Annual Changes
The new AMC Spirit was largely a restyled Gremlin that had been manufactured from 1970 to 1978. Many engineering and equipment upgrades introduced on the 1978 Concord were now transferred to the sub-compact Spirit. The suspension system was revised with "soft-ride" mountings for the coil springs over A-arms in the front and the rear live-axle with leaf springs to improve ride and handling. Attention was also focused on sound-deadening, corrosion protection, and other engineering features included among others, lightweight aluminum bumpers, lock-up automatic transmission converter, and higher-compression six-cylinder camshaft and pistons for economy, performance, and emissions. The body received new styling and a liftback model was added to the previous two-door sedan. Richard A. Teague’s "more-conventional" design of the new liftback coupe “had a particularly graceful superstructure for such a short car”. A road test by Popular Science described the transition as AMC having the "cleverest engineers in Detroit" cementing their reputation of "getting $200 worth of looks for $100".
Read more about this topic: AMC Spirit
Famous quotes containing the word annual:
“From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8,000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the annual decay of the vegetation which it supports.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)