The horrors Detroit inflicted upon the world in the long decade spawning 1973-85, also known as the Malaise Era, were many and affected all makers. Vega. Mustang II. Volare. Diesel Olds. Imports boomed; exports cratered. The monstrous dimensions of the garishly overstyled, technically backwards, slow, cramped, shoddily-made and thirsty American vehicles of the time, with few exceptions, were egregious. One of the cars that tried bucking the trend was the AMC Pacer.
The Pacer was and remains controversial. Even before it hit the market, AMC knew it was a risk and would alienate some people. The question was “how many?” Pacers were a hot item in 1975-76, then sales fell off the proverbial cliff. So the answer was “Too many.” But at least they tried to think outside the goldfish bowl.
If everything had gone according to plan, the Pacer would have had a GM/Curtiss-Wright Wankel engine. Maybe they dodged a bullet there. The problem was that the car was too heavy to be hauled by a small 4-cyl., which AMC didn’t really have anyhow (but could have gotten from an outside supplier, perhaps), so they relied on comparatively huge 3.8 and 4.2 litre 6-cyl., but only squeezed 100hp out of all that displacement. So on our Malaise-o-meter, we can check the “slow,” “technically backwards” and “thirsty” boxes.
I’ve heard many stories of how unreliable some people found these, so I’ll throw that in the “Con” column too. But at least in terms of styling and size, at least the Pacer was a breath of fresh air. The lack of overhangs are especially outstanding, given how certain carmakers (looking at you, Ford) were designing their cars in those days. No stupid grille, at least in the beginning and huge amounts of glass made the Pacer stand out even more. That was AMC’s only weapon, and they wielded it expertly.
The upshot was that the Pacer could appeal to folks who never would have considered anything American-made, such as the Europeans. At least, it would have if it had had a much smaller engine. As such, the only folks who could afford one were prepared to pay huge taxes and fuel bills and hope it would not break down too often. Oops…
In the end, the Pacer was AMC’s final failure, and the 1979 tie-up with Renault was to signal the end of the last Independent’s independence. It’s funny they ended up with that company, as I always thought the Pacer looked a bit like a Renault 5 (Le Car) that had grown up on Big Macs.
I have no idea if AMC sold many Pacers in Japan back in the day (I rather doubt it), but however this one happened to materialize here, I glad I caught it. It looks as out of place here as it does in its homeland, or on a European street. It’s beyond Malaise and beyond independent – it’s an automotive alien, parked curbside in Tokyo, awaiting its owner. One of the greatest last throws of the dice by a car company.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1975 AMC Pacer X – The Spacer, by PN
Car Show Classic: 1978 AMC Pacer D/L Wagon – Roll With It, Baby, by Joseph Dennis
Curbside Classics: AMC Pacer and Diesel Maxima – At NAS Alameda, Home For Wayward Cars, by TBM3Fan
Vintage R&T Technical Analysis: AMC’s New Pacer, by PN
Curbside Companions: AMC Pacer and ’67 Thunderbird, by PN
Cohort Pic(k) of the Day: Pacer and Travelall – A Study In Contrasts, by PN
Cohort Pic(k) of the Day: AMC Pacer Found in Amsterdam – The Chubby American Golf, by PN
CC Outtake: AMC Pacer Spotted on the Island of Corsica, by PN
Cohort Sighting: AMC Pacer – The Racer Pacer, by PN
CC Outtake: Nothing Drives Like A Pacer Because Nothing’s Wide Like A Pacer…Until 2014, by Tom Klockau
Pacer Of A Lifetime: 1976 AMC Pacer, by PN
Wordless Ad Outtake: “Honey, Does This Pacer Make My Butt Look Too Big?, by MarcKyle1964
Imagine if this car had a fuel injected V-6… or even an overdrive transmission.
The Pacer’s bumpers stood out from the body (with no filler panels), but this one’s bumpers are pushed in. I wonder whether that was accidental or deliberate.
I briefly worked for an AMC dealership just north of Washington DC. We had a Pacer come in for it’s initial service. It was owned by a diplomat and bore diplomatic license plates. It also had the close-in bumpers as seen here. I’m guessing that the the Pacer we serviced [and sold new] was destined to be shipped back to Europe [Spain or Portugal, I don’t remember which], and the white one were “export” cars that didn’t require the 5mph bumpers.
These close-in bumpers suggest the Pacer was initially designed to be sold with these bumpers, and they are an improvement in my opinion.
