My first car was a 1977 Pacer X that was that dark forest green color.  There was a white Pacer X in the video and the very next car in the video (with the hatch open) was the green color, mine was a sparkly metallic green of that shade.  It had been a demo for the dealer and it was pretty well optioned out.  I loved the car, great for me because I learned to drive in it.  But a lemon.  The electronic black box module failed several times leaving me stranded on the highway.  It got traded in for a 1980 Chevy Citation. 

Or the Edsel Citation or the Chevy Citation?

Years ago when I was attending The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena one of my instructors (theory of automotive design) was explaining to the entire class that the Pacer really was a remarkable forward thinking design that was just too far ahead of its time to be appreciated. I recall asking the guy next to me, "How far ahead of its time was it? It's 1989 now and the darn things are still ugly." He started cracking up in agreement.

Meanwhile a few years earlier, among the group of twenty somethings I knew in Eagle Rock one of the guys had a Pacer, and whenever he was upset or bothered about something he would go outside and kick it to vent his frustrations.

"Hey Jason, where are you going?"

Reply, "I'm pissed off! I'm going outside to kick the Pacer!"

People laugh about that to this day. Those cars never got any respect.

loved the big windows and the fine line grill. Thought the doors were too long for garages and parking and the trim fit was pretty bad. It could have been a stellar car I think.

When I was 3-4 years old, my aunt had a 1975 or 1976 Pacer D/L. If I remember well, she complained about the accelerator or steering being very stiff. I really liked it's wheels (it had the optional road wheels) and the nice grille. 

Her next car was not a Chevy Citation but close... A 1980 TIAC PHOENIX (the "PON" from the PONTIAC emblem on the hatch was gone and the whole emblem at the front was gone too, leaving some shinier paint on the hood where it used to be!). It was a 4 door with a 2.8 V6... She sent it to the junkyard in the summer of 1988 with a tired smoking motor, bad automatic transmission and bad body (water was leaking on the front seat from the rusted/cracked seam on the driver's side A-pillar and the floor pans needed major repairs when the car was just 5-6 years old!). At least, she had a garage to cover the car when it rained!  

Before the Pacer, she had a Chevy Vega, I don't remember that one... 

Enjoyable video even though I was never an AMC fan. I couldn't see past the odd factor in their designs and at that time when they were new I was more interested in the big boats. 

Back around 1976 one of my co-workers bought a Pacer. I think it was her first car, and initially she loved it. But then the mechanical problems started showing up, and I think the automatic transmission finally failed and she got rid of the thing. But she sure was high on that car for the first few months.

I had to bite my tongue however, when she enthused about how wide it was. Cause she was sort of wide herself, LOL.

Re: the Chrysler buyout of AMC. As the story goes, Chrysler engineers were amazed when the got inside AMC and saw how a relatively small team was able to produce so many different models. The secret, which Chrysler adopted, was platform engineering, where the same team design and engineering teams produced models for the various divisions, instead of each division having its own team or "silo". This was seen later in Chrysler's use of the same basic platform in various models from Plymouth to Dodge to Chrysler. Example: Plymouth Breeze, Dodge Stratus, Chrysler Cirrus. Same basic platform, with different trim and options befitting each rung of the corporate ladder.Today we see the same basic platform underpinning the Plymouth Challenger, Dodge Charger, and Chrysler 300.

It was a very economical and practical approach. Most car companies do it today, but back then it was unusual for an American car company. When platform engineering was coupled with Chrysler's enthusiastic embrace of computer aided design, the company was also able to produce new models much quicker than its rivals, and by the late 1990's had earned a reputation as the world's most profitable car company. Then along came the Mercedes "merger" and it all went to hell.

Back in my day, AMC was EVERYWHERE! The first family car was a two door Rambler American, in green--once got hit in the rear when I was a baby, a few months old, much like 40-years-later, my Honda Civic getting rear-ended w/ my daughter at 10-months-old in the back seat (and the driver behind me in a Licnoln MK X SUV taking right off!)

And I would see at least one Ramb. Am. station wagon, in blue...!

The neighbors right across the street had an AMC Pacer, silver w/ black vinyl, (bucket seats, automatic floor shift, radio that was just AM, w/ an FM-converter, added-on) and in an accident, the man driving in somehow pounded his fist right through the dashboard... The car and he, both survived... 

