(EXPANDED FROM 9/9/2022)
The 1975-80 AMC Pacer may have been a memorable car, but it was also a key factor in American Motors’ demise as an independent automaker.
What’s particularly tragic is that the Pacer’s failure was predictable. AMC head Roy D. Chapin Jr. displayed remarkable recklessness in how he approached the car’s design and marketing.
That context is important to consider as we walk through six crucial mistakes AMC made with the Pacer. Chapin was like a gambler who took increasingly large risks as the 1970s progressed. With the Pacer, Chapin put almost all of his remaining chips onto the table — and lost bigly.
In keeping with Detroit’s self-congratulatory traditions, Chapin was subsequently inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame (2021). Meanwhile, AMC historian Patrick Foster (2013) turned Chapin into a patron saint despite his acknowledgement of the Pacer’s weaknesses.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start by looking at the events that led to the disaster that was the Pacer.
Chapin failed to see the warning signs
The Pacer may have been American Motors’ biggest flop of the 1970s, but it was only the latest in a series. The outrageous-looking 1971 Javelin also sold poorly. So too did the even more provocative 1974 Matador coupe.
AMC was too small and financially fragile to field yet another money loser. So if Chapin had been a prudent businessman he would have moved forward much more cautiously with the Pacer. Instead, he took even bigger design risks than with the ill-fated Matador.
The Pacer was AMC’s most costly new car of the 1970s. The hatchback totaled $60 million in development costs. The wagon reportedly added another $6 million. This was higher than the $40 million spent on the 1970 Hornet and another $40 million on the 1974 Matador redesign (Foster, 1993).
The Pacer cost more than either because more substantial changes were made to the underlying platform. This was the closest that tiny AMC got to a clean-sheet redesign since the wholesale revamping of the Rambler lineup in 1963-64.
Pacer sales collapsed after selling okay initially
To be fair, the Pacer didn’t immediately bomb. In 1976, its first full model year of production, more than 117,000 hatchbacks left the factory. That wasn’t a blockbuster product launch but it wasn’t bad. However, in 1977 output plunged to roughly 58,000 units despite getting a wagon body style.
Things only got worse from there. Even though the Pacer received a facelift and a V8 in 1978, production dropped further to roughly 21,000 units. At that point the car was effectively dead . . . only two-and-a-half years after it was introduced.
The Pacer’s collapse was double trouble because the rest of AMC’s lineup was also doing poorly. In 1977 the automaker produced fewer passenger cars than 10 years earlier, when it teetered on the brink of insolvency. The only reason AMC limped into the 1980s — at least in name — was because the French automaker Renault came to the rescue.
The Pacer proved to be both American Motors’ last new platform and its least successful one — by far. Between the nameplate’s launch in February 1975 and its demise in 1980, only 280,000 Pacers were produced. Compare that to the Hornet platform, which from 1970-80 generated more than 1.2 million units.
American Motors must have taken a financial bath on the Pacer — which made it impossible to fund more than modest updates to the AMC lineup. A death spiral ensued.
Chapin admitted that the Pacer’s failure was his greatest disappointment. He had assumed that the nameplate would sell 150,000 units per year (Hyde, 2009).
That was wildly optimistic. Aside from a spike in output for the Hornet and Gremlin during an oil crisis in 1974, no AMC passenger-car nameplate sold that many cars since the heyday of the Rambler in the first half of the 1960s.
The Pacer displayed glimmers of promise
Before getting too negative we should talk about what the Pacer did do well. For starters, the car did not suffer from scandalous mechanical issues, such as the Vega’s imploding engine, the Pinto’s exploding gas tank and the Volare/Aspen’s “Lemon of the Year” award from the Center for Auto Safety.
Do not take this as damning the Pacer with faint praise. AMC deserves credit for launching a brand-new design that avoided the negative media which hit each of the Big Three during the 1970s.
Part of why the Pacer avoided quality gremlins may have been AMC’s Buyer Protection Plan. The more comprehensive warranty didn’t just make it easier for customers to get things fixed. AMC also instituted more rigorous measures at the factory to hold down warranty costs.
Also see ‘The 1967-74 AMC Ambassador didn’t measure up in roominess or quality‘
The Pacer’s design also had some good ideas. The unusually rounded, aerodynamic body anticipated an industry trend that didn’t gain much traction until the mid-1980s. The Pacer was an early adopter of aircraft-style door-window frames, which made entry and exit easier. And the passenger-side door was four inches longer, which improved access to the back seat.
The Pacer also bucked the then-current trend of making cars lower. The Pacer was an inch taller than the Hornet, which resulted in better headroom. AMC designers accentuated the impression of roominess by pushing the windshield unusually far away from the front passengers and lowering the beltline. Has there ever been another U.S. car with such good all-around visibility?