AMC modified the bumpers for export cars, but was too cheap to reverse the different-width doors for RHD markets like Japan. In North America and mainland Europe, the passenger side door was wider for easier rear-seat access, while the driver side door was narrower for easier entrance and exit from the driver’s seat in front. In Japan, driver’s got an extremely wide door and on the passenger side had more difficult access to the back seat.
Too cheap? I think not. Sure they were cash-strapped, but doing that would have required so many new body pressings (one bodyside, door, and associated trim items at least, if you wanted two big doors) I’m not surprised they didn’t. It would have cost more than they could have expected to get back from export sales to RHD countries. I reckon even GM, Ford or Chrysler wouldn’t have bothered, in their shoes.
Awkward having the big door on the ‘wrong’ side, for sure, but buyers of American cars in RHD countries would put up with it for the ‘image’.
Honda and Toyota never reconfigured the back doors on the older CRV and RAV4’s. Flipping the dash was one thing. But they never put money into other modifications due to left or right hand drive. I wouldn’t expect AMC to have done it.
Back in the late 70’s I saw a Pacer that was all black with spoilers like those on a Firebird Trans Am. Looked kinda badass in a ‘parakeet with fangs’ sort of way. I have to wonder why someone would devote that much time and money to something like this.
From what I’ve heard, Pacers were not terribly reliable; a friend of mine bought a Pacer in 1975-76-it had been a demonstrator. As soon as the warranty expired so did the transmission. Apparently she had all sorts of problems, one time she, myself and some friends went to see the movie “Oh God”, it featured John Denver driving around in a Pacer. When we left she exclaimed “John Denver was driving a Pacer and it never broke down once!” After it was totaled in an accident she did not buy another Pacer.
The Pacer design would’ve worked much better on a transverse FWD chassis.
I don’t remember the details about who the publisher was, but I read an in-depth story about the Pacer’s origins. Early in the design it was indeed to be a rotary engine with FWD, then when that didn’t happen, they were deep into talks with VW to use the new USA built VW FWD package, however I believe the talks with Renault ended that possibility. So saddled with no power train except for the I6 OHV and Torqueflite, with live rear axle, they made the car as we all know it today.
The pacer was never intended to be an economy car, it’s basic designs were already laid out when the first gas crisis hit. It was far too heavy to carry an engine with under 3 liters displacement. The pacer was not really a small car, it was a large car that had both ends truncated.
I worked for an AMC dealership for a short time after returning home from a stint in the US Army. My dad was looking for a small car for mom, so I brought home a loaded maroon Pacer DL with the western American Indian basketweave interior, as my mom was born & raised in Arizona.
Mom liked the large windows and the “look” of the interior, especially the southwest theme. [Now all the rage with the rod and custom guys using southwestern style blankets for upholstery.]
Dad said the interior looked like cheap plastic stuff that would break off, and when he saw the estimated mileage figures on the window sticker, that was the deciding factor — no deal.
They bought a new 1975 Dodge Dart sedan, well optioned including factory A/C & AM/FM stereo. It was maroon with a tan vinyl interior and tan Vinyl top.
All that width and they stuck the rear seat between the wheel wells to have usable legroom. The front seats were wide buckets about a foot from the window. Tall and wide was a nice concept, but it was poorly executed.
Ralph:
Exactly! I had the discomfort, as a boy, of attempting to ride in the back seat of my Uncle’s Pacer. The seat was hard, narrow, uncomfortable, and hot from the sun pouring in that big back window. I was also unimpressed with the quality of the interior.
Until that point I had thought that the design was very modern and cool, but the reality that as Ralph says, the concept was a loooong way from what the company was selling.
I will also toss in the thought that the idea of using a wankel engine was pure madness. Wankels (even Madza’s) were not ready for the real world yet, and a small low horsepower engine revving to 9,000 rpm before it made any torque would have been a horrible mating to the chunky Pacer. This is before we get to the problem of trying to train AMC dealership mechanics to repair them.
Talking of bowls for fish, I have never understood the keeping of the fish as a pet.
I mean, what is the point? There’s no carefree gambolling, no soft furs, no loving looks – even if those are usually only because you control the food in a cat or dog’s food cupboard – and no stroking and definitely no hugging. (Well, there could be that last, but only fleetingly and slipperely, because, if longer, one would have to discard the pet or perhaps cook it, but that is to digress. Although in this particular context, it is a truism that the Japanese do like fish and might not see the problem).
