The Unfortunate History of the AMC Pacer - Documentary Film

cars have become icons we remember them for being fast or fun or beautiful but not every car was built to be famous some we remember because they were just too weird to forget when they first came out i was in high school and i loved the car i knew i had to have one i like the style and it's something you don't see every day it was kind of a strange looking car any way you went about it i guess they feel self-conscious driving it there's a fine line between uniqueness and strange a very fine design line and naturally you want to be on the unique side the pacer built by american motors corporation was certainly unique critics said the outside looked like a pregnant elephant and the inside felt like a fishbowl on wheels but that's only one side of the story we make fun of it now but the car made quite a splash back in the day when they first came out everybody loved them everybody wanted one every magazine that tested one loved it it was different it was exciting it was thinking outside of the box all the things that we had accused detroit of not being able to do and here was little amc doing it often history is unfair perhaps there really is more to the amc pacer after world war ii america had over 10 different car companies but as the economy grew so did competition between them the three largest general motors ford and chrysler dominated the business these so-called big three could afford to sell cars for less because they built so many smaller companies were soon joining forces in a desperate attempt to stay alive in 1954 the nash kelvinator corporation merged with hudson motor car company to form american motors corporation or amc it managed to stay in business by offering small economical cars that were good on gas something america didn't have a lot of despite bad management and a few near-death experiences amc survived the 1960s in 1970 it bought the famous jeep brand from kaiser corporation making american motors the fourth and last automaker in the united states at the start of the 1970s amc's tiny wisconsin factory produced a very thorough lineup hornet a thoughtful compact car and one of the company's best sellers sportabout a popular wagon version of the hornet despite somewhat sexist advertising gremlin a tiny car based on the hornet this was america's first sub-compact it debuted april fool's day 1970. javelin a big bad muscle car whose days were numbered by high gasoline and insurance prices matador the somewhat dowdy family car that made up for its looks by providing a good value and ambassador an affordable luxury car and the first american vehicle with air conditioning as standard equipment amc saved a lot of money through clever cost cutting cars used the same engines body panels electrical systems and even door handles being a small company had its advantages too the culture was one of we're all rowing this boat together we're the underdog let's show them what really good people can do given a wider variety of job classifications you weren't pigeonholed as doing one thing so that was important coming off this success amc's management began work on a new car in 1971. under vice president of design dick teague the styling department presented over 20 different ideas amc decided on a radical looking compact they knew americans wanted maybe something smaller or fuel efficient but not necessarily tiny so they set out to develop what they called a small wide car called the pacer the design came within two and a half inches of a cadillac el dorado yet it measured nearly four and a half feet shorter however it did have more glass than the eldorado a whopping 16 percent more in fact it had more glass than about anything on the road at 615 square inches to ease access to the back seat designers made the passenger door 4 inches longer than the drivers to improve handling the pacer had advanced rack and pinion steering in this system the steering wheel connects to a tiny gear or pinion the pinion sits on a rack of teeth when the driver steers the rack moves left or right and turns the wheels this provided very responsive and precise steering and only a handful of other american cars had it not every great idea made it into the final car however we first started out with leds as the readouts versus the regular analog but there was issues with cold slowing down the leds and so forth so it was in the amoebic stage perhaps the biggest innovation was under the hood to keep the pacer fast and light amc planned to give it a wankel rotary engine named after german engineer felix wenkel the rotary engine has no cylinders instead the combustion cycle is carried out inside of an oblong housing by a triangular rotor wankel engines provide smooth high revving power and usually weigh a lot less than conventional ones this design would keep the pacer light and athletic engineers also considered making the car front wheel drive as well rather than produce the engine itself amc arranged to purchase it from general motors unfortunately general motors canceled the program at the last minute citing concerns with poor fuel economy and trouble meeting pollution regulations japanese automaker mazda was encountering similar issues with its own rotary engine cars for amc the timing couldn't have been worse at the 11th hour just before the pacer was supposed to go into production gm announces you know what we're not going to build this engine after all and amc was stuck with a design built around one particular engine they just didn't have a backup plan that was that was foolish amc spent nearly 60 million dollars developing the pacer the company couldn't afford to cancel it now engineers somehow managed to shoehorn amc's existing six-cylinder engine under the hood the massive block barely fit into the car it's certainly not one of the easiest cars in the world to work on the engine was set back under the cowl so the windshield came out and covered half of the valve cover and to put a valve cover gasket on it was kind of a major operation the old engine added a lot of weight to the new car but amc didn't really have a choice the tiny company had a lot of hopes riding on the pacer 1974 auto sales were down 23 percent from the previous year 1973's fuel crisis hurt the industry and rising inflation wasn't helping with the engine problem finally solved amc fired up production and prepared for an uphill battle okay introducing