Choose Your Two-Seat Shitbox: Gremlin Vs. Chevette

I’m not really sure why I ended up thinking about this, but I couldn’t get out of my head that there have been at least two times in American car history where a super-cheap version of an already cheap car was offered without a rear seat, because cheap. The two cars I was thinking of that fit this exclusive and dazzling category of skinflintery were the 1970 AMC Gremlin and the 1976 Chevrolet Chevette Scooter. Both were designed to be the entriest of entry-level cars, and both, I think, accomplished their task well. But if you were buying these, things probably weren’t going super-fantastic for you, at least financially. So let’s compare these two, and see what may have been your best use of your scarce dollars!

Man, I do some important work here. I hope people appreciate it.

Of course, six years separate these two cars, so you’d never have been in a position to cross-shop these two at these prices when new. Sure, you could have gotten a Gremlin in 1976, but the base-base-base model with no rear seat or opening rear window was only available until 1972, and that’s the model I’m really interested in.

I suppose if you were someone who blew almost all of their money on a time machine and only had a limited amount of cash for a car, and were determined to buy American, then perhaps this comparison makes sense for you. Let’s say that’s my target reader for this: broke-ass patriotic American time-travelers in need of basic transportation. It’s important to know your audience.

Okay, let’s see how these two shitboxen stack up:

Wow, this is a trickier choice than I would have guessed! Each car has its own strengths and weaknesses. The Gremlin’s strength I think comes from the fact that it started out as a larger car that was truncated, brutally, aft of the B-pillar. As a result, it has a much larger and more powerful engine than the Chevette (a 128 hp straight-six as opposed to a 52 hp-four) so it has better performance, even when you factor in the power-soaking three-speed slushbox.

But, that also means fuel economy suffers, pretty significantly; highway mileage is about half that of the Chevette. Interestingly, both are still RWD, understandable for the Gremlin, given it’s minimal-development origins from the AMC Hornet, but a bit more inexcusable for the Chevette, existing well within the era of FWD subcompacts like the Volkswagen Rabbit and Honda Civic.

Price-wise, both are pretty damn close, with the Gremlin being about a grand cheaper, but both would be absolute bargains in the modern car market, at between $15-$16,000. Of course, both were austere stripper models without rear seats and all the luxury of a tollbooth, but cheap is cheap.

The Chevette did have one pretty significant advantage over the Gremlin, though: a rear hatch. On the more decadent four-seat Gremlins, the rear window opened like a hatch, but for the two-seater, that window remained sealed, so any luggage you crammed in there either had to go through the doors and behind the front seats, or through the rear window, destructively.

Of course, the Chevette lacked a glove box door, which the Gremlin generously gave you, and the Chevette’s passenger seat wasn’t adjustable, so there’s that. Man, that’s some penny-pinching! GM was so good at that.

You can see the four-seat one with its opening window in this old commercial, if you want a glimpse of real decadence:

The Chevette just let you load stuff in through a hatch into the pretty good-sized void where no rear bench seat resided.

You can see that hatch open in this commercial, which also claims MPG of 31 city/43 highway, but I think those were kind of unrealistic 70s-era numbers. I’m sticking with the ones I put in the chart, which are still impressive.

So which car would I pick, were I this broke-ass time traveling American? That’s tricky. I think the Chevette definitely wins on practicality, but even though I drive a 52 hp car as a daily now, and firmly believe that’s adequate, I have always liked that AMC straight-six. But with a slushbox? Hm. That would really sap the fun out of the thing.

I prefer the weird look of the Gremlin, and, yes, I adore the weird badge:

Is that enough to pick it over the Chevette? Honestly, I’m just not sure. Hey! Why don’t we do a little poll? This is the internet, not some magazine, we can be interactive!

I think the Gremlin has much more charm and character, but is less practical. I’d love to know what you’re all thinking, so please, vote away, and then explain your thinking in the comments! I’m dreadfully curious.

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