As mentioned earlier, I’m not a car person, but this big sale this past weekend brought back some dusty memories, of franksolich’s first car. I got it when I was 17 years old, and it was a used Gremlin. I disremember how much I paid for it, but it was wholly in cash. Given the times, it was most certainly no more than three figures.
There were many who insisted that because of its extremely light back half, the Gremlin was not suitable for Nebraska, especially Nebraska in winter--and that included not only out in the Sandhills, but in Lincoln (too crowded) and Omaha (too many steep hills) too, both of them cities where ploughing after snow was a sordid joke.
However, I don’t recall any particular problems in that area; this was perhaps because I’d learned to drive using an old jeep that had only four moving parts and none of the luxuries, bouncing up and down the rough raw terrain of the Sandhills. From the very first time I ever drove, I grasped the rather sensible--but oft-forgotten--notion that once one competently grasped what a vehicle could do, and
couldn’t do, and respected that, all would work out.
I wish I could tell stories of the Gremlin, but there aren’t any stories. It was just a motor vehicle with four wheels that spun the same direction, convenient for getting me from one place to another. It’d probably be superfluous to mention that during the five years I owned it, I never tried out the radio or “sound system.â€
There were two constant problems with it.
I don’t know the names of car parts, but there was some plastic thingamajig associated with the clutch that resembled a “figure 8,†through which apparently the rods of the clutch went. It was
plastic, and always breaking. I have no idea who the genius was, deciding it should be plastic rather than metal.
And also, the oil valve cover gasket (that name, I know) was always blowing out, lasting no more than a few thousand miles each time. This splattered oil all over the engine, making it necessary to have the engine cleaned too.
The oil valve cover was bolted down with four bolts; I suspect that if six had been used, this wouldn’t have happened, or happened as much.
The very last year I had it, when in college, the big back window got shattered. I’d lifted it to insert a 16-gallon keg of Coors beer into the back, and once that was inside, turned around, letting the window come down on its own. Unfortunately, I hadn’t placed the beer keg
all the way inside, and the window slammed down on its edge, getting shattered to pieces.
As it was apparent the Gremlin was coming to the end of its road (it lasted one more year), rather than paying $400 for a real window, I paid $100 to have a garage mechanic custom-cut, and insert, a piece of plexiglass into the frame.
It was then that it occurred to me this was a case where it’d been better if American Motors had gone “cheap†on the back window, instead of stinting on the clutch or oil valve cover.
