Ford Pinto vs AMC Gremlin and Pacer: daring to be diminutive

By Jan-Henrik Muche

| 2 Oct 2024

Classic & Sports Car – Ford Pinto vs AMC Gremlin and Pacer: daring to be diminutive

According to one executive who was there at the time, selling the idea of small cars to the bosses of America’s ‘Big Three’ makers – those imperious people in the teak-panelled offices of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler – was a hopeless task.

“Small cars mean small money,” explains George Gallion, who held managerial positions in the design offices of GM for four decades, confirming that the smaller the car, the smaller the profits.

Logically, then, big cars mean big money.

As a result, year after year, product planners and marketers preferred to push new luxury land yachts to the dealers, almost always larger, more powerful and more ostentatious than those that had come before them.

The AMC Gremlin’s performance is keen, but its pedestrian Hornet underpinnings bring lots of understeer

In the end, however, it would be the local customers themselves who forced a change in attitude.

Compact imported cars, and above all the Volkswagen Beetle, began to populate America’s streets from the 1950s.

While their share of the market grew every year, the number of US-produced vehicles in this segment steadily declined, dropping to below 7% by the late 1960s.

This was the moment for the Big Three manufacturers to launch their retaliation.

The AMC Gremlin on the cover of Newsweek magazine in 1970

‘Detroit fights back’ was the coverline of Newsweek magazine on 6 April 1970, accompanied by an image of a quirky little car with a truncated tail.

With sales starting on 1 April (an unfortunate choice, bearing in mind the reputation the car would later gain), the underdog American Motors Corporation was ahead of the Big Three with its new Gremlin, stealing a six-month march on Ford and GM, which wouldn’t launch their own compact cars – the Pinto and the Chevrolet Vega respectively – until the late summer.

Chrysler was even further behind.

AMC quickly secured buyers with what was then the cheapest domestically produced car, priced at $1879.

AMC’s popular $300 ‘X’ package added individual sports seats and a sports steering wheel

Even five decades later, it makes sense to start with the Gremlin.

Luckily, ‘our’ 1972 example in delightfully sun-scorched Blarney Green isn’t as stark as that sub-$2k base model, which even ditched the opening rear window and back seat in search of a headline price-tag.

Decorative stripes, wider wheels, individual seats instead of a bench and a sports steering wheel are among the extras in the popular Gremlin X package, but they don’t change too much about the fundamental economy feel.

The doors rattle when slammed, the equipment is pretty rudimentary, the workmanship of the cockpit lousy with its thin plastics and crooked alignment.

The AMC Gremlin’s aged 3.8-litre ‘six’ makes just 100bhp

The chassis, with a live rear axle and archaic leaf springs at the back, is as basic as you might expect: this long-nosed, short-tailed offering is a mass-produced, cheap and hastily made car, but not a bad one.

The reason why penny-pinching AMC was able to knock out the Gremlin so quickly – and cheaply – was because half of the car already existed.

As far back as the doors, this ‘new’ compact was the front half of the larger Hornet, the mid-range offering best known for its loop-the-looping antics in the James Bond thriller The Man with the Golden Gun.

With a shortened wheelbase and radical hatchback rear, it could be reinvented as a new model.

The AMC badge and Gremlin mascot boldly adorn the wedge-shaped boot

And the recipe worked: in production from 1970-’78 (1974-’83 in Mexico), the little newcomer shifted an impressive 671,475 units – a fantastic number for one of Detroit’s smaller manufacturers.

The recipe for success was simple: in terms of price and size, the Gremlin was aimed directly at potential Volkswagen customers, and promised to be at least as reliable thanks to its durable, tried-and-tested (read: ancient) technology.

The 12-month warranty that AMC gave to Gremlin buyers was a sensation at the time and, in contrast to the billy-basic Beetle with its small, four-cylinder boxer engine, even the cheapest AMC could offer a spot of luxury.

‘The straight-six AMC Gremlin is a motoring adventure to drive, ideal for those long, straight stretches of American highway’

Initially with a 3.3-litre straight-six, from 1972 the Gremlin was fitted with a 100bhp 3.8-litre ‘six’ as standard, while an automatic transmission, air conditioning and a muscular 5-litre V8 were optional.