The Pacer was the antithesis of mid-70s U.S. car design, which emphasized radiator grilles and brougham-style rooflines that could limit visibility.
Another important Pacer feature was a front subframe, which resulted in a smoother ride. This was not a radical idea but showed that AMC was willing to invest in new technology. More exotic was the Pacer’s use of rack-and-pinion steering, which was not yet commonplace among Detroit fare.
‘Philosophy of Difference’ wasn’t well executed
The Pacer’s forward-looking features were grounded in AMC’s embrace of a “Philosophy of Difference.” Vice President Gerald C. Meyers summed up what that meant:
“Everything that we do must distinguish itself as being importantly different than what can be expected from the competition. Otherwise there would be very little reason for somebody to consider American Motors products. . . . ‘Me too’ is wrong for American Motors” (Foster, 2005).
AMC had the right theory. The automaker had historically been most successful when it pioneered new markets rather than competing directly against the Big Three and imports. The trouble with the Pacer was bad execution: Chapin and company made six big mistakes.
Ironically, those mistakes were mostly grounded in Detroit groupthink. For example, AMC marketing touted the Pacer as a breakthrough in efficient packaging, but the car was largely a styling exercise — an image car. Once the public soured on the Pacer’s unusual look, it became the target of ridicule by the likes of Eric Peters (2004).
Automotive writers have tended to focus on the Pacer’s weaknesses as a product. I will cover some of that ground, but the six mistakes listed below focus on business strategy.
Mistake 1: The Pacer was designed for a rotary engine
AMC’s biggest mistake was designing an entire car — and platform — around an unproven engine bought from another automaker who had not actually started building it yet.
It arguably turned out to be a blessing that General Motors, who AMC was slated to buy rotary engines from, abandoned the idea in 1974 (Wikipedia, 2021). If GM had gone through with building rotary engines, AMC would have had to deal with their endemic problems: They consumed a lot of oil, gas mileage was weak and longevity was questionable. That’s in addition to whatever teething problems a new GM engine might have experienced.
AMC also took a big risk in outsourcing engine production for what was supposed to be a high-volume car. That would likely have been more expensive than continuing to build its own engines. Why was that considered a good idea in light of AMC’s shaky profitability?
Even if costs weren’t an issue, an engine with so many risks needed a Plan B in case something went wrong. Yet AMC didn’t have one. So when the GM deal fell through, Chapin had to scramble at the 11th hour to shoehorn AMC’s six-cylinder engine into the Pacer. This made the car more difficult to service because the base of the windshield intruded over part of the engine.
Also see ‘Should AMC have given the 1974 Matador coupe a luxury spin-off?’
Even Mazda, one of the auto industry’s biggest champions of rotary engines, did not put all of its eggs in one basket. The Japanese automaker’s early-70s cars were designed to accommodate either a rotary or a piston engine. The rotary was only offered on top-end halo models. This is the approach that AMC should have taken if they dabbled in rotary engines at all.
Mistake 2: The Pacer’s body didn’t lend itself to variants
The Pacer’s failure might not have been nearly so damaging if AMC had based a few better-selling models off its platform. In the past, the automaker had offered a range of vehicles on each of its platforms in order to achieve adequate economies of scale.
I have not come across a history of the Pacer that offers much intelligence about how many variants were planned for the platform. Given the effort AMC made to upgrade the Pacer’s underpinnings, it would have made sense if the original goal was to eventually move all passenger cars onto the Pacer platform.
As it turned out, the platform was not used for more than a 100-inch wheelbase hatchback and a longer-decked wagon. That may have been partly because Pacer sales failed to generate enough money to add more variants. But even if AMC had deeper pockets, the Pacer’s styling did not lend itself to a larger range of models — at least without major hardware changes.
This was a big step away from the Hornet platform, which was admirably flexible. Over the course of the platform’s life it had six body styles on 108- and 96-inch wheelbases. AMC achieved exceptional economies of scale because all of these cars could share the same windshield, doors, front fenders and bumpers.
One of the Pacer platform’s biggest roadblocks to offering more variants was its unique styling. The unusually tall greenhouse would not have worked aesthetically for a sporty successor to the Matador coupe or Hornet hatchback.
A four-door notchback sedan would have been an easier reach. However, if AMC had stretched the wheelbase around 10 inches, the Pacer’s front end could have looked too small relative the extra-large greenhouse of a family sedan. Perhaps more importantly, the low beltline would have likely clashed with the deck, which needed to be taller to allow adequate trunk space.
Mistake 3: The Pacer was too heavy
The Pacer’s platform was far too heavy and space inefficient to compete with the downsized Big Three cars of the late-70s. As a case in point, the 1976 Pacer weighed more than a downsized 1978 Chevrolet Malibu two-door coupe (by roughly 110 pounds) and a Ford Fairmont two-door sedan with a six-cylinder engine (by more than 500 pounds).