the amc pacer the first wide small car the amc pacer the first wide small car i didn't know was that quiet the pacer took the automotive world by storm suddenly all eyes were on american motors for 1975. i drove one of the post office when it was just out i think they were only out of week and i came out and there's a crowd around the car they thought was something from outer space or something so modern and and so futuristic magazines like car and driver and road and track said some very positive things about the car and you got in it and you felt like you were almost outside like you were in a bubble and that was really pretty cool so i think it was a very positive reaction they said it was the car of the future suddenly it's 1980 it was the greatest thing on four wheels uh and they sold like crazy and the showroom traffic was just unbelievable there was constantly people coming in to check the car out and there was a waiting list for the cars and we couldn't keep them we couldn't keep them on the lot amc now faced a new problem the factory couldn't build pacers fast enough to meet demand original predictions of 80 000 cars for 1975 now seemed modest by year's end amc made a whopping 145 528 pacers beating the odds the pacer became the little car that could 1975 was a record-setting year for american motors but going into the pacer's second year amc employees began to notice something one of the plant managers came into my office and i says how are we doing with the pacer and he says i'll tell you the truth i didn't think it would be this good but it's done really well maybe less than a year and so forth he comes back in for another visit i said how are things going with the pacers good it says oh my god he says probably everyone who wanted one got one the public's initial love started to wear off early on we were plagued by electronic ignition problems because the electronic condition was rushed to the market they did boost production way too fast and when you do stuff like that you speed up the line mistakes are made as they say and the quality of some of the pacers was not as high as it should have been particularly in the in the area of interior fits and finishes trim pieces literally disintegrated over time as the car's massive windows allowed uv rays to penetrate the plastic in the past amc's quality often surpassed that of the big three but since they were the underdog the public found it easy to pick on them now quality in general was not very good among domestic automakers in those days matter of fact it was downright poor everything leaked oil everything had suspension problems the brake systems were crude at best but that was everything owners also began complaining about the pacers fuel economy or lack thereof gas mileage was very important back then because gas prices had gone up you know people were looking for 20 25 miles per gallon around town and you know pacer just couldn't do that so people started backing away when they heard these claims that you know this is not a real high gas mileage car amc should have fixed these problems during the design phase but some of them were beyond the company's control the government and the public both pressured car makers to improve their fuel economy in the 1970s ironically the government also made it very hard to do with the 70s came automobile emissions regulations manufacturers struggled with new equipment to clean up their car's filthy exhaust it was just a giant boondoggle that in most of it didn't work for the long haul it was difficult to deal with and made the cars next to impossible to keep running properly early smog cars were wretched as far as their performance was concerned and fuel economy it was non-existent in the real world with real drivers behind the wheel fuel economy often was dropped by as much as 50 percent the government also began looking into safety regulations for cars sending legal departments into a panic the lawyers come along and they say we don't know what the safety regulations are going to be for 1975 1976 1977. we do know they're going to have rollover regulations there may be roof crush strength there's going to be side impact regulations we don't know what they are so you got to beef the devil out of this car to make sure that it meets whatever standard comes out big bumpers and heavier body panels added extra weight to the pacer further hurting gas mileage now that the excitement had cooled the pacer's weight problem became obvious but those unfortunate enough to crash a pacer found out it was pretty safe she rolled down the bank when the car rolled over five times she said any car would take that she sold on it american motors had always survived on the philosophy of doing more with less but the high costs of the pacer program meant the company could barely afford to do anything with the rest of its cars the javelin and ambassador both died off in 1974 leaving the matador as the sole big car the hornet and gremlin lines now over five years old both looked outdated next to the competition what little money amc had went into making cars more fuel efficient they brought out a four-speed transmission to help with the fuel economy they tinkered with the carburetor which improved it quite a bit they changed the axle ratios to everything to try and increase the fuel economy by now the pacers futuristic styling no longer engrossed the public only so many people wanted to buy a two-door hatchback with sales down across the board amc released a second pacer model for 1977. introducing the new amc pacer wagon the wide wagon with pacer room and ride plus something new instead of narrow cargo space we turned our space sideways so everything's easy to reach amc pacer the wide wagon there's more to an amc the pacer wagon offered more room and a more conventional look it sold better than the hatchback but combined production still only reached 58 000 less than half compared to the year before but amc employees had a habit of digging in their heels when the going got tough so they made big plans for 1978. under dick teague the styling department pulled off a miracle turning the old hornet into a new luxury car called the concorde stylists also revised the pacer's front end for a more orthodox look the hood now had an odd bulge in the middle with more room amc engineers somehow managed to cram a bigger v8 motor into the car this certainly solved some of the performance problems but the 