On This Day In History, 1979. End of the line for the AMC Pacer.
Read all about it here. Excerpt below.
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.
********
The first car I ever bought and paid for myself was not an AMC Pacer, but it was a 1972 AMC Gremlin. The paint job was somewhere between fern green and aquamarine. I’m pretty sure it’s not a tint that’s available anywhere now, at least not outside of certain junkyards. I loved that car for the freedom it gave me. But, like the Pacer, it was a butt-ugly little tin can. It was definitely a piece of something, but NO WAY was it a “piece of tomorrow!”
What was YOUR first car?
<C’mon now, it can’t be any more embarrassing than a Gremlin!>
1960 Rambler American – pink… nuff said…
1966 Plymouth Valiant! Lovely shade of blue and lasted into two years of graduate school!
1972 Plymouth Satellite. I had to take the inside front door panel off, so we could quickly put the driver’s window back up, and one of the rear doors wouldn’t open. We traded it in when it was down to 6 out of 8 cylinders.