But even if Detroit had not downsized, the Pacer would still have been a porker. The hatchback model was only a few pounds lighter than a Ford Granada or Plymouth Volare coupe even though these were “old-school” designs that were more than two feet longer than the Pacer.
In other words, the Pacer weighed more than cars that offered room for five or six passengers. Yet the Pacer only fit four people — the same number as imports which weighed almost half as much. The car’s heft contributed to weak fuel economy and acceleration.
The platform’s weight problem would have been even greater if AMC had created longer variants, such as a four-door notchback of similar length and wheelbase to a Hornet (186 and 108 inches, respectively).
Also see ‘Compact cars became the neglected stepchildren of U.S. automakers’
The Hornet was roughly 220 pounds heavier than a Gremlin. If a similar pattern held between a Pacer hatchback and a Pacer-based six-passenger sedan, the car would have been a few hundred pounds heavier than a Granada and a whopping 700 pounds more than a Fairmont.
AMC management eventually decided to consolidate its lineup on the aging Hornet platform. They didn’t have any other choice because the Hornet’s size and weight were more competitive with the downsized Big Three cars than the Pacer’s more modern but obese platform.
Mistake 4: The body was too wide
One reason why the Pacer weighed so much was because it was 77 inches wide. That was six-to-seven inches wider than a typical mid-70s compact and right up there with the mid-sized Matador.
In billing the Pacer as the “first wide small car,” AMC stated that this resulted in “more room than you thought possible in a small car.” What marketeers didn’t say was that the Pacer’s greater width did not translate into an equivalent increase in interior space.
Although the car Pacer was six inches wider than the Hornet, it only had 2.4 inches more front shoulder room. In contrast, the Matador sedan had 5.5 inches more shoulder room than the Hornet even though it was merely 0.2 inches wider than the Pacer.
In the Pacer, space efficiency took a back seat to space-aged styling. This was particularly apparent with the side’s unusually extreme rake. It might have been trendy when the Pacer first came out, but the car’s inverted bathtub design looked bloated once the Big Three began to downsize its fleet.
One can nitpick AMC’s poor execution of the “wide small car” idea, but its underlying theory also proved to be wrong. Americans ended up being fine with mid-sized family cars downsized to the width previously used by compacts.
How could Chapin fail to get that? AMC was the biggest early champion of compact cars in the U.S. auto industry — and had sold far more of them than larger cars. In the mid-70s AMC should have been leading the parade to compacts rather than straggling behind.
Mistake 5: The Pacer had too much glass area
The Pacer’s glass area covered 37 percent of the car — compared to 20-25 percent for most other cars (Hyde, 2009). I would not be surprised if the car’s extra-large windshield, tall roofline and low beltline were a response to complaints about the Hornet. That car’s low roofline and large rear blind spots gave it weak visibility. Meanwhile, the sharp rake to the Hornet’s windshield and tumblehome could feel claustrophobic.
Certainly there was room for improvement, but AMC arguably went too far to the other extreme. The Pacer is the poster child for the problems that can result from a car with too much glass. We have already mentioned that the “cab-forward” windshield intruded upon the engine compartment. Another problem was that glass is heavier than sheetmetal, and the Pacer was already overweight.
Pacer owners quickly discovered other quirks. For example, all that glass turned the car into a greenhouse on wheels — all but necessitating air conditioning. And although you could get a removable cover over the cargo area, the low beltline meant that you could not stash much stuff away from prying eyes.
At any rate, the “fishbowl” look wasn’t needed for good visibility — nor was it very attractive. And as we have discussed, the unusually shaped greenhouse would have been problematic if AMC had tried to base a sporty coupe or a notchback sedan on the Pacer body.
Mistake 6: The Pacer’s market positioning was confused
Another factor that may have contributed to the Pacer’s collapse was its discordant market positioning. For starters, trumpeting the Pacer as the “first wide small car” may have inadvertently encouraged unflattering fuel economy comparisons with other small cars.
That would become even more of a problem as the Big Three started to downsize their fleet. By 1978 the Pacer was so uncompetitive from a practicality standpoint that it could arguably only be sold on styling and image.
The Pacer was essentially a personal coupe, albeit a quirky one not unlike Volkswagen’s “new” Beetle two decades later. Both cars did well only as long as they were considered trendy. Yet throughout the Pacer’s lifespan, AMC marketing did not do much to burnish the car’s trendiness.
Another problem was that the Pacer had a fairly steep price for a small car. A base 1976 model listed for $3,499, which was only $26 less than a Mustang II notchback coupe. Yet the Pacer had a strippo vibe compared to the Mustang.
The Pacer’s persona was further blurred by adding a wagon in 1977. This body style consistently outsold the hatchback by a two-to-one margin.