However, if one took up the habit, and if it escalated as these things are wont to do, I suppose one might as well have the car best designed to transport one’s purchases. As the habit’s zenith was reached, the Pacer would be ideal, as it could even include anything up to the taking home of small whale, which would also prepare the said whale for its new glassy enclosure, although the speed necessary to get this done in order to avoid the second point made in parenthesis above might not be possible with 4,000lbs and 100hp (Although, again, it must be admitted a truism that the Japanese do like a good dead whale, but this is now a digression’s digression).
I like the Pacer. In 1978, age 9, I was taken by my god-bothering Catholic parents to see George Burns and John Denver in “Oh, God!”, and, dutifully, I loved this pile of saccharine bollocks (and confess, Bless Me Father For I Have Sinned, that still don’t hate it). God, or Denver – I forget which – drove a Pacer, and so I immediately wanted one. What a cool-looking car! (It is perhaps a superfluity to mention that I was not a cool child. Or adult, or middle-aged man).
What a pity this essentially good-looking design wasn’t based on the Rambler instead of the 7-inches wider Matador. Engine apart, it would fix every oddity in the design, and still seat four anyway.
Just remember when the Pacer was new, some people kept rocks as pets….
I am interested in how Pacers were unreliable. The components were all standard proven
designs. Having owned several AMC products of the seventies, with good success, my
question is was there something different with, for example, transmission or engine cooling
etc. that would make them overly problematic?
My dad had one which I had the ‘joy’ of driving and working on when I got older. A primary issue I remember was a chronic hesitation/stumble/dying issue which it seemed no matter how much carburetor tuning, repair or accelerator pump work would keep it running smoothly for more than a few weeks at a time. I eventually chalked it up to a poorly designed Autolite carb due to generally poor experiences with those carbs on both AMC and Ford vehicles. (A neighbor was thrilled with newfound reliability after we switched to a Holley on his ’67 Park Lane.) Outside of that I had to replace the pickup coil in the distributor, a cracked exhaust manifold and vacuum line and valve cover gasket replacement was frequent and difficult but mostly it was just maintenance stuff. We had to put a couple transmissions in it but I believe that was because Dad tried to drive it through flooded streets and high waters and it took on some water more than once. We ended up getting about 180K out of it which was more than decent for the era. After the awful electronic feedback carburetors came on the scene shortly after that I never had another bad word to say about the ol Pacer.
Yup, the one-two punch of Matador and Pacer knocked AMC to the mat. Unfortunately they were self inflicted.
As we all know they might have survived longer using the development money for a competitive small car, but that would have only staved off the inevitable.
The only reason I can think of for Pacers to be unreliable is that they were unloved and not maintained well. All the bits were proven AMC bits.
Nice find! Where would a Pacer look at home? In front of the Museum of Modern Art? Inside the Museum of Modern Art? Inside the Museum of Bad Art?
http://museumofbadart.org/
I appreciate the distinctiveness of the Pacer styling but overall it’s an example of Detroit (ok, Kenosha) at its worst. Excessive emphasis on style and very impractical. Large but not very usable interior volume, too much glass area for sunny climates, overweight, underpowered, no driving dynamics (I’ve actually driven one). Automotive sculpture perhaps, but unlike some sculpture, not even practical as a coat rack.
Have read here & elsewhere that AMC was newly using the (unreliable) Motorcraft electronic ignition in these. Someone replying to a YouTube video said he’d been an AMC dealer mechanic. This guy faulted the nylon timing gears in the V8s, but said otherwise ‘a 200,000 mile service life is normal’. Both of these failures are ‘deadly sins’ in that they leave a driver stranded, but they’re cheap and easy to fix.
Edsels and Pacers on CC in the same day. Love it.
I’m sure you know that (in its first model year, 1958) the Edsel line included a Pacer model.
This Pacer is identical to the one, my dad bought back in 1975. Strange to look at, brings back memories.
I will never tell a soul, what he traded in, to get that Pacer. YIKES!!
Can we make guesses? Inquiring minds want to know.
1969 Dodge Charger? 1970 Chev Camaro? 1968 Buick Wildcat? Anything even close?
Maybe a Rolls Royce?
Hell, I didn’t trade the car, my dad did.
