These lists always are very short-sighted... Gremlins are either on UGLIEST or WORST car lists but that is completely unfair (in my no-so-unbiased opinion!). Cheap cars are always over represented. Well, duh... in cost-no-object hind site, who doesn't remember a high priced car fondly? They are either plush, fast or exotic. Grems were made on the cheap to be sold cheap for folks who probably had to scrimp up the payments. They were never meant to be luxurious, pony cars or even extra frugal on gas. Hard to stand up to today's standards, but at the time you got a hell of a lot of car for the buck, solid and durable. Fir would be to directly compare them with Vega (the 10K mile engine rebuild) Pinto (keep the fire extinguisher handy) Plymouth Cricket (who even remembers them?). Japanese? I had
a early Toyota and NO, it wasn't ready for the US demands (yet). The VW was slower and got almost equally so-so MPG VW and Gremlin kept going because of the very fact they had a Cute or Oddball styling that some of us liked. Long live quirky! |