It’s possible that the Pacer may have petered out more quickly without the wagon — at least without marketing it as a personal coupe from the outset. Nevertheless, AMC could have gotten much more bang for its buck if it had instead updated the Hornet/Concord wagon.
Even with an aging body and the lack of a full liftgate, the Concord wagon outsold the Pacer from 1978-80. The popularity of compact wagons from Ford (Fairmont/Zephry) and Chrysler (Volare/Aspen) hinted at AMC’s missed opportunity, particularly around 1976-79.
AMC moved the Pacer upmarket in 1978 by slapping on a radiator grille, upgrading interior appointments and offering a V8 option. That sort-of made it seem like a luxury personal coupe.
The Pacer’s price was also increased to the point where a base model was almost $500 more than an entry-level Mustang and higher than a top-end Mustang II Ghia ($4,048 versus $3972). Could an overly high price have contributed to the Pacer’s tanking sales?
Weirder styling may have also been a factor. The new fascia looked like a cheap, J. C. Whitney add-on. Nor did it use then-trendy rectangular headlights. Even AMC’s new compact Concord had those, yet the top-end Pacer was priced higher.
This raised the question: Had AMC given up on the Pacer after only two-and-a-half years?
A less-ambitious Pacer might have been successful
If AMC had avoided the above six mistakes, the Pacer might have actually been a net plus for the automaker. For one thing, the car should have sold better through its life cycle because it would have essentially functioned as an updated and improved Gremlin.
Even more importantly, a narrower and lighter Pacer platform would have allowed AMC to update its entire line of passenger cars. Once higher-volume cars were moved over to the compact platform, Pacer sales would not have been so crucial to its profitability.
The Hornet platform was already reasonably sized. It could have benefitted from improvements such as rack-and-pinion steering, a front subframe, more glass area and a taller greenhouse for sedans as long as weight didn’t get out of hand.
Even so, AMC could have also gotten away with more evolutionary — and cheaper — changes such as new sheetmetal and reworked greenhouses. This is the approach that Ford successfully used in squeezing more years out of its Falcon and Fox platforms.
AMC was too weak to bounce back from its Edsel
I do not wish to overstate the Pacer’s importance in AMC’s demise as an independent producer of passenger cars. For example, the automaker might have better weathered the Pacer’s failure if Chapin had invested in a luxury compact in 1974 rather than the poor-selling Matador coupe.
In addition, AMC clearly faced an uphill battle for survival regardless of how few mistakes its management team made. Charles K. Hyde pointed to “the fundamental economic disadvantage (AMC) faced in trying to compete against the other automakers with their large economies of scale” (2009, p. 253-254).
Also see ‘Counterfactuals and whether AMC had a chance of survival‘
Thus, one could argue that the Pacer’s failure merely sped up AMC’s inevitable death. The problem with this view is it distracts us from seeing the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the middle of the living room: Chapin’s championing of the Pacer was a remarkably reckless gamble.
I would suggest that the Pacer was a mistake of Edsel-like proportions. Ford had the resources to survive its epic fail; AMC did not.
NOTES:
This article was originally posted on Jan. 29, 2021 and expanded on Sept. 9, 2022 and Sept. 8, 2023. Production figures were calculated from Kowalke (1999), Gunnell (2002), Flammang and Kowalke (1999), and the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006). Dimensions and weights are from those sources as well as from the Automobile Catalog (2021) and auto manufacturers.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Automobile Catalog; 2021. “Search Automobile Catalog.” Accessed Jan. 27.
- Automotive Hall of Fame; 2021. “Roy D. Chapin Jr.” Accessed January 26.
- Flammang, James M. and Ron Kowalke; 1999. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999. Third Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Foster, Patrick R.; 1993. American Motors: The Last Independent. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- ——–; 2005. “American Motors’ Pacer: A Piece of Tomorrow.” Hemmings. Posted March (link no longer available).
- ——–; 2013. American Motors Corporation: The Rise and Fall of America’s Last Independent Automaker. MBI Publishing Co., Minneapolis, MN.
- ——–; 2014. “Bob Nixon: Designer of Iconic AMCs.”Collectible Automobile, pp. 74-81. June issue.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Hyde, Charles K; 2009. Storied Independent Automakers: Nash, Hudson, and American Motors. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI.
- Kowalke, Ron; 1999. Standard Catalog of Independents: The Struggle to Survive Among Giants. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Peters, Eric; 2004. Automotive Atrocities! The Cars We Love to Hate. Motorbooks International, St. Paul, MN.
- Severson, Aaron; 2008. “High, Wide, and Handsome: The AMC Pacer.” Ate Up With Motor. Posted April 8.