1965 Mustang, Alabaster White, red interior, 289 with the 3 speed Auto. This was just before the time, when the value of the original Mustangs began to explode. It’s twin is sitting at the Gilmore car museum. Or it’s the same one.
That’s weird, the Pacer was white, with a red interior too.
I get the impression that the spark plugs for cylinders five and six were lifetime parts, since a third of the inline engine resided under the dashboard.
The Pacer, as conceived with a Wankel engine, embodied some creating thinking. The Wankel would have made the car even roomier, since it would have fit in the engine compartment. The width provided all four passengers with plenty of room by allowing the back seat to be further back between the rear wheels. The longer passenger side door was thoughtful for the time when two-doors were routinely used as family cars.
The only problem is that none of its design concepts had anything to do with conserving fuel, and conserving fuel was very much on the minds of compact car buyers when the Pacer reached the market. A/C would have been necessary any time the sun was out, and it would have had to be powerful A/C. Wankels have never been efficient with fuel. Frontal area is as important as design refinements in determining total aerodynamic drag, and the Pacer had as big a frontal area as any American car. 3,000 pounds was a lot for a four-seat compact thirty-five years ago.
I suppose the question is, would anyone have wanted the twelve-mile-per-gallon, reasonably quick, and unusual looking Wankel Pacer if there hadn’t been an energy crisis?
You’re making erroneous assumptions. The Pacer’s body structure was fully locked in by the time GM cancelled their rotary engine plans in 1974, less then a year before the Pacer was to go into production. All they did was to reshape the firewall to make room for the six. There was zero impact on interior room.
The firewall is what divides the engine compartment from the interior. Moving it back to accommodate the inline-six engine instead of a two-rotor Wankel reduced the size of the interior. The change created a large hump that removed the driver’s right leg’s room and the passenger’s left leg’s room. That in turn meant that the front seats were generally further back than they’d have been without the firewall change impinging on foot room. The effect of the firewall change is obvious in this image:
The larger hump did impact foot room. But there’s absolutely nothing to suggest that the front seats could or would have been further forward without it. That would have changed the whole basic seating proportions to the rest of the body. There was not room to move the seat forward, given all of those factors. The dash still needed room for the HVAC system, etc. And one couldn’t or wouldn’t want to sit closer to the front window.
Any changes in the basic configuration of the seating package would have seriously impacted safety issues too.
What I am trying to express is that the driver and front seat passenger would have positioned their seats further back along the seats’ travel to create the missing leg room for themselves. That in turn would crowd the back seat passengers. It’s on me that I’m not conveying this, as I was a technical writer for years.
The basic leg room (length) wasn’t missing; it was the same as before. The bulge just made the area for the legs and feet a bit narrower. Your assumptions are erroneous.
The pacers proportions were pretty finalized around the wankel, you can see it in the concept the passenger compartment is pretty close to its final configuration, the seats and steering wheel are about where they are on the production car.
I drove one of these once, probably in 1978, when I worked for Hertz, had to pick up some cars in Rutland (Vermont), one was a Pacer….my Dad had 2 AMC Rambler wagons in a row, a ’61 and a ’63, but otherwise we weren’t an AMC family.
A lady I worked with in 1979 had one of these, but otherwise I didn’t know anyone who had one. I’m a fan of the Hornet, Concord, but not these, they really ended up (along with the Matador Coupe) taking away focus from the small cars AMC is known for.
This may sound a bit strange, but to me these are “opposite” of the current trend for tall (but maybe narrow) vehicles such as crossovers. As the population ages, I think they appreciate a taller car for ingress/egress (but the “sporty” image of them distracts people from the taller nature for access). The Pacer on the other hand was wide (but still low) so its frontal area was larger (I know it was pretty aerodynamic, especially before the ’78 or so with the taller grill to accommodate the V8 needed to give it the grunt it needed). Crossovers are taller but narrower instead. The width of the Pacer really would have been more practical if they had fitted a bench seat rather than buckets, though not sure if you could have fit 3 across in the front (I’m guessing the rear seat was too narrow for that). Guess they would have had to also only had a column shifter rather than on the floor to allow extra room for the 3rd passenger, so at least the car might have been able to seat 5 rather than 4, so the extra width would have been somewhat justified.
Also, thought in general I’m a fan of good sightlines, I don’t really care for a fishbowl, especially since I live in the south, and the sun does more damage to plastic and rubber parts than age alone. If a car has more window area, I prefer it to be vertical rather than horizontal so the sun doesn’t have as much area baking the interior of the car. The Pacer “wagon” or whatever they called the later body style when they also raised the hood line, is more to my liking than the original for this reason.
