American automakers had first countered imports such as the Volkswagen Beetle with compact cars including the Ford Falcon, Ford Maverick, Chevrolet Corvair and Plymouth Valiant, although these cars featured six-cylinder engines and comprised a larger vehicle class. As the popularity of smaller Japanese imports from Toyota and Datsun increased throughout the 1960s, Ford North America responded by introducing the Cortina from Ford of Europe as a captive import. American automakers introduced their own subcompacts,[6] led by the AMC Gremlin that arrived six months before the Pinto, and the Chevrolet Vega, introduced the day before the Pinto.