AMC PacerX. Tell me about them.

I know where a two door PacerX in yellow is located and I am interested in more information before I go to see what he wants for it. It appears to be stock at this time. The car was in Alabama until a few months ago and has now shown up in a location that I know he buys and sells semi-collectible cars.
So does anyone know about or remember much about them?

Well, for starters, all Pacers are 2-doors. There was a coupe and a wagon.

The X-package changed from year-to-year. What year is the car? That would narrow it down and I could tell you exactly what it could have come with. But also, keep in mind that you could order any of the X-package options separately and you could also add optional equipment to the X-package as long as it didn't interfere with X-package equipment (which anything rarely did). The X-package on a Pacer is similar to what you'd find on a Gremlin or Hornet. Bucket seats, Sport steering wheel, carpet, stripes, Rallye Wheels. It's simply a trim level.

As for Pacers themselves, unless the car is in near mint condition or at least very good condition; walk away. While mechanical parts are easy to find for an AMC, model specific parts are becoming increasingly rare and expensive. To restore a Pacer could cost thousands of dollars if it requires sheetmetal or paint, or even glass. At the end of they day, the car could bring $5,000 to $7,000. I've yet to see a Pacer cross the 10k mark yet.

They drive nice. They ride nice and they're very comfortable cars. But they are slow and get poorer fuel mileage than any of their contemporary competition. Essentially, you buy them because you like them and they become a family member. A Pacer is the least-likely car to ever become an investment.

Thanks. I will check on it this week and give you more insight.
While not a popular car, I find the little yellow creature an oddity and might look into a purchase. If not maybe I can connect a truly interested party to the current owner.

They are definitely an acquired taste. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool AMC guy but the Pacer and Matador coupes are tough pills for me to swallow; both stylistically and the fact that they are the two models that contributed to the eventual destruction of AMC.

At the time, they were very popular cars. For 1975, the Pacer was the darling of the automotive world, almost becoming Car of the Year. AMC produced in excess of 140,000 Pacers for model year '75. That may not seem like much, but remember that the Kenosha factory only had three assembly lines. That means they were cranking them out as hard as they could.

When you consider that a high-water mark for the Hornet was about 80,000 cars; 140,000 Pacers is absolutely shocking!

Here's a fantastic little half-hour documentary on the AMC Pacer: https://youtu.be/kcl98aBRkD8

I consider 1968 through 1974 to be the "Golden Era" at American Motors and it showed in their style, quality and production numbers and my collection reflects that.

Friend of mine parents bought one new. His Mom drove it. We called it "the Window Wagon" or "the Jetson-mobile" because of all the glass. It was so funny-looking that everyone considered it cool.
RamblerMan, you definitely have a cool collection. I had forgotten about the 6 months my Dad worked at an AMC dealer in '69. While there, he brought me home a dealer promo model of the Hornet. Wish I still had it.



Tim

My dad had a 69 Ambassador SST wagon and I had a 64 Rambler American then a 76 Hornet Sportabout wagon in orange. No sPacer for me!

My vote for ugggggliest has to go to the Marlin. Take an iffy Chrysler design ('66 Charger) and make it worse........

My Uncle Jim drove Ramblers because "they came standard with air conditioning".

R.

Except the first Marlins were 1965 models.

My Boss's wife got one when they first came out.. The rumour was they were something special with there new unusual design..

The rumour was wrong....

PacerX, the masked Pacer is secretly the unknown brother of Speed Pacer.

Go Speed Pacer, GO!!

Two "amusing" quirks of the Pacers are you have to have the windshield wipers clocked to a certain spot to remove the valve cover, which was partially under the cowl, and for a couple years they were known for the distributor caps exploding - due to ruptured diaphragms in the vacuum advance units filling the distributor with fuel vapors.

Yes, they were all 2 doors - 2 different length doors - passenger door was about 4" longer than the drivers door. And good luck finding one with good door panels - common warranty item, and they didn't really improve the replacements.

The last couple years you could get a 304 in them, which made a 360 or a 401 was an easy swap.

The Pacer exemplifies what I think of AMC. A quirky little company building quirky cars. And I say that with the greatest affection as I have a Machine, an AMX, and just bought an SC/Rambler. I can almost guarantee you that if you showed up at a show with a Pacer, you won't have any company!

Nor will you have any friends! I went to a car show once, and took the twin Hornets. The cars, while the same body style, couldn't be further apart. One's a six, the other an eight. One's a stick, the other an auto. One had a bench, the other buckets and on and on....

Not a single person talked to my buddy and I for the entire show. Was pretty disappointed. It wasn't until we were leaving somebody piped up about the yellow one and he gave us the old "I had one exactly like it" speech at which point even my buddy chimed in with "no you didn't". The yellow car is a mild custom/resto-mod and features many completely anachronistic or not-available parts.

(Like it has a 304/4barrel with duals but that was never an available configuration. 5 speed Not available. Console not available. Tilt (not available with manual). Leather-wrap wheel not available. etc, etc.)

In my neck of the woods, owning an AMC is like being a leper. I have to drive to another state or province before the cars get any recognition or admiration.

Imagine the suprise wooping some musclecars got around here when they went up against my buddy's Gremlin..A 401 that wound up past 8 grand along with some drivetrain goodies{The front end got real light on takeoff}...And he did'nt add any outside glammor to the car to give it away... Talk about some hurt pride from the big 3 car owners..
Now, if I were to add a PacerX to the collection I'd make sure the last laugh was for me too...

My mother drove one for a while. Different. As I remember, 3 on the tree with electrically actuated overdrive. I also remember the handling was not super dynamic... maybe it was the skinny bias ply tires. It did not take much of a corner to make them sing.

exactly... (I tagged along)My dad test drove new cars every year and a '65 Marlin was one of them. At the time the fastback design was a pretty cool deal until the '66 Charger came along. It raised the bar a little(very little). I got to ride along in a 383/ 4bbl version and hoped he would buy it, he didn't. Instead he bought a '66 390 Fairlane GT which was kept 4 or 5 months until 2.. his and hers '66 Dodge Monaco's 500 took it's place. That lasted long enough for a '68 Coronet R/T and a Charger R/T as replacements. The last 2 AMCs my dad drove(and owned) before his death were a '69 390 AMX and a '72 304 Javelin

Car magazines claimed that a 401 GremlinX was the fastest production car of the day.. supposedly ran 12s stock.

I have never heard of a 401 Gremlin x being produced from the factory. However a dealer did build some but they were Gremlin XR's and no where near stock. http://gremlinx.com/randall-401-xr/

Pacers are known as water leakers and basically junk when new. I worked for AMC during those years and they were all intents and purposes garbage. The hornet 6s and Gremlins etc fine But don't get pacer it was a hot in summer and cold in winter and just about fell apart when new. Now a 304 Gremlin was nice I several with sticks and they ran good to 4000 By the way 8 grand on AMC engine is bit much the majority were done at 4K and the rocker pedestals came apart easily

The Hurst SC/Rambler is one car that just does something for me. I saw one at a dealer in 1981 and fell in love. The over the top seat pattern and crazy scoop, 4 speed, tiny car, big motor. One car I'd probably trade my bee for.

Looks like your right. It's been over 40 years and that's how I remember it. Still a badass car.