I remember how that car sounded needing a new muffler, too; right while I was riding in it--and I rode in it just as frequently as in their 1970 Chrysler Newport 4 door hardtop...  That car DID get hot inside--and I think the A/C also broke (it didn't work in the Chrysler, either) and it's a shame the Wankel Rotary Engine proposed for the Pacer got left on the drawing board...  Remember the 'removable' hood sitting on the lawn when the Mobile Mechanic (The Tune-Up Man) would service the car--and got down & dirty w/ the neighbors next to 'em's Mercury Marquis; taking the wheels off o' IT, once to do brakes, alignment, etc...!

I crashed into my friend's grandparents' Hornet hatchback, with my bike, shattering the tail light while they were visiting... It was parked in the driveway right over the side walk while I was riding my bike (heard a SMACK!) and some red plastic from the tail light which wrapped around the rear of the car went everywhere, but didn't go inside to 'fess up about it (that is really NOT a place to put your car if you want it SAFE in our--or ANY--neighborhood!)...

And there were other neighbors who had a Hornet station wagon (burnt orange, tan interior) w/ a luggage rack, reclining front seats, and all but at least tinted glass and air conditioning and maybe a radio that wasn't just AM w/ only the single front speaker... We went with one of them when he took their dog to the vet to be put to sleep, just for Tippy to take one last crap in there, on the floor... It was a neat car and when they gave it to their daughter, it had an add-on A/C, just for the thing to die a few years later, & have to be junked...

Oh, Yaeh! A book on AMC, AMERICAN MOTORS: THE LAST INDEPENDENT, it's called! At one library I somehow found my self driving miles to go to--it's an interesting, MUST READ!!!!

-- Dave

Ooops, that was actually a 'TINKLE!' that I heard...! (It got way too late--the SIX HOURS to tweak up my post just flew past by, in no time!)

But, this friend of mine's dad (the Hornet was the property of the PATERNAL grandparents) WORKED for AMC--hence they had an Ambassador (which reportedly got stolen--and I barely remember even that car) and replaced by a more modest brown 4-door Matador with a tan interior (remember flipping open the gas tank door) which we rode in, a time or two...

The Mom drove a red Gremlin with a black interior and I remember how dark it was inside of it--and with the way the windshield had the first band of tint across the glass that I noticed, gave me the impression of THAT being where Air Conditioning came from; it was on every A/C car I've ridden in--and plain windshields (with the exception of my Grandpa's Ranchero truck seemed to be A/C-less)...

Hard to believe me, my friend, and each of our sisters piled in the back seat of that car without any of us ever having to ride in the hatchback or next to Mother in the front seat!

There were cousins who's family had a non-metallic, bright red, Jeep--just when a JEEP was some canvas top war-era, and post-era General Purpose Vehicle, and was a one-product-line, labeled the CJ-6... (Well, there was the Cherokee, the first true SUV, along with the Willys Overland, Ford Bronco, etc., too!)

As for where the Father was employed: It was actually the big, tall, American Motors building in Southfield, which when the company was acquired--or ownership TAKEN OVER--by Renault, became American Center, then actually be labeled Chrysler Corporation (and the Eagle brand becoming a subsidy, along the way)--just for that tower to be no more....

(And now I can imagine them puttering around in a Renault Alliance, and maybe a Fuego--just to be relieved when it was "OK" to drive an Eagle, then a Jeep!)

-- Dave

One of my sister's friends had a Pacer, purchased at the urging of her husband for its futuristic attributes.  She took it into the dealer not long after the purchase because it would make a clunking sound when rounding a turn.  They told her the clunk was normal.  She told them that if the clunk was normal, she didn't want the car anymore.  I've forgotten what she replaced it with, but that was the end of her relationship with the Pacer.

Rambler made a few other attempts at being perceived as something other than an econo-box marque.  The Marlin was the first, and it sort of looked like an Edsel and a Henry J. had a baby.  The big bulky Javelin came along but never garnered much credibility.  My aunt had a red one with racy trim and she was in her 50s by then.  Enough said.  Then there was the ("That's a") Matador.  Not the boxy one that looked like a police cruiser, but the one that looked like it belonged in the garage of the Jupiter II -- if the J-II had a garage.   You have to wonder what AMC was thinking, or if they were thinking at all.

