The start of an automotive fashion movement
I get a lot of abuse for being such an American Motors geek. Part of it comes from my dad working there for 27 years in the Parts Division located in Milwaukee, but just thought they were cool. I know, it’s a relative term. They always were able to come up with new ideas on a shoestring budget and with a quick time to market, one of the added benefits that Chrysler came to admire when they purchased the company in 1987. One example is this week’s spot, a 73 Levi’s Edition Gremlin.
The Levi’s interior was the kind of fun option for a time when car companies were more creative and less risk-averse, something AMC was all in for. The Levi’s Gremlin was more than just AMC’s strategy to win over Pinto and Vega shoppers; it was a symbol of a changing America. People loved wearing jeans. The package came complete with metal buttons, copper-colored stitching, and a genuine Levi’s tag. It also included color-coordinated door panels with real denim pockets, special blue trim, and a Levi’s logo on the fenders. The option only cost $96! $698.48 in 2025 dollars. Even at that fairly inexpensive because now it would most likely be part of another package somewhere between $1,000 – $3,000.
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But it wasn’t something as simple as just buying a ton of material from Levi’s because the material had to meet safety standards, like not catching on fire. The material didn’t meet safety regulations for flame retardation, and it couldn’t withstand the wear and abuse that a car seat goes through over the years, so AMC had to come up with something that looked like it.
That task fell to Vince Geraci, AMC’s head of interior design. In a recent interview with Joe Ligo who produced a fantastic TV series The Last Independent Automaker. “So, my wife Susie and I went to San Francisco to see the Levi people … and they say, ‘We would like to have the design work and the sewing style and the pleating and everything that goes in there. See if you can coordinate the same feel of the trousers and what we do. We’ll give you samplings and cuttings of all of the different Levi materials that we use.’”
“But we wanted to capture the feel of the material, the coloration of the material, and the details associated with Levi itself,” he explained. “The buttons, the orange stitching, and the little tag that says ‘Levi.’ And in doing that, we brought back many cuttings of Levi material … and Louis Zolliker, who was fabric manager of the interior studio, she took a bunch home, and my wife took a bunch home. And we washed them to get that look that we liked. [We wanted] a little bit of wear but nothing significant, so it gives it that nice soft feel.”
After running the samples through the washing machine again and again, Geraci and Zolliker took their samples to work, and the stylists decided which ones they liked best. “So in doing that, we finally came up with the look that we liked,” Geraci explained, “So we brought in Milliken & Company, who is one of the largest manufacturers of carpet and interior trim material for the Big Three.”
Later on after the Chrysler purchase, many of the AMC people stayed on and I remember a conversation the Chrysler people had with their new co-workers on how quickly AMC was able to pull the program together. The Chrysler designers had been “thinking about doing something like it but said there was no way they could pull it together as fast as AMC had done. This was part of the first wave of designer interiors as later AMC offered other packages in cooperation with Gucci, Pierre Cardin, and Oleg Cassini.
While I couldn’t find specific sales numbers for Gremlin’s sold with the Levi’s option, overall sales did see a bump up to 125,000 units. Getting one now in good shape is going to be difficult to find, but not expensive at all to acquire. According to Hagerty, a 73 with either the 232 or 258cid 6-cyl engines in #3 Condition are around 11 grand. The most expensive one I found was a 75 with the 8-cyl. 304cid/150hp 2bbl in #1 Concours was just short of 50K. Still, not a lot of cash was a piece of automotive history, and to own the car that wore the pants.
Thanks for stopping by and check out this week’s find. I have plenty more from the American Motors Homecoming show held last month in Kenosha that I’ll share with you in future spots. Have a great week ahead.
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