Haha! Thanks for this memory!I had one of these nifty little "Moon Buggies" back in the late '70s-'80s. It rode like a Cadillac and the air conditioner would freeze you on the hottest day. The interior was very well insulated so music from the 12 speakers and cold air stayed where they were needed. Our DL model had the straight-6 which was admittedly underpowered if you wanted to race people, but was excellent for highway driving once the car got going. They later put a V8 in it because it was the '70s and everyone wanted more power. In my opinion that was a mistake because the engine took up the entire engine bay and actually moved the firewall backwards in a few places. You couldn't even change all the spark plugs unless the car was up on a lift and you stood on a chair.
Anyway, the earlier models were better looking than this late model (what were they thinking when they made that grille?) and every car I look back on makes me appreciate my 240Z even more.
PS: I have to pay one other compliment to the AMX Pacer. The huge glass surface made the car a rolling greenhouse (hence the great A/C unit) and Pacers had the largest windscreen in the business at the time. (The Jensen Interceptor had a huge rear window during those years, but the Pacer still held the record for pure size on each of its 5 windows). The front, side, and rear glass had not one iota of distortion in any part of them. Curved to conform to the aerodynamic-egg styling of the rest of the car, the wrap-around windscreen was true high-quality glass which gave you real-life images in every direction you looked. And it was really fascinating to watch raindrops run upward toward the top of the window if driving during a light rain ~ each one seemed to take a full minute to make the trip.
I do miss my Pacer.
