like if AMC offered a Dockers Edition Gremlin, with khaki fabric seats? “Hey, Biff, this is a nice car!” “Thanks, Tad, I really like that the seat fabric matched my khaki Dockers. Well, back to polishing my sailboat…” This Levi’s Edition 1978 AMC Gremlin X is posted here on craigslist in Santa Barbara, California, home to both jeans and chinos, and the seller is asking $13,500 or best offer. Here is the original listing, and thanks to Barney for the tip!
This car looks amazing, like it just jumped out of a brochure. I wish the photos had been nicer for such a nice car, but craigslist ads are notorious for being, let’s say, somewhat lacking in quality and quantity. About the price, this car would have been just over $2,000 or so new, which is $10,817.40 today. But, we all know that you can’t get a Hemi Cuda for $4,000 anymore, so there’s that. Along with Hagerty’s valuation of $13,000 for a #3 good-condition car, this one appears to be nicer than that. They’re at $24,300 for a #2 excellent car, so this $13,500 asking price seems to be right on the money if not a little light. Remember, it isn’t 1990 anymore.
The famous legend of Dick Teague sketching out the Gremlin on a “flight sickness bag” while on a Northwest Orient flight seems to have some merit, at least according to this sketch. I loved Northwest Orient, maybe because they were based in Minnesota, and it was the golden era of travel, unlike the cattle call of today’s airline travel. People are wearing pajamas and flip-flops compared to dressing up to travel.
Oddly enough, this exact car was auctioned to no avail on another site last fall – seen here – and it only made it to $10,000. And, they show engine photos! I guess maybe Hagerty is a bit off on the value if it only got to $10,000 last year.
The Gremlin was made from 1970 through 1978 in the U.S., and being a last-year model, plus an X, plus-plus a Levi’s edition, makes that asking price even easier to take. Not to mention, if you charged people $1 to take a horrible, vertical phone camera pic of this car at any Cars and Coffee event, you’d have it paid off in a month. Can you do that? Probably not, but it’s an idea. The interior looks new in this car; I don’t know how it survived the hot California sun for so many decades. Our own Aaron showed us a dusty barn finds version a couple of months ago here.
Even the engine is made of denim fabric!! (!!) (crickets) Yes, there is no engine photo, as you already knew (see link above). But the back seat looks like new, so that’s good, right? The engine is AMC’s 258-cu.in. OHV inline-six with 120 horsepower and 201 lb-ft of torque, sent through a Chrysler-sourced TorqueFlite automatic to the rear wheels. The seller says it’s in good running condition, is rust-free, and “drives excellent.” Any thoughts on this Gremlin X?
I don’t ever remember the Levis versions of anything AMC from when I was a kid, and there were a lot of AMCs around due to having a popular dealer in town. So these always pique my curiosity. This one looks like it was very well taken care of over the years. Nice color combination too with the denim interior. When you look at this one next to a base model with plain steelies and hub caps, what a difference some stripes and rims make. And that interior too. Nice write up Scotty and a beautiful find too.
-Dave
Love the roof rack and the jeans pocket on 👖 the doors lol 👍 and as Dave mentioned the colors, decals, and rims. One good looking Gremlin. Thanks SG.
( snif), a moment of silence please,,,this was it, the last of the Mohicans, in true Gremlin form. It may seem trite to some, but to us in Wesconsin[sic], the Gremlin was our middle finger to the encroaching imports. 671,000 cars is nothing to be ashamed of, even though the imports were far superior. This still had 1950s engineering, but sure saved our axxes,,for a while. This only shows how far(?) the Gremlin came. The original was a bare bones deal, but this was actually a very comfortable car and it went out with some glitz. This car has “West Coast” all over it, and customers in Beer City went for the more basic models, they were nothing but cheap transportation, California usually got the “X”.
Maybe not in Beer City but here in SE Michigan we saw lots of Xs . For whatever reason, (I think it’s our proximity to all the mamanufacturer’s HQs), their discounts allowed people to step up to the more deluxe model. Looking at this today it’s interesting to see just how good the pproportions are of this car. She’s a sweetheart.
Aside from terrible space utilization (it’s really a 2-seater) the Gremlin was not a bad car, at least equipped with the right options which this one looks to have. This last-year example sports the much-improved Concord dashboard – without the exotic quartz clock though. It also has AMCs trusty inline six rather than the VW/Porsche 4-banger offered at the time which wasn’t a great match, particularly with automatic trans and AC.
The Gremlin didn’t really give Toyota a run for its money but I’d take it over a Pinto or Vega any day.
The owner of the dealership I work at has numerous older cars and has a Levi edition Jeep Wrangler from the 1970’s here!
I do feel like Tad is a name that is undermocked these days, thanks for bringing it back around, Scotty! Oh and great car too!
Ha! I laughed out loud at that one. A tip of the hat, sir.
Great intro Scotty, but the “Dockers Edition” would be better suited for Subaru. I recall many Levi’s and Gremlin X editions on the streets of Springfield Ohio. The interior of this one is in remarkable condition (assuming it wasn’t reupholstered). Episode 3 of “the last independent automaker” give a very nice history of the Gremlin and the team involved.
This would be a fun little car to take on a trip. People would be coming up to you taking pictures of it and asking what kind of car it is. I had a friend who was a used car salesman back in the day. He used to sell all he could get his hands on. He especially liked the ones with the V-8.
If I had the extra money and the storage space I’d think seriously about buying it just for the fun factor.
I had a 1973 Gremlin X with a 304 V8 and an automatic back in the 90s. It was the green color of the time with green vinyl interior. That thing would scoot down the road, and smoke a tire with ease. It was light, and even with the poor suspension of the day it could be tossed around like a go-cart. What made it so much fun was the look on the faces of people grinning ear to ear that a Gremlin could be an actual muscle machine. It’s one of the cars I would take back in second, just to see those looks on the faces of people again.
Too bad the AMC Spirit Kammback Sedan didn’t come a few years earlier. It was a beautifully proportioned “shooting break” in the best of Euro tradition.
If this car is unknown to you, it was identical to the Gremmy but with a full rear side window which required only retooled rear quarter panels to build. I might have bought one had it been an earlier build but five years into the Gremlin had brought lots of worthy competition.
The Gremlin was a very creative low budget variation of the “Hornet” platform. Back in the ‘80s a few Gremmys with this 258 engine made a pretty good showing running against V8 cars in the stock class, at the now defunct Yakima Speedway. Good times.
Love a good AMC Gremlin! Shoulda taken the $10k. One with 3,800 miles sold on BaT recently for about this asking price. This is approaching 100,000 miles.