Design history

Designed to appear futuristic, the shape was highly rounded with a huge glass area, and very unusual for its time. The Pacer was unusually wide for a small car; roughly as wide as an American full-size car, since drivers were accustomed to large cars. The Pacer's width was the result of factory settings and marketing strategy. Manufacturing assembly lines for the Pacer were also used for full-size cars. Development was under Product Group Vice President Gerald C. Meyers, whose goal was to develop a car that was truly unique: "...everything that we do must distinguish itself as being importantly different than what can be expected from the competition..."[1]
One of its many unusual features was that the passenger's side door was four inches (101 mm) longer than the driver's side. The longer door opening made entry easier for rear-seat passengers and they would also tend to enter from the safer curb side in nations that drive on the right. The Pacer was also among the first production cars in the U.S. to feature rack-and-pinion steering.
AMC's chief stylist Richard A. Teague began work on the car as early as 1971, anticipating an increased demand for smaller vehicles in the 1970s. In the mid-1970s, the U.S. government mandated some serious safety improvements for the 1980 model year, including 50 mph (80.5 km) front end crash testing, 25 mph (40 km) side crash testing, 30 mph (48.3 km) rollover, as well as damage resistant 10 mph (16 km) front and 5 mph (8 km) rear bumpers. The Pacer was designed to meet these requirements, and also included a new windshield safety glass that broke into small round beads instead of sharp edges, and a plastic sandwich that stretched to keep passengers in the vehicle. General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler convinced the government that the new safety rules could not be met with financially viable modifications to existing production cars. Instead, all the companies would be faced with designing new vehicles that could meet the proposed regulations, a very costly move. Therefore, some of the safety features were pulled out of the actual production version of the Pacer after the requirements were revised (reduced). For example, the original Pacer had a roof bump between the front and rear, intended for the roll bar, which was deleted from the production model. The Pacer's safety features were not advertised well and very few people were willing to buy one for its safety. The extra weight of the Pacer, which was caused in part by these features and because of all the heavy glass, hurt its fuel economy. Production models managed 16 mpg (14.70 L/100km) in the city, although on the highway it could get 26 mpg (9.04 L/100km) or better, depending on driving habits and transmission used.
The one unique design feature that survived into all cars today is the aerodynamics. The Pacer had a drag coefficient of only .32, which was outstanding for a fairly large car, especially at the time. Part of this design was the elimination of rain gutters with the top of the doors blending into the roof for better aerodynamics. This was criticized as potentially allowing rain in on the front seat, but is now standard on all current cars, none of which now have rain gutters. This was before the fuel crisis or the flood of small foreign imports into the American market, so this innovation was also rather forward-thinking for the time.
Teague's original design featured a Wankel rotary engine. In 1973, AMC signed a licensing agreement with Curtiss-Wright to build Wankels for both passenger cars and Jeep vehicles, as well as the right to sell any rotary engines it produces to other companies.[2] Later, AMC decided it would purchase the engines from General Motors (GM). At the time, GM was seriously intending wide-scale use of rotary engines in its own production cars. However, durability issues, the fuel crisis, and upcoming emissions legislation in the U.S. killed off the introduction of GM's rotary engine. General Motors canceled development in 1974, after being unable to make their version meet upcoming late 1970s emissions levels within an acceptable period of time (others were having trouble with emissions too, but Mazda finally solved the problem). Fuel efficiency of the rotary was no better than existing engines of the same power level. While the rotary was more compact and lighter than contemporary piston engines, and potentially cheaper to build, GM felt there was no compelling reason to spend the money required to tool up for producing an engine that needed to have a car designed around it for any significant advantage over existing engines. Although power output of the Wankel design is rather high for its displacement (there is some dispute over how rotary displacement is calculated), power output is at high RPM. Americans, who were used to low-revving, high-torque engines, would have probably taken some time to get used to a totally different way of driving with rotary powered vehicles.
General Motors' rather sudden cancellation of the rotary left the Pacer — which was designed around the rotary — without an engine. American Motors had invested too much money and effort into the car's design to scrap it. The Pacer was hastily reconfigured to accept existing AMC Straight-6 engines. This necessitated a complete redesign of the drivetrain and the car's firewall to keep the longer I6 engine within the sleek envelope of the body.
Contrary to popular myth, the Pacer was not widened six inches (152.4 mm) to make room for the rear-wheel drive configuration. According to an AMC market study from the early 1970s, front-wheel drive was never a consideration. Rear and mid-engined layouts were explored, but the AMC found that Americans at the time were not comfortable with the front-wheel drive layout, preferring more the traditional and familiar rear-wheel drive. The car was designed from the start to be as wide as contemporary mid-size (and some full-size) sedans. This was done mainly for comfort and to give the impression of being in a much larger car — at least from the front seat.
A DESIGN COPIED BY TODAYS SUVs
As a final irony to the Pacer story, nearly all SUVs and "cross over vehicles" have an exact shape and design as the Pacer wagon. They even have the same "huge glass area" that was panned by auto commenters of the 1970s. Sadly, not one auto critic will admit that what they criticized about the Pacer is exactly what they claim to like about the SUVs and cross over vehicles.
This lack of retrospective honesty, questions the original motivation of the anti AMC critics attitude of the 1970s and 80s. Unfortunately, most people have no comoparative memory and even with a Pacer wagon parked next to their SUVs, they still make fun of its shape and glass area because that is the "advertising message" they remember. When the exactly similar shape and design is pointed out to them, people are dumbfounded and have great difficult acknowlegding that they essentially have bought a Pacer Wagon-just with a different name.