As a European I was very interested in the Pacer. It looked like nothing else at the time. Also Rambler (still used in the UK) were the best selling US car in the UK in the Seventies and the Ambassador in Estate form was a reasonably common sight. Either Autocar or Motor did a roadtest on it and it was clearly a dead-end in Europe. The distributor went bust and to this day I’ve never seen one. Why didn’t AMC try and source a European engine to licence build? This is the company that once had Austin building its cars?
Can you say SLOTH like “acceleration”?? That is my most vivid memory of test driving a stick Pacer with the 258 ci 6! A wide “small” car simply adds gas burning weight that does nothing good for the cars’ performance or economy of operation.
While interesting to look at; IMO the Pacer was a very flawed concept……….hhmmm, rather like the Edsel PACER!! 🙂 DFO
I have always liked Pacers, but more as a concept. I would not have wanted to actually own one as a regular car when they were current, though there is one in my fantasy garage today. It’s a fun shape, but the car simply cannot cash the checks its appearance writes, and never could. Had AMC survived longer, maybe a second generation Pacer could have had FWD and a modern fuel injected 4 cylinder. But even that would have made it only marginally more competitive with modern FWD hatchbacks of the 1980s because the truncated big car concept was flawed from day one. AMC should have been watching the VW Rabbits and Honda Civics for inspiration, not going back to the Studebaker Lark – on which the truncated front and rear were far better executed, if equally as desperate. But our automotive landscape would have been much poorer without the Garthmobile.
It was a nice driving car, I think you have wrapped up the whole Pacer story.
Question? was the Pacer rack and pinion steering? I thought it was. I spent some time with the unit my dad bought. With the radial tires it came with, it felt like a road hugger.
last post.
Your question about the car having rack ‘n pinion steering is: Yes.
And that reminds me of a recall the Pacer had very early on in production. Seems the 2 bolts holding the rack & pinion main casting in place were to be put in from the top. A substitute employee was not briefed on how to install the bolts and the nuts, so he found it easier to install the 2 bolts from below and the nuts on top of the casting.
Problem was, the person who was supposed to tighten the nuts was dependent on a serrated lower edge of the bolt head to hold it firm as the nuts were tightened. Since that person was using an air powered wrench to tighten the nuts, and was in fact “tightening” the BOLT heads only, the nuts simply turned with the bolt, and were not more than hand tight.
Suddenly Pacer cars making a tight turn to the right, when the power steering reached the end of the rack, found the nuts backed off fully and BOTH bolts fell out onto the ground. This caused the rack to flip over and lock into the tight turn.
AMC was to be given credit for acting within hours of getting the first reports, and no accidents or injuries resulted. [each case was when the cars were in parking lots or other low speed situations.] They quickly determined the situation was limited to cars built only on that shift, so dealers were instructed to check specific cars by VIN, & if the bolt location was found to be reversed, the repair was simple, replace [not tighten or reverse the installation] the bolts and nuts, while adding a locktite gel to make sure the bolts would stay tight.
I’m not certain if AMC even reported the situation to the DOT until after it was all over.
J’Adore. (I’m running out of ways to say I like the Pacer, at least from its first three model years.)
I’m a little surprised to see one in Japan, though, as I think I recall reading somewhere (even before my CC days) that cars in that market are / were taxed based on their width. Is that even right??
I had read about a built-for-export Ford Cortina that had was literally put into a giant press (the “pressed Cortina”) to make sure it didn’t exceed the allotted width by even a tiny tolerance. I know I didn’t dream this up. I only wish I could confirm more about it.
Anyway, a wide, small car like this sold in a place that taxes width would have been the hardest sell. In the U.S., though, I’d proudly own this one.
I hear that the J30-generation Nissan Maxima was rather heavily taxed in Japan. Due to it’s engine displacement and the car’s actual size, it was actually considered a “fullsize car”, versus the “midsize” Cefiro.
My dream Pacer from Jay Leno’s Garage:
https://youtu.be/NJ4M829GTz0
It’s an extremely oddball car anywhere, but over in Japan amidst the neo-metro styled Kei cars… it’s not all that eccentric of a design, I feel.
It might be the width or the unfamilairity with the design itself that will give away it’s American…more specifically, it’s Kenoshan roots.