Even with the straight-six, the Gremlin is a motoring adventure to drive.

Directional stability is very good, ideal for long stretches of American highway, but the tendency towards terminal understeer curbs your enthusiasm when you head off the main roads.

Stomp on the gas pedal and the AMC marches smartly off the line, but the first corner quickly shows its handling limits.

The Ford Pinto is lighter on its feet than its rivals

Ford’s value proposition could do better.

Compared to the Gremlin and its big-brother Pacer, the Pinto feels much more agile and manoeuvrable, with lighter, more responsive controls.

The neatly styled Ford almost comes across as sporty in this company – even if the spec sheet tells you otherwise.

All three cars have similar chassis and drivetrain technology: six-cylinder engines, three-speed automatic transmissions, disc front and drum rear brakes, independent front suspension via double wishbones and a live rear axle on leaf springs.

The Ford Pinto’s stripy seats mark this out as a high-spec model

Where this bright-blue Pinto from the late 1978 model year differs is under the bonnet, where power comes from not an in-line motor, but the 2.8-litre Cologne V6 from Ford’s German division.

Better known in the Capri and Granada, here it is strangled to a tame 90bhp by its weedy single Motorcraft carburettor – albeit significantly more potent than the standard version of the Pinto, which was launched with an asthmatic 75bhp 1.6-litre Kent four-cylinder motor sourced from Ford UK, which seemed ridiculously small in this Stateside application, or the newly designed 2-litre, overhead-cam four-banger that shared its Pinto name and mustered a useful 100bhp.

Although averagely sized to European eyes, the Pinto appeared so small to buyers on the other side of the Atlantic that Ford even listed it as a ‘subcompact’ in its model range – the wheelbase and length of the Blue Oval’s entry-level models were almost identical to those of the Beetle.

This Pinto’s Cologne V6 was the largest engine offered in the Ford, above 1.6-litre Kent and 2-litre Pinto units, but with only moderate performance

Unfortunately, because Ford also wanted to keep the new car’s price below the magical $2000 barrier – and boss Lee Iacocca, ‘The Father of the Mustang’, had the model’s development pushed through in just two years – there were much-publicised flaws in the early car’s design.

In the event of a rear-end collision, it was possible to pierce the rear-mounted fuel tank with a bolt from the differential, which would cause petrol to leak out, with devastating consequences.

Rumours that Ford knew about the problem and saved a few dollars’ worth of rubber part, cynically calculating that the compensation to potential victims would be cheaper than a costly redesign, would forever ruin the Pinto’s reputation.

The AMC Pacer has become a cult classic car

Yet, despite its name often unfairly going hand-in-hand with the ‘death trap’ label, Ford would go on to sell a remarkable 3.2 million Pintos by the time it went out of production in 1980 – even Sabrina drove an orange example in Charlie’s Angels.

In the metal, the compact Ford looks more conventional than the Gremlin, but also offers more variety thanks to a larger model range that comprised sedan, hatchback and various flavours of station wagon.

An example such as this, with the optional ‘Rallye Appearance Package’ – go-faster stripes on the flanks and wider wheels, as well as the V6 – was pretty much the hottest thing to come out of the Pinto stable.

‘AMC advertised this daring newcomer as “the first small, wide car”, even if this selling point was an emergency solution’

Nevertheless, there’s not much in the way of real dynamism apart from a reasonable amount of acceleration.

Trundling along, while the Cruise-O-Matic lazily shifts through its three speeds, it’s hard to escape the thought that a European-spec 2.8-litre Capri is simply a much better car.

No wonder the Pinto never made it to this side of the Atlantic.

On the other hand, ‘our’ example is colourful and optimistic, with its cheerful saddlecloth fabric and lots of hard, bright-blue plastics that feel similar in quality to those of the Gremlin, with a hollow sound when rapped with your knuckles.

The AMC Pacer’s wheezy 4.2-litre engine makes 95bhp

There is no more room on the Pinto back seat than in the Gremlin or Pacer, even if it looks more spacious.

The luggage bays are only moderately large across the board, but at least all three back seats can be folded down.

