This Tube-Chassis AMC Gremlin Is Your Ticket to 10-Second ETs

Craigslist

Who doesn’t love an underdog? American Motors Corporation, the amalgamation of Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson, was always in the shadow of America’s Big Three automakers. Yet the domestic automaker built some seriously interesting and stylish cars, trucks, and 4x4s. In the late ’60s and into the early 1970s AMC took on Detroit with sedans, wagons, and muscle cars, and the outfit even had an answer for the influx of compact, affordable imports: the Gremlin. With a shoestring budget, AMC developed the Gremlin to take on the fuel-efficient offerings from abroad as well as the Ford Pinto and Chevy Vega.

Starting with the Hornet, which was available in wagon, sedan, and liftback coupe variants, AMC cut a foot out of the wheelbase and added a steeply slanted hatchback to create the Gremlin. It’s a unique, instantly recognizable car and AMC even offered one with its 304 cubic-inch V-8.

This 1970 Gremlin, listed for sale on Craigslist in the Phoenix metro area, was brought to our attention thanks to BarnFinds.com. Far from the economical commuter and city runabout that it was when new, this AMC has been transformed into a lightweight drag racer. In place of the typical inline-six or rare 304 AMC V-8 powerplant, this tube-chassis machine is powered by an AMC 401 V-8 with a high-rose single-plane intake and a 950CFM four-barrel. AMC only had one line of V-8 engines, so there’s no big-block or small-block AMC, so if it weren’t for the fender emblems proclaiming the engine’s displacement, you could be fooled into thinking that there’s still a 304 under that hood. Of course, thanks to the massive scoop and readily apparent cage and 14.5-inch-wide Hoosier slicks, there’s no passing this beast off as some mild-mannered commuter.

Craigslist

Inside the Gremlin, things look every bit like you’d expect from a drag racer. The windows have been replaced with polycarbonate, and there’s not much upholstery to speak of—all but the driver’s seat has been removed. The battery lives on top of the rear axle where the rear seat used to be, with cables running aft to the NHRA-mandated battery cutoff. An MSD ignition box with two-step rev limiter is mounted in the passenger footwell. Combine that with the line lock and burnouts won’t be a problem. Once you launch, a Turbo Action SCS shifter is at the ready with a Dedenbear air shifter to make sure the Mopar 727 hits second gear at the perfect spot.

Craigslist

The listing notes that the Gremlin competed in the Division 7 NHRA Super Street 10.9 index, and a 1999 NHRA chassis certification sticker proves it has the cage to do so. It claims that it’s currently capable of low 10-second passes, but if you pick this up and hope to make it any quicker, a whole new set of safety requirements come into play for anything running 9.99 or less in the quarter mile. However, with a rowdy V-8 and a 96-inch wheelbase, this thing seems like it might be a handful as is, which is exactly why it sounds like a whole lot of fun.

Hopefully, its new owner will get some great passes out of it and make the most of that beautiful 401. We’ve reached out to the seller for more information on the Gremlin and will update this story with more details if we hear back.

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Comments

    Not a hatchback, that didn’t come until later after complaints of the lack of access to the “luggage area” and seeing that the Pinto and Vega had hatchback versions.

    It looks like a crazy ride. An orange Gremlin drag-race car isn’t quite my cup of tea, but I’d love to see it run.

    If you really want to see an orange Gremlin that is a crazy ride, do a search on YouTube for “Brian Ambrosini Gremlin”

    Owned a 72 gremlin x with a 304 with a 3 speed manual. My first car. Put a 390 and aluminum T-10 4 speed in it Also added 4:11 posi unit and the rare cross-ram STR-10 intake. It was a handful. Sold for $3500 to put downstroke on a house. The intake is probably worth more than 50 percent of what I got for the car

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