I’ve been in the new house for six months now and am settling in and looking around for how to make use of all the space I have now (read, looking for more AMC’s to buy). One day it dawned on me that there was an AMC club in Santa Rosa and I’m like 15 minutes from Santa Rosa now. I actually went to one of their meetings 10 years ago. I drove the yellow Javelin. But it was a long drive from where I was living and so I never made another meeting. I decided I’m so close now I should see if the club is still going and try to get involved. So I jumped on the internet and did a search and couldn’t find any reference to the club. I thought they must not exist anymore. Then I remembered I’d actually exchanged emails with a club member a few years ago. He was selling an AMC part on craigslist and I responded. He recognized my email address and told me who he was. We exchanged a few emails and that was that. Well I dug up that email and contacted him and asked him if the club was still going and he said it was and that the next meeting was the following week (this was in December).
So I went to the meeting and recognized some people who had been there 10 years before. At the meeting I mentioned that I was in the market for another Gremlin. I was told that another member, Ross, had one and might be thinking of selling it. After the holidays I followed up and turns out Ross lives 10 minutes from me. He said to come over and I could check out the Gremlin. He’s got a v8 Gremlin and this 6 cylinder car had been sitting in his driveway, unused, for 4 years. We agreed on a price and that I’m come by the next weekend to pick it up. So yesterday I drove over with the trailer and winched it on and brought it home.
After getting it unloaded I messed around with it and confirmed that it was getting spark and had fuel in the carb. Then I turned the key and it fired up! Ross had said he’d parked the car because it had been unreliable and had stalled and stranded him a couple of times. I let the car idle for 20 minutes, then shut it down for 2 minutes and then started it again. Fired right up. So, I guess I’m going to have to start driving it longer and longer trips until it dies and hope I can figure out what the issue is. Goal for this car is a reliable daily driver. It’s 3rd in line though behind the race Javelin and the track Gremlin so this is going to be a slow project.
Here’s some specs:
258, 3spd, not the original motor, AC car but compressor is missing, had carpet but Ross put the carpet in his v8 Gremlin and put the rubber floor mats in this one. Turn signals and temp gauge don’t seem to work. looks to have been hit in the passenger quarter panel. pretty thick bondo is visible. At some point I’ll dig it all out and see how bad the damage is. Car was purchased in 2000 from Eddie Stakes in Texas.
The car has a name, Greta. I’ve never been one for naming cars but that’s what Ross calls this car (and everyone in the AMC club knows the car as Greta) so I guess that’s what I’ll call it. Now that I have 4 AMC’s (and am looking for more) I’m starting to appreciate the idea of naming them. It’s getting annoying to say “yellow javelin”, “race Javelin”… I can’t even just use years anymore because both Gremlin’s are 1975… I’ve got ideas for names for the Javelin’s but I’ll save that for another post.
So that’s the scoop. Stay tuned.
Greta the 1975 AMC Gremlin
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