Hey Scotty! I’m a big fan in Japan. Thanks for your videos! I wanted to know what you think about American Motors Corporation. Did you think their cars were good? Do you miss their cars? What are your thoughts on their reliability. I really want a AMC Pacer, but is it bad as people say? Thanks!
I've owned and worked on AMC cars for over 50 years, though at this point not as daily drivers. If you take all of the companies that made up AMC into consideration you're talking about a period from 1902-1987 and marques such as Jeffery, Rambler, Nash, Hudson, Jeep, even Renault, so you can't really generalize about reliability. They had some turkeys such as the early 1960s aluminum six and the horrid 1980s Alliance, and some home runs like the 1984-2001 Jeep Cherokee and the 232 cid Rambler six that became the Jeep 4.0. The bulk of AMC cars were no more and no less reliable than their domestic competition.
The Pacer is mechanically not much different than a Hornet or Gremlin from the same time period. The main difference is the front suspension, which is completely different than any other AMC product and the rack-and-pinion steering which AMC did not use in any of their other cars. (Frankly the Pacer is one of the cars that sunk the company due to tooling cost and poor sales, but that's another story.) They are difficult to work on due to the inline six or V8 being stuffed into an engine compartment designed for a Wankel rotary engine. Gas mileage is poor. Pacer-only parts would be difficult to find.
At this stage the newest AMC car is 36 years old (4WD Eagle) and it's likely any of them would need significant TLC unless you were to get one that had already been refurbished. There is an active AMC community so you might want to check out an AMC-oriented forum:
https://theamcforum.com/forum/forums.html
Here's a contemporary Pacer road test:
Well they were interesting cars to say the least. But the quality control was pretty much garbage and then Chrysler bottom just to get jeeps and retired everything else
What I remember most about the pacer is the chef making the huge sub sandwich in the back seat.
One of my favorite “weird” classics.
I miss the AMC era Jeep brand. That seemed to be the epitome of the brand before Chrysler took it over, and Fiat took over Chrysler.
