Minneapolis Street Sighting: AMC Gremlin

As a departure from my usual posting of the "Big Three", I will use this week to venture into other vehicles I've seen throughout my shooting career; some of these may not be familiar to the non-gearheads who read my blog, but I will do my best to explain why I shot the cars I did.
As of late, for some reason AMCs are really, really tickling my fancy; first it started out with the AMC/Rambler Marlin, and it blossomed into other cars. Eventually, I got to love and adore the whole brand, particularly the cars made from 1965 to about 1980, with the exception of the Eagle, which ran till 1987 or 1988. As many people know, AMC was bought out by Chrysler in 1987 after a brief bed-night stand with French carmaker Renault; this tie-up really did it in for AMC. Gone were the quirkycool cars like the Hornet, the Pacer, and Javelin, and they were instead replaced with even crappier versions of crappy Renaults. The public knew this, and likewise, Renault's short stint in the US was to say the least, craptacular.
What we have here is the AMC Gremlin. Launched in 1970, it did battle with, among other cars, the Ford Pinto, and Chevrolet Vega, along with a slew of fresh-from-Japan compacts. When it was new, it was criticized as being quite ugly, and "weird", and as such, many automotive writers, American and foreign put on various "worst cars" lists. As an enthusiast, I think this nomination is blasphemous. Despite the negative connotations the name Gremlin conjures up, there is really nothing wrong with AMC's second cult compact (the other being the much hated Pacer).
I recently got an AMC book detailing the likes of the Gremlin, the Javelin and Javelin AMX as well as other AMCs that dominated the racing circuits in the 1960s and 1970s; like most compact cars of the era, the Gremlin was successful at racing in showroom stock/SCCA series races, and when painted up in the traditional AMC livery (red, white and blue), it looked pretty badass. The fact that it rolled on deep-dish vintage Torque Thrusts only helped matters.
As you can see, this Gremmy is far from a race car of any sort. It's got stock paint, stock badges (with a broken AMC logo), and it rolls on stock wheelcover/hubcaps. Inside, as you can imagine, things are pretty staid; no rollcage, no seat harnesses, and no removable steering wheel. Does the factory stock aspect take away from its coolness? Absolutely not! I have not seen another Gremlin since, aside from a stock black '78-'79 Gremlin GT I saw today. I know these pictures are not quite what I would call my best, but to me, they document a not-often seen car pretty well. I only wish I knew what engine powered this, and if the house nearby houses any other interesting oddballs.