An acquaintance of mine at work just purchased a Nissan Murano. She is happy with it thus far and can't wait to take it on a road trip this weekend.

Nissan Murano

On one look at her new car, I couldn't help but think it was just a souped-up version of the AMC Gremlin from my youth.

AMC Gremlin

Of course, she's too young to remember the glorious Gremlin days and before I could help myself, I had to fill her in on the more-than-slight resemblance of her dream car to the crappy Gremlin.

She didn't believe me so we went back up to the office and googled Gremlin images. First of all, that there are so many posts of peoples' Gremlins is scary...like - cult scary.

She saw the resemblance but only slightly. I said it's a dead ringer and Nissan had nothing better on the drawing board. Could you see that research and development meeting?

"Tom, whatcha got?"

"Well, Bill, I think it's time to rebuild an AMC classic."

"Good idea! The Gremlin, huh? We can capitalize on the Wayne's World publicity. You're getting a bonus this year, Tom!"

"Right on, Bill!"

So here's to you Nissan, the company with the courage to go quietly retro.