Gremlin Hot Rod

[ving]

I guess having rear drive made it easy to drop a big motor in a little car. In the era before turbos and 16 valve engines, that was the only way to make a car really go.

Gremlin 401-XR

[kostby]

And how did Ford respond to the performance 'arms race' of the time?
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My folks bought one of the very first 1971 Maverick Grabbers with a Ford 302 V8 and 3-speed automatic. (Grabber models were mostly tape and paint when they first came out in '70 with a choice of inline 6's.)
Ours was screaming Grabber yellow with black hood and stripes, and the 210hp 2BBL 'Windsor' engine, not the 290hp 4BBL 'Cleveland', but that much horsepower in a small light car made it an adequately fast car for the time. Ours was similar in appearance to the one in these photos, though ours had the flat-black hood treatment: http://www.carsonline-ads.com/colsite/c ... ngID=53627" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My dad and I took a trip up north shortly after we got the car. An 6-cyl AMC Javelin blew past us at about 85. My dad floored it, caught him, passed him, and pegged the speedometer (120 in those days). We stopped for fuel around Chicago (16 mpg was good back then!) and the guy pulls in right next to us. Looks under the car (because it had dealer-installed dual glass-packs), and of course, my dad had to 'check the oil', so he could show off the factory V8 shoehorned in there.

[Raven]

Ya those Gremlin 401s had some grunt for sure. I was fairly young at the time but seem to remember my cousin lifting the front wheels with his.