AMC Pacer – Driven To Write

Convergent Visions

Pacer begets Porsche – Porsche begets Pacer. Which is it?

_{Editor’s note: This is an expanded and amended version of an article first published on DTW on 28 January 2016.}

The 1975 AMC Pacer is a car that seems to have become a four wheeled punchline to some joke or other for almost half a century. Derided and satirised in both print and in celluloid, it’s been a staple in every worst and ugliest-car-ever list. After all, it’s easy to kick an underdog.

The cash-strapped American Motors Corporation was attempting something really rather daring in 1975 – to Continue reading “Convergent Visions”

Mother of Invention

Making a little go that bit further.

Throughout the 1960s, US carmakers enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, with a buoyant domestic market, cheap, plentiful fuel and a customer base who had wholeheartedly bought into the concept of plenty – at a superficial level at least. Because beneath the giddy headline figures, sales of imported cars were giving the movers and shakers of Detroit serious pause.

The encroach of smaller, more fuel-efficient models, notably Volkswagen’s cult-car Beetle, prompted American carmakers to Continue reading “Mother of Invention”

Laughing Stock

For every alleged innovation there is always a precedent. Come now, you hardly imagine the Gorden comes up with this stuff on his own, do you?

When Daimler’s Chief Design Officer, Gorden Wagener turned up in his immaculate sport-casual attire for the debut of the Maybach Ultimate Luxury concept, he told assembled journalists it represented “a totally new archetype of kind never seen before.” Of course even the most empty phrases contain a grain of truth because in the manner of a stopped clock, he’s half right.

It’s entirely possible that Daimler’s CDO neither knows nor cares that his verbiage-laden uttering lacked much by way of substance. After all, Mercedes’ resident believer in beauty and intelligence is unlikely to Continue reading “Laughing Stock”

A photo for Sunday: Volvo 340 DL

Last week we considered the AMC Pacer: a car that is not known for inviting admiration. This week I take a quick look at another not-much-loved vehicle.

I could very well have served the two up together as a provocation. When I saw the 340 I wondered what it was doing at the gathering of classics and not parked outside. Yet not far away the 1976 AMC Pacer parked at the same event. That car gathered curious glances and much detailed inspection while the 340 didn’t at all. Yet both cars were there because they had loving owners for whom their vehicles were a source of pride and joy.

Continue reading “A photo for Sunday: Volvo 340 DL”

Vicarious Pleasures: 1976 AMC Pacer

This one got me thinking.

The 1975 AMC Pacer is one of those famously unsuccessful cars to list with the Pontiac Aztek, Chevrolet Corvair, DeLorean DMC-12 and perhaps the Tucker Torpedo. As a resident of that list, it’s also routinely jeered at due to its appearance. I’d like to take a different tack with this and reflect on what is right with the car and also to consider the possibility of taking enjoyment in other people’s enjoyment of a car. Continue reading “Vicarious Pleasures: 1976 AMC Pacer”