- Wikipedia; 2021. “AMC Pacer.” Page last edited Jan. 8.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- aacalibrary.org (Antique Automobile Club of America): AMC Pacer (1978)
- autohistorypreservationsociety.org: Rambler (1961)
- oldcarbrochures.org: AMC (1975); AMC Concord (1978); AMC Eagle (1983); AMC Pacer (1975, 1976, 1977, 1978); Chevrolet Caprice (1977); Chevrolet Malibu (1978); Chevrolet Vega (1971); Ford Granada (1976); Plymouth Volare (1976)
- oldcaradvertising.com: AMC Matador (1974)
Please bring the pacer back into production. It will be a hipster again!! I want to purchase one!!!
Going to sing “Bohemian Rhapsody”?
Definitely due for a resigned updated version. The problem was 90% management at AMC and not car design. They should have lost that sloped rear window and introduced this as a grocery-getter cause it really is just a low rider mini van. Also the paint colors and schemes were awful. This should have been introduced in a red white and blue format to celebrate the bicentennial and reduce heat. The huge six cylinder could have been billed as a pseudo high-performance car for Dad. I do recall seeing this car at 11 years old the day it was introduced and thinking (with no previous caring about cars before) that is was the ugliest car I have ever seen…so there was that.
I learned to drive on a Pacer in 1976. I have never been as comfortable driving as I was in that Pacer with the bench seat. And I am driving my mother’s pristine used Lexus now! Ah, good times…
I had a 1977 Pacer wagon. I drove this car from California to New York. it was A very comfortable car.the rack and pinion steering wasnew to me and very precise.The car felt like a big car cruiser on the road.we shipped the car to England and dove it all over the country for four years.We never had a problem with the car.The English loved the car.the car would always have people looking at it when I parked in a English towns. iwould get offers to buy the car in many places throughout the country.Since selling the car in England I have owned many luxury cars.Few cars have given my wife and I enjoyment as the Pacer.My Brothers neighbor in Germany bought my Pacer. Maybe it still there.
Funny, I also drove a 1977 Pacer wagon cross country. From Seattle to Springfield Mass. and the car was, as you said, very comfortable and a great car for a cross country trip. Being young and not knowing better I traded the Pacer for a 1978 Scirocco. I still think of the Pacer but never the VW. LOL
I bought a used marina blue 1975 Pacer in 1977. It had 25,000 miles on it. Options were power steering, automatic trans., am/fm radio, vent windows, light group, full wheel covers, the larger 258 6cyl. engine, a body color painted remote sport mirror, and a chrome locking gas cap. I reluctantly traded it in 1983. The bench seats were so comfortable, even on long trips. The manager at the Ford dealer test drove it before giving me an offer. When he got back from the test drive, he told me the Pacer handled better than his new Mustangs. The next owner lived a half block from my parent’s house, and whenever I went home to visit them I would go and check on the Pacer. The last time I saw it was 1989, so that owner drove it for at least six years too. It was a car that you got attached to. I still miss it.
I did not think I would love driving the car. However, the Pacer is a great little car. Proud to be its owner. Gets lots of looks. They say it is a fish bowl so I am going to get some decades and put it on the windows. That would be enjoyable.
Thank you for not slinging mud about the Pacer.I’ve owned a 77 wagon for 42 years-great car but it has some very stupid parts- rear axle wasn’t shared with any other amc car- different wiper system,different parts inside doors for latch- yes I know my car inside out!! handsets car ever built!!
Jim
I owned a 76 Pacer and it was the best car I’ve ever owned. I would buy another one if I could.
Pacer really missed the mark by not producing and marketing a panel van out of the station wagon. It probably would have sold well as a light commercial vehicle, and would have been competitive as there were no small vans/panel trucks on the market at the time sufficient to carry a load an inline six or V8 could easily handle.
In the A.M.C. saga in the 1970s, after the Hornet and the Hornet Sportabout, where were “devil’s advocates” in sales, upper management and the board of directors ? I realize the lead times of developing a totally new vehicle is several years but by 1972, G.M.’s problems with the Vega powerplant were well-known, which would have made me question the wisdom of buy Wankel engines from G.M. (By the way, my wife owned two RX-7s, and she loved them…sporty, reliable, comfortable, if not economical with fuel. The Mazda 13-B engine was very good.)
But anyway, the decision to cut losses on the Pacer, could have been made in 1974 or early 1975, before committing to roll out the Pacer. Freshened Hornets, restyled Matadors and Ambassadors based on the updated Classic platform with A.M.C. sixes, 287 cu.-in. V-8s could have positioned A.M.C. as an economy leader again (Rambler anyone ?) until more evolved models arrived, let’s say by 1980. Too often, contrarians are shown the door (unless you were Robert S. McNamara at Ford in the mid-to-late 1950s). Charles K. Hyde is correct about the manufacturing economies of scale, but Ford turned its Edsel debacle from lemons to lemonade by using the expanded production capacity to build 417,000 Falcons for 1960.