It’s width might also be part of the reason why it would have been such a hard sell over there.
On the internet, I’ve seen various examples of American cars in Japan. From a ’75 Fury police car to a Buick Roadmaster station wagon…but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Pacer before.
I find it interesting, they truly understand the appeal, the status, and the purpose of said cars rather well.
With that being said, this Pacer is one of the most well-kept examples out there. They know it’s not a race car.
I commend the owner for preserving it in such a strange…yet oddly perfect place for a Pacer to be.
I’ll admit, I’ve always loved the style of these. The huge glass area, minimal sheetmetal, and lack of overhangs all seemed to point the way forward to a positive, optimistic future. Kind of an intermediate step to George Jetson’s flying ‘car’. It immediately made everything else seem obsolete.
That’s looking at the Pacer as a stationary object. Cars aren’t meant to remain stationary.
Considering it was designed to take a revolutionary and yet-unbuilt engine, I’m amazed that AMC proceeded with it. I would have thought you’d get reliable output specs for the engine before proceeding, and a firm commitment to supply before cutting the tools. Or did AMC assume they could put the rotary in when it was ready, and use the old six as a stopgap? That’s some assumption!
I’m also surprised that nobody in the development stages realized that weight was ballooning out of control (but then glass is heavy), and that it was going to take a lot of power to shift this thing with any sort of alacrity. I’m also surprised the engine guys didn’t tap the designers on the shoulder earlier in the process and apprise them of the powertrain situation in relation to emission regulations and fuel economy and drivability issues.
A lot of errors, but definitely no comedy.
I have always liked Pacers, but more as a concept. I would not have wanted to actually own one as a regular car when they were current, though there is one in my fantasy garage today. It’s a fun shape, but the car simply cannot cash the checks its appearance writes, and never could. Had AMC survived longer, maybe a second generation Pacer could have had FWD and a modern fuel injected 4 cylinder. But even that would have made it only marginally more competitive with modern FWD hatchbacks of the 1980s because the truncated big car concept was flawed from day one. AMC should have been watching the VW Rabbits and Honda Civics for inspiration, not going back to the Studebaker Lark – on which the truncated front and rear were far better executed, if equally as desperate and just as much a dead end. But our automotive landscape would have been much poorer without the Garthmobile.
If only AMC would’ve developed the ex-Buick V-6 they inherited from Kaiser after they bought Jeep in 1970, instead of selling the V-6 tooling back to GM in the early Seventies.
The V-6 would have fit better under the hood of the Pacer.
One point not mentioned, that I think was a silent killer of many sales – the way the windows would not roll all the way down into the doors, which required a huge plastic lip along the top of the inner door panel, as shown in the 4th photo.
In the 70s lots and lots of people had spent their entire driving lives with their left arms resting on the top of the door, certainly with the window down (lots of these were sold without a/c) and often even with the window up. I have been one of those people. I drove one of these once and distinctly remember how my favorite driving position was suddenly off-limits because it was awkward and uncomfortable.
There was a lot about the Pacer that suggested a short sales life, but I wonder if the car would have aged more gracefully on the sales charts had it not uniquely suffered from this problem.
J P,
This was a much bigger problem than most people think. I worked as a service advisor at a large AMC dealer. Over and over I got that complaint during the customer’s first visit; The window won’t go all the way down, and/or the comment about how they were unable to ride with their arm on the window sill, LIKE ON THEIR OLD CAR.
But much worse was to happen about 6 months after the car was delivered. Most people, when closing the door, found it easier to grab that top section of the plastic door panel and pull that heavy door shut. Doing this over and over caused the door panels to fracture in ways that were basically impossible to repair. We had to tell people to use the small door pull in the middle of the door panel, or the door panel would break. This damage was not covered under warranty.
The salesmen were told to instruct the new owners on how to grab the door pull and not the top of the door panel. But humans don’t always listen, and instead do what seems the natural way to do something. That’s why today, it’s damn near impossible to find either door panel that is not cracked and broken.
Pacers weren’t perfect, but dared to be different and were as reliable as most 1975 cars, and were just about the safest car on the road back in the day! (See if you can find the Insurance industry’s “injury” ranking on these in about 1978. You’d be impressed!)
If you’ve never driven a Pacer, they drove well. They rode well. They handled well. They stopped well. Were they slow? Yes. But again, there were a lot of slow cars in that malaise era!