AMCPacer

01

Origins

The Pacer of 1975 was genuinely radical: a subcompact as wide as a full-size car, with a vast glasshouse, doors of unequal length to ease kerbside entry, and styling like nothing else on the road. It was engineered around General Motors' forthcoming Wankel rotary engine — and when GM cancelled the rotary, AMC had to lever its old cast-iron straight-six into a car never designed for it, ruining the weight balance and the economy the car was meant to deliver. Early sales were strong on sheer novelty, then collapsed as the compromises told. Around 280,000 were built to 1979. Decades of ridicule followed, softened into affection by Wayne's World and the growing recognition that, seen from today, the Pacer's cab-forward, glassy packaging was simply twenty years early.