March, 1975: Good times in Kenosha: From the New York Times:
"The American Motors Corporation announced today it
would increase production of its new Pacer model by 32 per cent to 700
units a day because of stronger than expected demand."
You might say it was all downhill from there. AMC had a great year in 1974, and it looked like their huge investment in the new Pacer was paying off. Unfortunately, after a strong first year-and-a-half, Pacer sales took a dive along with everything else AMC was making. By that point the company had little money to invest in new platforms. The good news was that AMC had purchased Jeep in 1970. But the dream of a car company that would compete with Detroit's Big 3 was reduced to a flicker that finally burned out when Chrysler purchased the company in 1987.
The car on the left has the 'X' sport package. If you bought a Gremlin X, you could get a V-8 engine. In this video, Jeff Dunham refers to the Gremlin X as 'the poor man's Corvette', to which Jay Leno replies, "Well, maybe the homeless man's Corvette." The Pacer X didn't even have a V-8, although a few Pacers did get one late in the production run.
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