If an evolved Gremlin with the small six (front-wheel-drive anyone?) had beat Chrysler (Omni / Horizon) to the punch by 1977, maybe A.M.C. would still be around. Wasn’t anyone paying attention when Honda brought the 1973 Civic with its 1170-cc S.O.H.C. four and its almost 87-inch wheelbase to the U.S.? Yes, A.M.C. could have made a car with a wheelbase of 100-inches or so, adapted engines from VW or Volvo, and had a car that by 1978 would have been top of mind. I guess nobody asked, “What if ?”
Totally agree! And your comments certainly get the mind churning…
We know that Honda was open to providing engines for Ford because Iacocca went over there in the mid-70s to cut a deal. But it got shut down when HFII said no “J..” engine will ever power a Ford. (I think this came from Iacocca: An Autobiography but might have been Talking Straight.. has been over 30 years since I read it).
We also know that Honda had intentions of establishing operations in the U.S.
What if AMC had struck a deal with Honda to collaborate, the carrot for Honda being AMC’s U.S. operations already in place. Honda could have shown AMC how to design and build with quality and made available its CVCC engine and maybe even Accord’s platform. Perhaps AMC could have even moved to Marysville. A joint operation.
Given Jeep, I think the most logical Japanese partner for AMC would have been Subaru.
As it was, I recall they were in negotiations with Peugeot before Renault came along.
Subaru could have been vastly superior to Renault. Subaru’s four-wheel-drive cars would have been a terrific match with Jeep. Perhaps even more importantly, Subaru management in its better days understood that it was too small to compete model for model against the big boys — it needed to pioneer new market niches. In contrast, Renault brought its full-line sensibility to the U.S. Even if such cars as the Alliance had not suffered from quality deficiencies, it is hard to see how the automaker could succeeded by going up against Toyota and Honda.
The big challenge for any foreign partner was that AMC’s vehicle line-up wasn’t the only thing that needed to be completed redesigned from road to roof. The Kenosha plant was a collection of smaller plants that, over the years, had been lashed together to form one big assembly plant. If I recall correctly, there was another plant in the city, and bodies had to literally be trucked – exposed to the elements – from one plant to the other.
By 1980, this layout was hopelessly outmoded even by American standards. A completely new plant was needed. (I recall that, before Renault bailed and sold AMC to Chrysler, it had told the media and Wisconsin government officials that it would need incentives for an entirely new plant if there was any hope of auto production continuing in the state)
Each of the Big Three had to rebuild its production footprint in this country to stay competitive with the Japanese transplants. That was a huge undertaking even for GM and Ford.
The Japanese manufacturers were better off starting with a clean state, if possible.
It takes two to strike a deal and Honda may not have wanted the headaches with taking on AMC. Renault is partly owned by the French government and the purchase of troubled AMC nearly toppled the government at the time. One negative result of the sale was that AMC was forced to sell its biggest profit center, AM General, since AMG’s main production was for the US defense industry and, by law, was forbidden to do business with foreign governments which Renault, in essence, was. The Hummer was AMG’s later venture into the auto retail world Which GM quickly bought.
A shame AMC didn’t think to source their rotaries from Mazda! But then, that wouldn’t sit well with their name of American Motors… And even the staunchest 13B would have had trouble shifting the Pacer’s mass. That’s one mighty heavy shell.
True, Mazda installed the same engine in the 3000 lbs Holden based roadpacer and it didn’t cope well at all
Mazda’s rotary engines weren’t reliable, nor were they fuel-efficient.
This is a great update on this topic.
I remember my adolescent fascination with the fresh and futuristic looking bright blue bubble-car displayed at the local AMC dealer, but later being repelled by a confused, Mediterranean-appliquéd and shag-carpeted V-8 Pacer wagon in the showroom a few years hence. It seemed that its only selling feature remaining was that it was ‘shorter’ than other cars, but so what?
This article brought back to mind a key ‘what if’ question I’ve had for a long time, which is what the Pacer really would have been like had GM followed through on the rotary engine. I can envision the great concept, but I still can’t quite imagine the weighty Pacer managing such an engine with automatic transmission, let alone its reliability and fuel economy given GM’s spotty track record.
I doubt there would have been any opportunity to recover/reengineer with an L-6 structure after production if the rotary had been poorly received or shelved…Would it have dragged AMC to the abyss sooner? Or if all went well could it have been the delightful car to change AMC’s trajectory? No doubt a lighter and more rational structure (less glass and wasted width) would have helped in any event, plus some thinking toward future variants like sedans and minivans, as was mentioned.
Most of the six mistakes you cite fed on each other. By not having a plan B if the rotary engine didn’t materialize, AMC’s inline six had to be shoehorned under the hood, which necessitated a larger than anticipated transmission hump inside. Then 3-across seating became impractical up front, and the wheelwell intrusion in the rear made it impossible to seat 3 in back. So, the extra exterior width did nothing for interior room and added more to the curb weight of the car, along with the heavier engine and too much glass.