5-liter mill did not provide anywhere near the fuel economy people wanted however japanese and german imports did have fuel-efficient cars and they continued to eat into american motors market share slow pacer sales made matters worse a lot of costly engineering work went into the v8 model as few parts could be shared between it and other amc vehicles at the time i read an article that the cost of the conversion to the v8 was never recouped american motors could not afford any more expensive mistakes like this fortunately sales of the jeep division continued to grow but it wasn't enough money to create a fresh new car design that amc desperately needed help came from an unlikely source american motors announced a new partnership with french carmaker renault renault would sell french cars through amc dealerships and amc would build a new renault designed compact at its american factory as it turned out the french loved the pacer perhaps it was this admiration that helped foster their partnership they kept reminding us that the pacer was the you know the resistance the with the beauty i mean they really love that car either way no amount of love could rejuvenate the pacers sales figures whether it was the awkward shape poor performance or mediocre gas mileage the public had spoken part of the problem with a pace for any car that's so revolutionary like that is you can't change the car enough from year to year to keep interest alive we've seen it with many other cars of its type and everybody that really wants one gets one then what do you do to keep the interest up 1979 brought a second fuel crisis to the united states rising inflation and the unstable economy caused national car sales to sink like a stone the success of the concorde helped paint a brighter picture it sold modestly well and designers tweaked the styling for a more modern look it became the company's senior car as the aging matador was quietly put out to pasture the team also cobbled together some existing designs to finally replace the gremlin called the spirit the new subcompact looked nice but failed to catch on like the concord the pacer lineup persevered with few changes by now it was obvious that sales would never recover as a result 1980 would be its last year on the market five years after it rocked the automotive world the pacer disappeared a total of 1746 pacers were built for 1980. amc stopped production in late 1979 to free up factory space american motors used that space to build a whole new type of car by combining existing bodies with a four-wheel drive powertrain it created the amc eagle the eagle took flight in 1980 as the first vehicle with car-like comfort and suv capability it seems amc once again was ahead of their time by the mid-80s it looked as if the company's luck might finally change the u.s factory began churning out the appropriately named renault amc alliance but like so many partnerships in the automobile business it soon became obvious who was in charge but as renault plays a bigger part in amc's future the french way of doing things is slowly becoming more dominant new management came in and amc's tired old designs took a back seat despite renault's efforts the u.s failed to fall in love with french cars i guess the reason it didn't succeed was maybe because americans had had some bad experiences with renaults before they weren't particularly known as very reliable and some of those cars did not do very well political trouble in france led to problems at renault the company needed to cut costs so in 1987 management put american motors on the chopping block coming off a wave of success chrysler ceo lee iacocca eagerly bought up the tiny company mainly for the lucrative jeep brand he integrated amc as chrysler's jeep eagle division and they sold eagle wagons until the parts to build them ran out and with that american motors corporation disappeared for good amc's history is one filled with wudakura shoulda moments in the end the pacer program was just too expensive for the tiny company it went against amc's tried and true strategy of shared designs and cost cutting but amc also faced numerous problems outside its control between fuel shortages foreign competition government regulations and gm's cancelling of the rotary engine the program may have been doomed from the start it's a sad reminder that the underdog doesn't always win in retrospect i can only say that amc can never be replicated that was a wonderful place to work just a terrific place to work but even though the company died the pacer lives on actually special ordered it from the kenosha factory back in 77. it's been a daily driver until i retired that was about 2003 they're unusual you know you go to car shows you see corvettes you see mustangs you don't see many pacers the pacer in particular is very strange but yet it's a car that's easy to drive it's got all the creature comforts you would want and my wife and i've always liked that odd ball kind of car people look at the car the first thing they do they start smiling we're we're cruising across america giving laughs overall it was it was a revolutionary car that's for sure i don't think it'll ever go out of style i'll never get rid of them in fact i'm looking and buying a third one i'm going to start hoarding in their eyes the pacer is not a flop it's a car that stood out for being just a little bit different and that is what being an icon is all about well one day i was at an auction and it was getting toward the end of the auction and uh this pacer came up on the block and just about everybody had walked away i'm looking at it and i'm thinking it's kind of a cute car it was a white one had uh brown or burgundy along the bottom and saw it was in real nice condition and nobody was bidding on it so i started bidding and i think i paid like 300 dollars for it or something and i figured no way but what i'm going to make money on this so took it back and reconditioned it and put it on the used car lot and couldn't get anybody to drive the car i drove it i used it to move stuff around and one thing in another but couldn't get anybody that was interested in buying it and had the car for i guess almost three years in inventory and kept lowering the price and lowering the price until one day i got sick of looking at it and took the car back to the auction and believe it or not a 300 car i took a loss how much did it go for i think it was 138 or some such things

