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AMC Pacer

Another case of a car that was ahead of it's time. Now it seems like every car has the "jelly bean" look with the doors going up into the roof.

A Pacer was my everyday car for some years, it's in storage now, needs a lot of work mechanically. One of the most comfortable cars I've driven. Plentyof legroom, and you could put your elbow out and not hit the person next to you in the side. Handles well, too. Only problem is that it was somewhat underpowered, even with the larger 258 six. Mine didn't have the 2 barrel carb option (it had nearly every other option, though) and the 304 V8 was offered in 78-79 only. I've only seen one with the V8
 
What you oughta do Kenmore is look for a modern-day Jeep Cherokee with the 4.0 liter six...that's the same engine! 20 years later, and with the acquisition by Chrysler, the engine's been fuel-injected to 200 horsepower. Many people don't believe it's the same engine that used to power all those old AMC's in the seventies. The 304 V8 was a lotta motor for a little car back then!
 
modern engine swap

The problem would be getting all that electronic stuff to work in an old car. Nowadays even the transmissions are part of the circuitry. Definately a great engine, though, 7 main bearings on the crankshaft instead of the usual 3 other makers used.

Pacers were not light cars, relatively heavy, so they definately could use a 304 back the day.
 
Gremlins too

I remember people stuff huge v8's into those cars and driving the big muscle car people crazy because they were so fast.

I never had the pleasure of owning or driving an AMC car but I always admired them.
 
huge V8's

Gremlins were avaiable with 304's, and since AMC's largest engine the 401, was the same block, it would drop right in.
 
The Pacer was supposed to have a Wankel engine

The AMC Pacer was originally suppoesed to have a Wankel engine provided by GM. In the mid 70's the Wankel engine was the big thing and GM had was working on a version for their cars and AMC was gonna buy Wankel engines from GM to put in the Pacer. The reason that never happened is because the first generation of Wankel engines were thirsty as hell and got bad gas mileage. That is why GM stopped development on their version after the first gas crisis and Mazda which had offered a bunch of Wankel models in the US in the early 70's ended up going back to piston engines so they could survive in the US market. By the time GM had abandonded their Wankel development AMC had already designed the Pacer to take the Wankel engine. Now AMC had a problem, they had a car but no engine for it. In a pinch AMC shoe horned its own 6's and later the V8 into the Pacer and that is why the engine kind of intrudes into the passenger compartment. Just thoguht you all might like some behind the scenes info on the Pacer.

FYI Mazda finally was able redesign the Wankel Engine so it got more acceptable gas mileage and reintroduced it to America in the 1978 RX-7
 
Wankel engine

The classic rx7s were great cars, the only problem being if the engine overheated, it was dead. The engine would lose all compression and cease to work. I had a friend who lost 2 RX-7's because of the thermostat or water pump going out and the engine died.

Otherwise, cool and wonderful engines.
 
Wankel engine

Besides the mileage problem, the BIG problem was that the seals on the tips of the rotors wore out prematurely. This almost killed Mazda, there were lawsuits. They mangaged to make a comeback, much as Audi did with the "runaway car" syndrome they had. There was also problems with emissions.
 
Interesting, that 70's energy crisis

When was the last year for amc? and what was the model line up? I do remember someone in High School around 74 or 75, with a wankel model, and you know everyone had to take a peep at it.It was a mazda. I remember lining up for gas then, and again in the early eighties, that was also at the same time every thing got marked with ENERGY SAVER. You know I kinda figured when everyone got a 4x4 suv in their driveway, this would happen again. In the late seventies I remember large cars were sold at a loss for the dealers to move them. You think we are headed there again???
 
Chevrolet Corvair

I owned 2 of these in high school-both 65' models. Both 4 speed Monzas. This was the redesign from the 60 to 64 models which became "unsafe at any speed". The 65 was great to drive-sharp handling and the engine never missed a beat-air cooled at that. 2 things that I and most corvair owners had to deal with- one was the afterignition or dieseling after cutting off the ignition which would last sometimes 10 or 15 seconds and you had to be careful of the oil level that it wasn't too full as it would blow the head gaskets easily in those cars. One could tune it all they wanted to but the AI was a feature of the aircooled engine. Will say they never backfired on me.
 
My 64 Beetle had an old carbeurator that would diesel on me. Very annoying. After a carb change it ran smoothly.

My biggest complaint with the Bug was the brakes. no matter how much I adjusted and tweaked, they just wouldn't work right. Always had air in the lines.
 
Ralph Nader didn't kill the Corvair....and you could ge

GM had already decided that there would be no more development on the Corvair past the second generartion of Corvairs introduced for the 1965 model year sometime in late 1963 or early 1964. GM's reason for this was because the Corvair had originally been introduced to do battle with the Valiant and Falcon but did not live up to the sales expectation of the GM brass. Originally the Corvair was offered as a 4 door in 500 and ritzier 700 trim. A coupe was add in May 1960 and a Station wagon and Corvair vans and Rampside Pickup were added for the 1961 model year and so was the bucket seated 900 Monza coupe.. By that time Chevy realized their compact was being badly outsold by the ultra conventional Falcon from Ford so they add their own conventional compact to the line in the form of the 1962 ChevyII. That is also why the Corvair lost its slow selling station wagon after the the 1962 model year and the vans and Rampside pickups were gone afther 1965 and why from 1962 on, with the addition of a convertible, the Corvair took on an image as a sporty, fun, yet economical car.

FYI..Ralph Naders book didn't come out until the 1965 models were already out. The problem he wrote about was the 1960 thru 1962 (possibly 1963) models penchant for having skiddish rear handling because of the lack of a rear anti sway bar. That problem was corrected by 1963 or 1964.

