1972 AMC Gremlin X 304 Muscle Car Of The Week Episode 330
1972 AMC Gremlin X 304 Muscle Car Of The Week Episode 330
Loyal viewers have seen this ‘72 Gremlin X before, but today, we’re driving it.
We first featured this purple 1972 AMC Gremlin X in our Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals show coverage, so you’re not seeing double. There are times when we’ve featured cars from The Brothers Collection at events when we couldn’t shoot them in motion, so when we had the chance to wheel this little 304 V8 powered X-box around a bit, we decided to have some fun with it.
This car generated a lot of commentary for sure. While there were some who didn’t think the stock 304 was worthy of a “Muscle” title, many pointed out the performance potential of this quirky little car.
Just because this Gremlin has a 304-cube V8, the timing was all wrong for this one. By ‘72, AMC’s little troublemaker had the life sucked out of the 304, now reduced to 8.4:1 compression and gasping through a little 2-barrel carb. So it’s only good for 150 HP… does that mean it’s not a fun ride? Not hardly.
The interior is super basic, but it does have a 3-speed manual on the floor. And even though it’s got a light curb weight of 2900 lbs., it still only equates to about 1 horsepower per 20 pounds of Gremlin. Which means 16.80s in the quarter. A street racer it isn’t… at least not stock.
Gremlins were designed and built to be economical and practical cars, but it’s interesting to see how AMC added muscle-car elements to the car… like silver rally wheels wrapped with raised white letter Goodyears, disc brakes, a traction-bar rear end, and cool gold stripes.
Driving the X is fun, but it makes us wonder what this car could have been if it was born just a few years earlier, and was powered by the Hurst SC/Rambler 390, for example… now THAT would have been a sleeper!
You can learn more about this little monster in Episode 285 of Muscle Car Of The Week.
A well rounded collection benefits from a wide variety of cars, and cars like this one add some fun to The Brothers Collection. It’s not the fastest in the bunch, but is sure turns heads. What do you think?