Channel: AutoMoments

Views: 2,242,129

Keywords: AMC Pacer (Automobile Model), AMC, American Motors (Organization), American Motors Corporation, American Motors Pacer, Pacer car, Pacer, Automobile (Industry), Jeep (Automobile Make), AMC Hornet (Automobile Model), AMC AMX, AMC Rebel (Automobile Model), Rebel Machine, AMC Gremlin (Automobile Model), AMC Pacer Documentary, AMC Matador, Joe Ligo, Joseph Ligo, Joe, Ligo, AutoMoments, MotorWeek (TV Program), Pat Goss (TV Personality), John Davis MotorWeek

Id: kcl98aBRkD8

Length: 24min 32sec (1472 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 07 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/r7av7en7]

I just watched this one yesterday. I enjoyed it, was really well done.

[u/LlamaExtravaganza]

But was it wide?

[u/flibbidygibbit]

My parents had an orange 76 Pacer. They had traded in a 68 Caprice for it, because gas mileage. They later traded the Pacer for an 82 Volvo 244, because brakes and air conditioning...

[u/Account_the_sequel]

Holy shit that ad though lmao

[u/Chumstick]

This was a great watch! I had no idea the pacer had ever been well received, as I've only ever heard it mentioned as the butt of a joke.

The guy narrating had an interesting way of enunciating words that have the letter 'T' in them, though. It wasn't "bad" but it sure was distracting.

[u/number__ten]

That was a pretty informative video. I'd always thought the pacer was just a gremlin with different body panels.

On a side note, I can't even imagine buying a car in the mid to late 70s when the EPA and safety regulations started throttling the industry. The used versions tended to have better mileage and performance than the new ones. That must have been an odd time to sell cars. "Well, Mr Smith, we can set you up in a 76 <car name> today. It's like your 70 <car name>, but has a bunch of awkward looking bumpers and terrible performance."

[u/LesPaulII]

I remember watching this one before. I've got no problem with watching it again. Partly because it's a great documentary, but partly because I have nothing else to do.