The American Motors’ Pacer will, for better or worse, be one of the best-remembered cars in the company’s checkered past. Ungainly and overweight, it was the byproduct of a lot of things gone wrong, not least of which was the general direction of automotive design in the mid-to-late 1970s. Nevertheless, aside from Wayne’s World fans and derriere enthusiasts, few people would ever think a Pacer is cool. Except maybe this one on eBay, which has been converted into a 4×4 with GM axles and the four-speed transmission and transfer case from an International Scout!
There are some cosmetic and mechanical issues by the seller’s own admission, but how can argue with the American flags embroidered in the seats and on the front-hinged hood? And why shouldn’t a car built in Kenosha by AMERICAN Motors then converted to a 4×4 wear American flags? This is one of the most patriotic cars in the world and that’s no joke.
The one engine bay photo is tough to decipher, but I think this might actually be a V8-powered Pacer with the 304 cubic-inch V8 instead of the standard six-cylinder options AMC had. Fun engine aside: The Pacer was originally designed around a lightweight Wankel rotary powerplant. As AMC had limited engineering resources to start a clean sheet engine design, they licensed a General Motors rotary engine design that was, shortly before Pacer production started, dropped entirely by GM. Left without an engine for the Pacer, AMC instead gave it the hefty straight-sixes and 304 V8 that bloated the Pacer to more than 3,000 pounds.
Anyway, back to the matter at hand: The seller states that “Lots of things need redone,” but the car is complete and the interior is very clean for a 1976 example. So what say you? The right kind of Pacer or some kind of weird sacrilege on a collectable oddball?
Why didn’t AMC build on of these?
But it would have been eclipsed by a rotary Pacer especially one that had been turbocharged and doubled up to provide a 4-rotor unit!
I kind of like it.