Perhaps the oddest thing about the Pinto is that it looks less like its Mustang sibling than a relative of the Chevy Camaro, especially in post-’76 facelifted form, as here, with slanted grille and urethane headlight scoops.

The AMC Pacer eludes such comparisons because there really is nothing else like it, either in design or conception.

Nicknamed the ‘Flying Fishbowl’ for its unusual glasshouse, the wide-stanced AMC Pacer is a fine highway cruiser

Beside stylist Dick Teague’s bizarre ‘fishbowl on wheels’ glasshouse (accounting for 37% of the body’s surface area), even the shortened Gremlin looks utterly conventional.

The Pacer was never intended to be a small car for small money, like its AMC sibling and Ford’s Pinto, which were both aimed at young people and second-car buyers.

Instead, this mega-hatch combined the width of a typical US ‘mid-size’ model with a length of 4.37m, making it a compact car by local standards.

Indeed, AMC advertised this daring newcomer as ‘the first small, wide car’, even if this unique selling point was really an emergency solution, like so many from the notoriously cash-strapped company in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The AMC Pacer is a cut above its rivals in terms of cabin fit and finish

The ambitious Pacer project was originally conceived to be equipped with an advanced Wankel rotary engine and front-wheel drive.

For cost reasons, however, it came on to the market with the usual, venerable AMC straight-six – seemingly developed shortly after the discovery of America – or, from 1978, an optional V8; and always with rear-wheel drive.

The hulking, all-iron, 4.2-litre engine was generally considered to be the ideal choice in the Pacer – even if, thanks to ever-changing emissions regulations, the large in-line ‘six’ of this 1976 example actually makes a few horsepower less than the 3.8-litre version in the Gremlin.

Both consumed a similar amount of fuel and were capable of interstellar mileages with minimal maintenance.

The AMC Pacer’s distinctive rear

Ideally, the Pacer would prefer the majority of those miles to be running in a straight line, because cornering is very much not its forte.

That said, this is a comfortable car – in the front, at least – and as stylish on the inside as it is wacky from without.

The passenger-side door is 4in longer than the driver’s side, for rear-seat passengers to get in and out at the kerb rather than into the road – less useful in cars converted to right-hand drive and sold by Rambler Motors in the UK.

Finished in the warm, pudding-like colour of Sunshine Yellow, ‘our’ Pacer boasts more generous D/L (De Luxe) specification, which brings cruise control, imitation wood and chrome on the broad dashboard, plus psychedelic seat covers with a basket-weave design.

Cornering is not the AMC Pacer’s forte

Pricier when new than either the Gremlin or the Pinto, the Pacer feels at least one class above in terms of interior ambience, with improved materials and more space.

From inside, the world rushes past the large windows in CinemaScope format.

While the Pacer lacked the sales success of the Gremlin and in particular the Pinto, its ‘so bad it’s good’ reputation earned it cult status – particularly after its starring role in the generational teen film Wayne’s World.

Today it’s revered as a unique piece of automotive design, just like a certain European competitor that inspired America’s car makers to head down the compact route.

And, for all its conventional underpinnings, it serves as concrete proof that US manufacturers were willing to think outside the three-box after all.

Images: Roman Rätzke

Small cars mean big business

The Crosley Hotshot was America’s first post-war sports car

Once ridiculed, today the cars of the Crosley Corporation (1939-’52) are now collector’s items.

Powered by flat-twin and in-line four-cylinder engines, these ultra-frugal compacts concentrated on economy when everyone else in the USA was still focusing on launching ever-larger and more powerful machines.

The model range extended from the open Hotshot – America’s first post-war sports car (above) – to the tiny station wagon.

When the good times began to come around again as the world recovered from the conflict, the manufacturer closed.

The Nash Metropolitan has Austin underpinnings

Nash and Hudson, which went on to form the American Motors Corporation (AMC) in 1954, filled the gap with the Metropolitan (above).

This 3.8m-long compact was the first American car to be produced entirely abroad through a tie-up with Austin, which supplied the technology and took over the model’s production.

Around 95,000 units were built from 1953-’61.

Chevrolet Vega: a new compact from GM

The affordable Chevrolet Vega was a popular choice in the 1970s

Chevrolet’s answer to the economy-car question appeared shortly before its arch rival from Ford, in 1970.

