Been about a week since I got my '70 Gremlin back from the body shop. Decided to blow basically what I'd saved for my retirement on Gremlin restoration. Banks & Credit unions aren't offering squat for interest rates right now, figured I'd probably get a better return on the Gremlin.

So we turned this:

Into this:

The story:

Stripped down to bare metal.... which was pretty easy since from the front of the doors rearward was all original paint. A good pressure washer was blowing off the paint.

The rear fender arches and trunk floor took the bulk of the work. The passenger side door needed some rust repair too, but the floors and structure were pretty solid. The collision damage at the right front was very minor.

I wanted the car done in single stage for that nice, orange peely look. Though they did knock it down considerably, it looks like a proper 1970's paint job. New vinyl stripes. Rebuilt door hinges. All new weatherstripping and I also rebuilt the front suspension just before it went in for all the body work. It's practically a brand-new car at this point.

Re-assembly is slow going since I was concentrating on the '88 Ram this whole time. So, I never bothered to get Gremlin stuff prepared in advance. Biggest hurdles are going to be repainting the grille and tail lights, and then re-dying some of the interior pieces that didn't take to dying the first time around.

It looks great.

I like it. I'll walk past more "conventional" cars at shows to look at something like your Gremlin. Post up more pics.

Will do! Waiting on a cable for my "new" 4k Go Pro. Once that shows up, I'll be able to post some really hi-res pics.

I always liked those Gremlins. AMC's in general, actually.

I like em! good candidate for my 401

The only experience I have with a Gremlin was when I was a kid. My football coach had one, it died and he had us push it for him. I was like 8 or so. Gremlins aren't on my favorite car list, lol. My wife, otoh, loves them. But then she said she loved me too so there is that.

I like it, especially the color.

Back in the '90's I came close a few times to owning a Gremmie, but never did. It was a matter of $$$$ at the time. It would have been used as a driver, I just couldn't bring myself to spend $500 on a Gremmie when a fully loaded Monaco (B-body) wagon could be had for less than $200. ('90's prices......... )

I bought mine as a running, driver-quality car for $750 US around Christmas of 2000. I don't think you can get a running, driving lawnmower for that kinda money anymore. That's sort of why I invested in the paint & body. It's so unusual both being a debut-year Gremlin and only 1 of 3 factory Big Bad Green cars I can document. This thing'll be worth a small fortune pretty soon. V8 Gremlin are routinely topping 25-large now!

Today was door panel day. The weather looks like it'll behave the rest of the week, so I have a bunch of interior plastic that needs to be touched up. Then I'll finished up the body. Going to take a couple weeks before I can get the emblems on though. Turns out, the retainers are either AMC-specific.... or weird ones. Nothing can be found locally.

Super cool man

Very nice!

We had two of these in the family over the years.

Would be further along but keep running into little roadblocks. Since getting the car back, the dome light had stopped working. Odd, but.... it IS a 50+ year old car. After putting the tail lights in, they wouldn't work either. Upon closer inspection of the rear wiring harness, looks like a wayward cutting disc sliced right through it. Although it looks like a jagged cut, it cleanly separated every wire.

Spent all day with the rear harness, figured I'd replace sockets clean and grease connections and the few grounds. At this point, everything works now except park & tails. But, I suspect my headlight switch may have taken a timely dump. I no longer have any dash lights, either. Fuse is good, no power on the blue wire.

Rolled outside yesterday for some photos. Just finished installing the grille. Pretty much down to wiper linkage and motor, window trim and cargo area plastic now.
It actually feels kinda weird to have a project pretty much 100% done.

Wow! Boy that looks good!!

Very nice!

You gotta see it in person. Photographs smooth it out. The guy who did the paint has some real talent. When we discussed expectations, I described how I wanted a factory-style paintjob. So, orange peel and the odd run. (Originally, you could see where somebody had put their greasy hand on the tail panel of the car, and over time, the paint (which didn't stick) washed away and a rusty handprint was very noticeable!)

It's single-stage urethane based. And has also been polished. But what I really love is that horizontal surfaces like hood, fender tops, roof and to a certain extent; the tail panel are all nearly glass smooth with just a hint of orange peel. The doors and sides though have what we decided on calling a "factory-acceptable" level of orange peel. There's even also a few discrete sags and a very obvious run.

Although I learned today the car is less rare! Since showing it around, we've discovered possibly one more '70½ in Big Bad Green in Minnesota. So, we're up to 4 now.