This Car Answers the Question: What If You Crossed a Gremlin and a Trans Am?

Are you familiar with the slang term “short king”? Well, this runty little rascal is just that. Turning up on Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos), is like a fun-size Trans-Am, complete with flames on top of the hood and V-8 firepower underneath it. It ain’t Alan Richtson’s Reacher, but it packs a punch.

As a company, AMC was all about doing things the bigger manufacturers couldn’t or wouldn’t, being just a tad more daring to try to stand out from the crowd. Often, it was tongue-in-cheek moves like calling a new compact the Gremlin, which actually did result in some unexpected sales success.

With the Spirit, which replaced the Gremlin in 1979, AMC’s designers and engineers pulled off their usual more-with-less handiwork, ending up with a handsome little subcompact that aped larger pony cars. With four-cylinder thrift or a straight-six for more power, the Spirit was affordable and fun.

However, AMC also had a V-8 in its parts bin, so it threw that in the Spirit too. Only available on the liftback AMX version, it was absolute nuttery, 5.0 liters of V-8 power in a car with a 96-inch wheelbase. On paper, it should have handled with the front-heaviness of a bulldog.

However, in 1979, a privateer team from North Carolina called Team Highball entered two AMX V-8s in the 24 Hours of Nürburgring endurance race. The effort, the first time a U.S. team had competed at the race, sounds lifted from a screwball 1970s comedy: They had a one-armed German driving instructor, a Hollywood actor, the first woman to win the Indy 500 rookie of the year award, and the fellow who invented the HANS safety device.

Incredibly, the cars ran faithfully and true, and the AMXs won their class, beating out BMWs and the like. It was an underdog victory, and it gave the Spirit some genuine racing pedigree. Or it would have, except that most Americans at the time probably thought Nürburgring was some kind of German pretzel.

In any event, this example looks micro-muscle tough on its 14-inch alloy wheels with white-letter tires. The decals and stripes and AMX flames on the hood are pure late ’70s, and the stubby wheelbase just enhances the look.

The 304-cubic-inch V-8 was good for an emissions-choked 125 horsepower and 219 pound-feet of torque. Here, an Edelbrock intake manifold, headers, and a dual exhaust with glasspack mufflers let things breathe a little more freely, and also allow for an authoritative rumble.

The transmission is a three-speed automatic, which is all you really need with this much torque in such a short-wheelbase car. Compared to contemporary rivals, it sounds the part, looks the part, and just happens to be easier to park. It’s also fairly rare, with only slightly more than 3500 examples built for the model year, not many of which remain on the road.

So keep things short and sweet. This burly little bruiser doesn’t need to take up much space to make its presence known. It’s a terrier with an eight-cylinder bark, a car with a small footprint but plenty of spirit.