Unlike General Motors’ first attempt at a compact car, the air-cooled, rear-engined Corvair of 1959, the Vega was a conventional design offered only in four-cylinder guises, with engine displacements from 2 to 2.3 litres.

The flagship was the Vega Cosworth, unveiled in 1975 with a 110bhp, twin-cam 2-litre engine.

To boost production and improve quality, GM built a highly automated factory specially for the Vega, including an innovative delivery system using ‘Vert-A-Pac’ railroad cars (above), yet the new model quickly made an unwanted name for itself with various defects.

Although voted Car of the Year by Motor Trend magazine in 1971, and selling some two million units by 1977, the Vega is a regular feature of ‘worst cars ever’ lists.

Europe comes to the rescue

Clockwise from top: Chevrolet Chevette; Plymouth Horizon; Dodge Omni

After trying to develop their own compact models, several major US manufacturers switched to knocked-down kits from the other side of the Atlantic in the late ’70s.

The Chevrolet Vega was succeeded by the more compact Chevette, based on GM’s worldwide ‘T platform’ that underpinned the Opel Kadett C, and by 1987 nearly 2.8 million Chevettes had been produced.

Chrysler, the smallest of America’s ‘Big Three’, secured the rights to the new Horizon hatchback after the sale of its Simca subsidiary and tweaked the design to suit the US market.

With a four-cylinder engine initially from Volkswagen (later Peugeot and Chrysler units), the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon joined the Chrysler range from 1978-’90.

Factfiles

American Motors Gremlin X

Sold/number built 1970-’83/671,475
Construction steel monocoque
Engine all-iron, ohv 3801cc ‘six’, single emissions-control Carter carburettor
Max power 100bhp @ 3600rpm
Max torque 185lb ft @ 1800rpm
Transmission three-speed ‘Torque-Command’ Chrysler automatic, RWD
Suspension: front independent, by double wishbones, coil springs, anti-roll bar rear live axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs; telescopic dampers f/r
Steering power-assisted recirculating ball
Brakes discs front, drums rear, with servo
Length 13ft 5¼in (4096mm)
Width 5ft 10½in (1793mm)
Height 4ft 3¾in (1316mm)
Wheelbase 8ft (2438mm)
Weight 2601lb (1180kg)
Mpg 20.5
0-60mph 13.1 secs
Top speed 100mph
Price new $2995 (1977)
Price now £15-30,000*

Ford Pinto

Sold/number built 1971-’80/3,173,491
Construction steel monocoque
Engine all-iron, ohv 2792cc V6, single two-barrel Motorcraft carburettor
Max power 90bhp @ 4200rpm
Max torque 143lb ft @ 2200rpm
Transmission three-speed ‘Cruise-O-Matic’ automatic, RWD
Suspension: front independent, by double wishbones, coil springs, anti-roll bar rear live axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs; telescopic dampers f/r
Steering power-assisted rack and pinion
Brakes discs front, drums rear, with servo
Length 14ft 1¼in (4300mm)
Width 5ft 9½in (1763mm)
Height 4ft 2½in (1285mm)
Wheelbase 7ft 10½in (2400mm)
Weight 2551lb (1157kg)
Mpg 19.5
0-60mph 13.3 secs
Top speed 96mph
Price new $1919 (1970)
Price now £5-15,000*

American Motors Pacer D/L

Sold/number built 1975-’80/280,858
Construction steel monocoque
Engine all-iron, ohv 4235cc straight-six, single Carter carburettor
Max power 95bhp @ 3050rpm
Max torque 180lb ft @ 2100rpm
Transmission three-speed ‘Torque Command’ Chrysler automatic, RWD
Suspension: front independent, by double wishbones, coil springs, anti-roll bar rear live axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs; telescopic dampers f/r
Steering power-assisted rack and pinion
Brakes discs front, drums rear, with servo
Length 14ft 4in (4369mm)
Width 6ft ¼in (1836mm)
Height 4ft 9½in (1461mm)
Wheelbase 8ft 5in (2565mm)
Weight 3201lb (1452kg)
Mpg 18.5
0-60mph 15.8 secs
Top speed 100mph
Price new $3500 (1975)
Price now £10-20,000*