I have to add that the modified grille and hood bump starting with the 1978 models were ungainly, the equivalent of the Jimmy Durante nose on the Matador but in the vertical sense.
I completely agree that the facelift is far uglier than the original fascia. The original Pacer design is the best one, by far, aesthetically.
The Pacer is one car that cried out for a transverse-mounted engine and front-wheel-drive configuration. Couple that with computer-aided body design (which would have allowed weight reductions while maintaining or even increasing body rigidity), and the car would have made more sense.
I doubt, however, that AMC had sufficient funds to execute that type of vehicle program properly, even if it had skipped the Matador coupe and sunk all available development dollars into the Pacer.
For its 1977 Concept 80 road show, AMC designed the Concept II, which featured updated Pacer design cues on a much smaller (and more practical) platform. The Concept II looked a great deal like the 1979 Dodge Colt hatchback.
Exactly! Just imagine if the Pacer had debuted with a FWD/transverse engine configuration and a slightly scaled down platform (less the CAD), backed by a less ego-ecentric executive… AMC might have had a thoroughly contemporary new new line of vehicles to challenge Chrysler’s successful K-cars and without all the problems of GM X-cars.
Because the radio station for which I programmed in the 1970s, WIBC-AM, carried the
Indiana Pacers A.B.A. professional basketball broadcasts and network, we investigated giving away a 1976 Pacer. Several of our key people drove a fully equipped and well-optioned Pacer, but in the judgement of the general manager, it failed to fully impress for the trade-out money in air-time (WIBC was # 1 and usually 85 % sold-out !) it would take to obtain the car. On a sunny day, even in an Indianapolis winter, the interior of the car was hot with the heater setting low or off. I realize the rear window of the Marlin was not as big, but one would have thought that the rear window weight of the glass in the 1965-1966 Barracuda was well-known in the industry and mentioned in the auto buff magazines when the Barracuda was introduced and tested. Yes, an airy, roomy interior is important (Think BMW sedans !), but large expanses of glass area are expensive and heavy…and even if highly tinted, require air conditioning on sunny days. When the railroads introduced dome cars to their passenger consists in the late 1940s, all were heavily air conditioned, even with tinted windows. The purpose of management is to ask probing questions to help lead the staff to reach the best outcomes. Although the 1970-1/2 Gremlin was controversial, the adaption of the Hornet platform was not a foolish development expenditure. It may have been the last wise investment decision AMC made in the 1970s. AMC should have invested in a reimagined 1963 Classic platform in both a fleet / taxi / base version (550) and an upscale American luxury offering (Ambassador ?) for no later than the fall of 1973. If the AMC engines needed to go because of their weight and emissions compliance, there were the Chevy II 194-six and the Chevy 230 / 250-sixes that could be purchased along with the transmissions. That AMC decided to go racing with Roger Penske and Roy Woods was a total waste of money which did not translate into better automobiles. Again, where were AMC’s directors when these expenditures were proposed ? Did AMC officers and directors drive Matadors with designer-branded interiors every day ? I wonder, or did they drive Mercedes or Sevil les ? With the Hornet, the Gremlin, an updated Rambler Classic and a slightly stretched Ambassador (assuming the Javelin died in 1972 or 1973 without the ugly front clip), AMC would have been perfectly positioned for the mid and late 1970s. Continuous improvements in quality, incremental rebuilding of the manufacturing facilities and strengthening the dealer network should have been the focus of management. Instead, AMC brought out a car for which I believe nobody outside AMC asked to be offered.
In answer to your question about what AMC executives drove at that time: They drove Jeep Wagoneers.
Great article, and a lot of great comments too!
I loved the design of the Pacer when it first came out. Teenage me saw it as the way of the future, and a knee in the groin to all those low-visibility opera-windowed bloatmobiles Americans seemed to like. Fancy little AMC (still called Rambler in my country) leading the industry…
There’s a lot teenage me didn’t know.
Seems there’s a lot AMC management didn’t know, either.
Why did AMC go to the expense of developing a new platform for this car? Surely common sense would have made it an alternative body on the still-fairly-new Hornet base. BTW, does anyone know the specs of GM’s aborted Wankel – it would have had to be pretty powerful to move this.
The packaging was ridiculous. Sorry, Pa cer fans, but there’s a reason other cars aren’t this size. The width was insane for that length. The widest car I have ever driven was 74 inches. I cannot imagine piloting a car only three inches longer than my old Cortina but three inches wider than Dad’s Falcon. It just does my head in to imagine the proportions. If that width didn’t translate to interior room as you say, what was the point? The Pacer looked okay in the front, if you could forget that width, but that cramped rear seat? They’d have been better off chopping out several inches of width by flattening the sides a bit, and making the wheelbase longer so the rear seat space could be wider. Push those wheels back a bit so the arches didn’t intrude.
