Does April 1,1970, mean anything to you? Hint: It signifies a product introduction with ramifications stretching to this day. Give up? On this date, American Motor Co., better known as AMC, rolled out what it touted as the first subcompact car, the Gremlin. With the introduction, AMC fired the first salvo in the U.S. response to German and Japanese imports that slowly had been eating into domestic automotive sales. The Gremlin not only put U.S. carmakers in the subcompact market, it set off alarm bells overseas. Companies such as Volkswagen and its counterparts across Europe and Asia re-examined and retooled for a new round of competition to wrestle away small-car market share. For years, as the battle raged, foreign carmakers gained the stigma of producers of tiny low-quality vehicles. By the early-1980s, that changed. Competition tightened, and those foreign automakers began producing automobiles on American soil.
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