It needs to be said: Not every American Motors product was a hit. The Hornet was good. The Gremlin…well, let’s just call that one “curious”. Javelins and AMXs, awesome. The AMX/3 supercar proposal, gorgeous. The Eagle wagon, practical and oddly handsome. The Pacer? Yikes. It’s hard to fault Dick Teague’s basic concept: a small car that fit people first and everything else second. Fitting four humans in a small car comfortably is always a challenge. The fact that the Pacer had width on it’s side didn’t hurt either…it might be compact overall, but at least you weren’t smashed together like sardines inside. And in those regards, AMC managed to do well…in reviews of the day, the automotive press praised AMC for hitting all of those marks, Notably missing, however, is one key note: the styling. No matter which way you sliced it, a two-door, four passenger compact with one gigantic glass ass is not going to fare well and on the best of circumstances, the styling is…well, let’s be nice and say “dated”, okay? AMC fans don’t like it when you use terms like “fugly”.
But you know what overrules fugly? Performance. You can make use any example you want, but looks take a backseat once actual action becomes the primary focus, and that’s why you are looking at a half-completed 1976 Pacer drag build. There is exactly zero information besides the year of manufacture and the photographs, which show the main body structure and the doors attached to a tube frame that is sitting with no powertrain whatsoever. Some simply see a roller, we see a blank canvas and a license to get weird. An AMC 401 would be fun. A big-block Chevrolet on nitrous would be straightforward. A rotary wound up tighter than a drum would be oddly fitting, since the Pacer was supposed to have come with a Curtiss-Wright rotary engine before GM ceased development of the engine in 1974. And if you just want to go full-on strange, why not a 4BT Cummins? There’s space under that hood…just plop the torque monster in there and give everybody at the strip something to think about!
And please, leave the pea-green paint alone. It makes it so much better!
That really needs a custom multi-rotor wankel.
https://www.enginelabs.com/news/video-exotic-12-rotor-rotary-engine-ready-for-dyno/
I wonder what a Pacer would look like chopped?
Google “Scorpion Pacer”. Looks like an American Porsche 928 in certain angles!
Somehow, the video I found made me think it looked like an American AE86 Corolla. Not what I expected.
Something tells me it would look oddly bitchin, although the angle of the pillars would require a sizable insert to widen the roof. Why not!?
Why why why