Ok, how often do you get to tell a Gremlin story....here goes.......

Set the Waybac machine to about 1983 - my buddy and I see a Gremlin for sale for $400 in the Trading Times (remember those days). Mid-January in Michigan, we go to this guys house, this thing is buried under a pile of snow next to a shed. Purple, with a red door (the car, not the shed....).

He gets a broom and cleans it off, grabs a battery from someplace, and the thing starts up. He had wrapped his Javelin around a telephone pole, and put the V8 304 motor into the Gremlin, along with the traction bars, Posi rear end and dual exhaust. We hop in and smoke the tires halfway down the block, come back and hand him 400 clams.

2 of the 3 engine mounts were broken, and when you hit the gas the motor would flop around like a fish in the engine compartment. We fixed those, and once all the power was getting to the tires the thing would bark into 2nd at 50mph. This was around the time the 5.0 litre Mustangs were all the new rage. It would sit neck and neck with one, sometimes we'd beat one, sometimes not, but the looks we got when guys would pull up laughing at this multi-colored Gremlin w traction bars, and then how those looks changed when we'd light 'em up and all of a sudden they realized they were on the verge of getting beaten by a purple Gremlin...well, ya can't buy that.

Thanks for bringing that memory back.