I thought the Levi's upholstery was an interesting idea, but I don't know how well it held up.  We all know that a pair of Levi's can wear out over time in areas where they're under stress.  I suppose patching would add character, but probably not a good idea to do iron-ons.

Back around 1980 I helped a friend revive an ashy green '61 Rambler American that needed a new driveshaft (the old one had literally fallen off).  It had a recently rebuilt engine, and he was told by the owners, who he knew, that if he could get if off the driveway he could have the car.   It smelled musty inside from having sat for a couple of years, but damned if it didn't start right up after we put the new driveshaft on and were ready to take it for its test run through the neighborhood.  We felt like thieves on that maiden drive, riding around in a car that was free!

It was a fun car that made lots of joyrides and party runs to Santa Cruz, San Francisco and Russian River, and it held its own keeping up with traffic on area freeways.   Those were the days.

I remember our landlord in SF back in the mid-1960's (the same place that had the late fifties GM Frigidaire washer) had a pristine Rambler wagon parked in the basement garage. I think it was a "Classic". It had very clean lines and a manual transmission. Nice looking ride.

An aside: I work across the street from a line of auto wreckers. Two weeks ago I took some time after work to stroll through one of them. Saw a '64 Corvair Greenbriar van, cool. On my way out I decided to peruse the hubcap collection. I have a '64 Valiant Signet 200 hardtop that lost a wheel cover about 35 years ago. I put baby moons on it but it never looked right, and the damn things are cheap chrome that rust out in a couple of years. The stock wheel covers are stainless, nice. Anyway, I'd checked their hubcaps before and not found anything. But this time I spotted three '64 Valiant Signet 200 wheel covers, in pretty good condition. Mislabled with yellow pen, "American Motors". LOL. I purchased two for $10 each (a real bargain for hubcaps, I think) and now I have a spare! So in a way I have AMC to thank for my find...

Yes, the older American made engines are relatively easy to work on. I'd worked on adjusting valves on my Valiant, as well as on a Mitsubishi made Plymouth Pickup and various motorcycles (Kawasaki, shims under buckets, Honda, screw adjust). In 1994 I picked up a '50 Plymouth Special Deluxe from a friend and decided to rebuild the motor... in my driveway... I was working for myself at the time and business was slow, so I took a month off (as it turned out), pulled the motor, disassembled it, took the pieces to a local auto machine shop, and had it cleaned and bored etc. Then put it back together in my tiny garage and reinstalled it into the car. It also started up relatively easily, although I found I had a clogged fuel line and once that was fixed it ran fine. It was quite an experience, a rite of passage delayed until my forties.

So true, Allen.

The '61 American still used a vacuum motor for its windshield wipers. 

Allen, I think you have it backwards.  On my '50 GMC, if I'm accelerating I have to back my foot off the pedal to allow the wipers to take a swipe.

I don't know what Ken means by "if you make them work right."  I've replaced the motor, the vacuum hose, tweaked the motor mounts and linkage for best performance, and they still stop if I'm accelerating.

Ken, is there anything else you can recommend?

Thanks Ken.  I think the fuel pump was replaced somewhere along the line.  I'll give it a look tomorrow.

Remember seeing an Owners Manual for the AMC Javelin and in addition to the standard Heater/Defrost/Ventilation controls and optional Air Conditioning was the nomenclature for 'The Southwest Set-Up A/C'...

There just so happened to be an AMC Javelin at a used/classic car lot I went to from Arizona (Historical Vehicle AZ plates, and all!) but the car had a 4-Speed manual transmission so I sadly couldn't test drive this car (going for a near-$340-Grand!) and the man running the shop couldn't close it, to accompany me, let alone let me at least test drive the climate control, of which the Desert Setting knew nothing about...

I had a model car AMC Javelin, as well as a Hornet hatchback body w/ a bunch of other parts to make my own "Custom Hot Rod" out of...

The Javelin had neat Lights & Wiper/Washer controls: little levers coming off of a tier on top of the dash...

Saw in person in that Javelin, as well as one other one (this one was an older when it had just come out--w/ an Auto Trans) at Goodwill Motors on 8 Mile...

Too bad a Two-Door MATADOR (maybe Sporty, Tricked-Out) had to be the Javelin's obvious replacement...

-- Dave