Wayback Wednesday: RIP, the AMC Pacer

Before it became part of the landscape in the Wayne's World movies, the AMC Pacer was once considered the car of the future. 

With its bubble of glass look and funky options it became a hit. Well, sort of. Actually the Pacer was a problematic car for AMC, which was a car company with a lot of problems.

“When you buy any other car,” print ads for the Pacer said, “all you end up with is today’s car. When you get a Pacer, you get a piece of tomorrow.”

The last Pacer rolled off a Wisconsin assembly line in on December 3, 1979. It was known for its wide body, almost 77 inches. And it was long, too with a length of nearly 15 feet. It was also billed as an economy car only it didn't get great gas mileage with a fuel guzzling V-6 under the hood.

And parking? That was a chore as well because of its width. There were other quirks. One passenger door was longer than the other.

Still, the Pacer endures. One of my best friends in high school had one in the late 1980's and I recently saw one on the road in Oklahoma City. There's a website dedicated to Pacers and the associated nostalgia. There are a few online listings for Pacers for sale. One can be had for about $4,000 while another seller is asking $28,000. When it was introduced the Pacer went for about $5,000.