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N0KFQ > TODAY 03.12.16 15:24l 54 Lines 2699 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 14954_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Dec 3
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N0KFQ
Sent: 161203/1421Z 14954@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ6.0.13
1979 Last AMC Pacer rolls off assembly line
On December 3, 1979, the last Pacer rolls off the assembly line
at the American Motors Corporation (AMC) factory in Kenosha,
Wisconsin. When the car first came on the market in 1975, it was
a sensation, hailed as the car of the future. "When you buy any
other car," ads said, "all you end up with is today's car. When
you get a Pacer, you get a piece of tomorrow." By 1979, however,
sales had faded considerably. Today, polls and experts agree: the
Pacer was one of the worst cars of all time.
By the end of the 1960s, AMC was the only surviving independent
automaker in the United States. The only way to assure AMC's
future, company officials decided, was to embrace what they
called a "Philosophy of Difference." That is, they built only
cars that offered buyers something brand-new. (During the 1960s,
the company had tried to compete directly with cars produced by
the Big Three-General Motors, Ford and Chrysler-and had nearly
gone bankrupt as a result.) They also decided to build cars that
would meet the stringent federal safety and pollution standards
that they imagined would be in place in 1980.
Thus, the Pacer: an "economy car" that was, despite its designs
on the small-car market, amazingly heavy (thanks to those
crash-protection standards) and terribly fuel-inefficient. Most
peculiarly, the Pacer was nearly half as wide (77 inches) as it
was long (171.5 inches, on a 100-inch wheelbase). In theory, this
meant that four adults and their cargo could travel in comfort;
in practice, it meant that the car was goofy-looking and
impossible to park. Contributing to the overall goofiness were
the car's enormous windows-more than one reviewer compared the
Pacer to a fishbowl. Also, to make it easier for passengers to
load packages into the back and drivers to climb in on the curb
side, the left-hand door was shorter than the right one. (As a
result, parallel parkers in Great Britain typically needed to
crawl over the passenger seat to get out, because the
driver's-side door was so big that it would get caught on the
curb.) The short, squat car was also woefully underpowered.
Despite (or perhaps because of) its bad reputation, the Pacer has
also earned a spot in pop-culture history. A 1976
Pacer - robin's-egg blue, with flames painted on the front
fenders - starred in the 1992 film "Wayne's World" and in the
accompanying video for the old Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody."
More recently, the rapper Eminem featured a late-model Pacer in
the music video for his 2000 hit "The Real Slim Shady."
73 - K.O., n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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