In
the summer of 2003, I began the search for my first classic car. I knew
deep in my heart that I wanted this car to be a Gremlin. The first time
I saw a “real life” Gremlin was at the Hershey Show 2002. The rest was
history.
I
started my search by walking down the obvious avenues; newspaper ads (I
must have been dreaming thinking I would find one of these cars in
Pittsburgh) AMC car clubs, AMO newsletter and so on. I started noticing
a few Gremlins. I got excited about any car I saw in these ads; even if
half the back was missing and they were located 400 miles from
Pittsburgh.
Fortunately, my boyfriend steered me in the conservative direction.
Dave’s recommendation was to look for a Gremlin that was in solid
condition. Though I might be paying a little more for the car, in the
long run, it would most likely end up being less expensive (new body
work and paint $$$).
Several weeks later, I got word about a Gremlin parked in a little car
lot outside of Indiana, Pennsylvania. My friend warned me that 3 weeks
had passed since she saw the car and didn’t know if it was even still
there. Dave and I were willing to take the chance and started our road
trip to Indiana, PA. The
car lot had several cars, but the Gremlin was nowhere to be found. Dave
continued to search behind the lot. Within a few minutes Dave yelled “I
found it”. There it was, the little blue Gremlin X. Not knowing if it
was sold, or as Dave said “maybe they were embarrassed to have it on
their lot”, I took down the phone number and called the next day. The
salesmen reassured me that it was for sale and then quoted me a price.
I was happy.
Dave
and I decided to go to the car lot that evening to look over the
Gremlin. When we arrived the car was there to greet us. We looked her
over and took her for a ride. The Gremlin had hardly any rust
underneath the car and even looked cleaner than my current car. To top
it off, it only had 17,000 miles. I was sold.
After
some negotiating, the little blue Gremlin X was coming home. I was a
new proud owner not only of a classic car, but one of the coolest cars
made, the Gremlin. |