FYI#2 The original Beetle was offered with a true 3 speed automatic transmission starting in 1973 with the introduction of the fuel injected models (that coincided with the introduction of the first watercooled front engine VW to hit the American shores The VW Dasher). I know this for a fact as one of my neighbors ahs a white convertible with an auto trans and fuel injection from circa 1975.
 
1987 was thelast year for AMC cars

AMC lasted until 1987 when Chrysler bought them from Remault to get their hands on the Jeep brand. By that time all AMC was offering were Renault Alliances and Encores The Eagle 4X4 wagon (which had started life as the 1971 Hornet Sportabout in the fall of 1970) and the Jeep line which consisted of the Grand Wagoneer (whos body hadn't been altered excepting grilles and the like since its inroduction in the fall of 1962 as the 1963 Wagoneer) The Wagoneer and Cherroke (which were redesingned for the 1984 model year) and the Commanche pick (which was a truck version of the new Wagoneer/Cherroke design). When Chrysler bought AMC it was renamed the Jeep/Eagle division of Chrysler Corp.
 
VW automatic trnsmission

"The original Beetle was offered with a true 3 speed automatic transmission starting in 1973"

Are you sure? I thought Beetles never got anything more sophisticated than the "Automatic Stickshift" transmission right to the end of US sales
 
VW automatic trnsmission

"The original Beetle was offered with a true 3 speed automatic transmission starting in 1973"

Are you sure? I thought Beetles never got anything more sophisticated than the "Automatic Stickshift" transmission right to the end of US sales
 
huh?

I remember seeing their "autostick" which basically you didn't need a clutch, but you still had to shift.

The type 4's (squareback) had an aircooled engine with AC and true automatic transmission.

I've been into beetles for a while and I've never seen or heard of a true automatic transmission one. But there might have been prototypes or special editions floating around.

As for me, I don't like automatic tranny's. I like to shift.
 
You didn't havet o shift with the Autostick if you didn&

Jason have you ever seen a fuel injected Beetle...they do exsists as do fuel injected Microbuses, Fastbacks, Sqaurebacks, 412s, and Kahrman Ghias and all of these could be had with a true auto trans starting in 1973.The Autostick gets its name form the fact that you could shift it if you wanted to or put in any gear and let the car go. The Autostick shift didn't shift automatically but you could put it into first, second, or third gear and start from a stop and it wouldn't hurt the car it was just painfully slow. It was also reffered to in the sexist days of the late 1960's as a his and hers gearbox (his if you manually shifted, hers if you didn't) Oh and the Autostick did have a clutch but it was engaged by pushing down lightly on the gearshift lever. That in turn tripped a micro switch which disengaged the clutch when you shifted. This is why, by the way, you never rest your hand on the gear lever of on autostick Beetle (the clutch will keep engaging and disengaging if you doand that will cause premature failure of the clutch). Of course this was not a normal type of clutch bewcause of the fact that you could come to a complete stop with out disengaging it and not stall the engine. Of course Beetles were so slow anyway and the Autostick option amde it more so and that is why the Autostick option was not at all popular in this country. I have a Beetle shop manual by Chilton to back up this info as well as a neighbor who had a 1970 Beetle with Autostick who told me this as well.
FYI....The Fastback, Squareback, 411, and 412 were all based on the Beetle (the 411 and 412 were based on a stretched version but a version never the less)as was the Transporter, Microbus, and the Kahrman Ghia. Finally,I reiterrate ONLY THE FUEL INJECTED BEETLES FROM 1973 OR SO ON HAD A TRUE AUTO TRANS which their shared with the 412 and the Dasher and later on the Rabbit and Scirocco). With fuel injected Beetle engines VW at last used a true auto trans because the the extra oomph provided by the fuel injected engine would help copmpensate for the power sapping nature of the auto trans (remember this was in the day when auto trans weren't as effiecent as they are now).
FYI#2 1973 is when the Autostick option was dropped from the Beetle in the US (not sure about Europe or the rest of the world though).
 
Standard fan here too

I prefer a standard over an automatic. I like to be "doing" something when I'm driving. I'd only drive an automatic if it was in a luxury car or classic. We had a '74 Beetle from 1999-2001; it was actually made in Mexico but we didn't know it at the time; bought it from my aunt. Light and fun to drive (actually I didn't drive it but shifted from the front seat) but had the typical rusted floorboard problem and needed work. Easy to drive too...even if one didn't know how to use a stick they could still drive it. After this I wanted a standard when I started looking for a truck, but at the same time didn't want a BOL single-cab version which a standard usually came in. Finally found an F-150 XLT extended cab; it's a 5-speed and better than an automatic, but no sports car, LOL.

Our PT Cruiser is the TOL GT version with a turbocharger and Chrysler's "infamous" AutoStick feature. I think it's fun for an automatic because it will shift every 3000 RPMs, versus the 2000 in "Drive"; basically you can really "take off" in AutoStick mode. Ironically enough, the GT is not available in a standard...so you know what I use every time I drive it...

--Austin
 
I need to correct myself...

Fuel injection was not offered on the Beetle till 1975 and that wsa also the year they dropped the autostick option. Iam sorry I got my years mixed up. Also I found out from my friend who owned the Fuel injected Ghia I have ssen that he put a 76 Beetle engine in a 1973 Kahrman Ghia so seeing as the Ghia was last offered in 1974 (Kahrman in Italy stopped making the Ghia in 1974 to make room to bulid the 1975 Scirroco) the Ghia never came from the factory with Fuel injection. Sorry for my goofs.
 

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