The amount of glass did horrible things to the weight, but that was fairly integral to the look. Like the low-cowl Hondas of the eighties and nineties, it was distinctive.
It feels like the original design was deliberately exaggerated on the assumption that management would dial it back some for production ‘like they always do’ – only this time they didn’t.
You can Wiki the Wankel engine and its problems. Simply, the advantage of the Wankel was it would have a power stroke every revolution, like a two stroke engine. However was a four stroke engine with separate intake, compression, power, and exhaust. It also had fewer moving parts. So on paper you had four stroke efficiency and power with two stroke size and weight. For the downside there were two problems. First, technical. Instead of piston rings, they had sort of a squeegee thing to seal the chamber. This never worked right. Wear, scoring the combustion chamber, short useful life, etc. The second problem was physics. Due to the combustion chamber shape and the chamber space actually moving, they were never able to get a complete, clean fuel burn. This led to poor efficiency, causing poor mileage and heavy pollution at a time when this was becoming crucial.
Kim, did you ever drive a Mazda with the 13B engine ? We owned two of them: Very powerful and smooth. Both RX-7s were reliable daily-drivers (my wife’s cars), both in Florida and in Indiana. Yes, they were not very thrifty in terms of mileage, but by 1978, the Mazda rotary was reliable and less of a polluter than the RX-2 and RX-4. Mazda solved the issue with the seals by the time the RX-7 was introduced. We never had a problem with the seals or the engine. Spark plug life was about 40,000-miles. If the Mazda 13B engine was as troublesome as Wikipedia writes, why has Mazda kept refining the engine ? The 13B engines proved themselves in competition. In 1991, Johnny Herbert drove the Mazdaspeed 787B to the overall win in the 24-hours of Le Mans, the first win by a Japanese manufacturer and the first
by a car powered by a rotary engine. My late wife rued the day she sold her second red RX-7. No car ever measured up afterwards.
Beauty is subjective. Many thought the Pacer’s looks were great when it debuted. Sales dropped for reasons other than looks, like the poor fuel economy. I happen to think the original Pacer design is a very appealing. I like the idea of it being heavier than the Japanese imports because a heavy vehicle absorbs bumps better. However, the best way for the Pacer to have weight and be reasonable is for it to be electric. Unfortunately, the lead acid tech of the time wasn’t suitable, although some tried to shoehorn that tech into the cars. Lead batteries are only good for one thing: starting vehicles. This is because their chemistry is defective for any use case in which the charge is depleted, even only by 1/3. They’re only good when they’re always near full charge.
If I were wealthy I’d buy the rights to the Pacer and make a new one with an aluminum body for weight reduction, lithium battery (with a Wankel range extender if current Wankel tech is finally reliable enough with the seals), and figure out how to make the glass absorb less heat. Unlike other bloated watered-down attempts at throw-back designs, I’d make it look very much like the original. I would market it as a car that doesn’t want to rip your face off or sneer at you, or both.
I like the design a lot, although only the original one — not the wagon and not the later facelift. What I think is uncool are all the angry wannabe-viscious “aggressive” vehicles on the market these days. Those are corny and embarassing and the trend is only becoming sillier with each passing year. It’s like boys who became all of the vehicle artists grew up watching Transformers cartoons and never progressed intellectually. (Actually, the Transformers designs are less obnoxious.) I’d rather have a well-adjusted happy/friendly vehicle. Consider, for example, the pleasant-looking 1999 Lupo 3L versus the abomination VW came up with in 2009. So much for progress. The company even turned the legendary Peace Bus into a sarcastic brat. And, it’s hardly alone.
I don’t know how “modern” car designers get their jobs but they all seem to be from the same assembly line of schadenfreude twerps. One could do far better by simply copying the ’99 Lupo or the original Pacer.
Of course, no company would ever hire me to do a vehicle skin because I would give the world something enjoyable to look at rather than lowbrow “angst” trash. I did write to Honda, some years back, to point out that their website, which showcases their first vehicle design only serves to show how ugly their recent vehicles are by comparison. Of course, writing to a corporation is like writing a letter to deliver to a storm drain.
While riding in my friend’s Pacer years ago, we heard honking from behind and saw the people doubled up in laughter. A few moments later we smelled the reason for their laughter. The low beltline of the car gave folks around the car a perfect view of my friend’s Irish Settler squatting in the back of the car and taking a king-sized dump.
Only in a Pacer.
Could not help notice the other day the Euro/Japanese spec 1st generation Mitsubishi Colt hatchback that spawned Dodge/Plymouth variants seems to have a feint visual similarity to the AMC Pacer, had the latter of course been based on the smaller lighter Gremlin/Spirit with only 4-cylinder engines or been underpinned with an Omni/Horizon (if not Renault R14) style FWD platform.