There's a good cross-section of Kenosha advertising style here, from the 60s muscle cars and penny-pinching economy sedans to the Malaise Era favorites and into the Members Only 80s. When you're done here, you might enjoy our favorite VW ads, then continue your car-advertising overdose with the Datsun, Toyota, Renault, General Motors, British Leyland, Ford/Lincoln/Mercury, Honda, Citroën, and Chevrolet ads.

1979 Jeep Cherokee	1983 Jeep CJ-7	1987 Jeep Comanche
1976 Jeep CJ-5 Levis	1975 AMC Pacer	1969 AMC Rambler Rebel
1967 AMC Rebel	1967 AMC Ambassador Wagon	1981 AMC Eagle
1969 AMC Javelin	1969 AMC Ambassador	1969 AMC AMX
1973 AMC Gremlin	1979 AMC Spirit

You see, Casadelshawn, of Bunny With A Pancake On Its Head VW Rabbit fame decided he didn't feel like racing in Buttonwillow's 110° heat (actually, it was only about 97°) and took his '76 Audi Fox wagon to Monterey instead. He won the prestigious "Der Self-SatisfiedKrauttenWagen, 1970-current" trpphy, but he took a break from laurel-resting to shoot these photos for us.

Meanwhile, the coveted Worst Of Show trophy went to one of the most horrible-yet-cool motor vehicles ever made, a 1980 KV Mini 1. The owner towed this precision-made, belt-driven machine all the way from Washington… with an MGB! So next time you're shopping for a big ol' truck to tow your bass boat, go with British Leyland instead. Here's the official Cd'L press release:

Mike Harrell from Shoreline, WA stunned the crowd and judges with his 1980KV Mini 1 and took home Worst of Show honors. The KV is a horrible little car powered by a 125cc one cylinder 2 stroke motor that drives the rear wheels through a constantly variable ration belt drive system and friction rollers on the rear tires ensuring that little of the meager power available actually results in forward motion. The features dont stop there, to put the car in reverse, one must shut off the engine and re-start it so that it runs backwards. Combine this with the tin bumpers, solid steering shaft aimed at the drivers chest, the lack of a roof and any other safety features and it was a shoe in for the Worst of Show title. As if to convince the judges that he truly does have a screw loose, Mike towed the little French death trap behind his MGB the 1000 miles from Washington to Monterey. Well done.

Given the similarity in era, two-door body styles, and use of steering wheels, it would not be out of place to see today's contender fare as well as yesterday's Mercedes 300CD, which garnered a most excellent 88% Nice Price vote.

Then again, maybe not.

American Motors, always seemingly barely hanging onto the narrow precipice of financial solvency, needed a product that differentiated it from the company's competitors. Instead of yet another new grill treatment on the evergreen Hornet, they decided to go for broke and develop- from the inside out- a radical new car that would provide positive buzz and generate sales.

The result was the fishbowl-shaped Pacer, which offered large car width with small car length, and a basket handle roofline that was eerily aped by the Porsche 928 two years later. The Larry Craig stance gained it instant notoriety, and the car did well in its first year, racking up over 145,000 sales. However, the car lacked the economy of its competitors, and, like Craig, its differentness wasn't universally seen in the positive, ergo sales dwindled in the ensuing years.

Originally intended to employ a General Motors-supplied wankel engine, the car debuted with the tried and true AMC straight six when GM pulled the plug on their rotary program- and hopefully refunded AMC their $1.5 million in licensing fees. This ended up being both a blessing and a bane for the Pacer- warranty claims for thousands of blown apex seals would have bankrupted AMC, but the iron six weighed nearly double that of the proposed GM wankel.

This '77 has the larger 4.2 litre six, which puts a little more pace under its short but wide hood. That's a good thing because the one barrel 3.8 had a tough time dragging around 3,300-plus pounds of Pacer. It also has the unique styling features of all Pacers including a passenger door 10 cm longer than the driver's side, and door panel "wings" to hide the glass which doesn't roll all the way down. The orange over black color scheme will be good come Halloween, and hopefully the seller will be able to find that missing ashtray, noted in the ad.

And about that ad- it reads like it was written by Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin, with oddly constructed sentences and strange word parings that make you wonder if the seller might live under the power lines or something.

So, what about that $7,000 asking price for this orange orb? Considering that's double it's price when new, and the question of the missing ashtray, is the seller on crack? That would explain the ad. Or is that in line with what you'd expect to pay for so original, so orange, and so wide a car?

You decide!

KSL.com, or go here if the ad disappears. Props to Jo Schmo for the tip!

That's how Alan Galbraith sees it, so he's put together perhaps the coolest Pacer we've ever seen. No, AMC never made a Hurst Edition Pacer, but so what? It just looks right! As Alan says: "It's really not a bad car. Oh sure, it's rusting at the seams right now outside my house in the rain, the 30+ year old emissions system is going fail me at smog check one of these years, the brittle and non-replaceable plastic interior is one bump away from completely crumbling to dust... But it drives, rides and handles pretty well. Personally the design is growing on me... like a fungus I guess."

New York real-estate developer Steve Green has been collecting classic 1960s and 1970s AMCs for quite a while, amassing a stunning assortment of Gremlins, Ambassadors, Javelins, and the like. Health problems have forced him to sell off some of his cars, and the auction takes place on April 3. Looking for a "one of one" Oleg Cassini Matador or the lowest-mileage '74 Javelin on the face of the earth? Get to Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte next month!
[Tom Mack Classics, thanks to Goatrope for the tip!]

I hear a lot of potential 24 Hours Of LeMons entrants whine about the supposed impossibility of finding any running car for under 500 bucks: "You can't even get a thrashed Taurus for that kind of money!" Bullshit, I say! Even if you rule out the option of selling $300 worth of parts from an $800 car, you can still find plenty of seriously LeMons-worthy machinery that will fit your budget. With that in mind, tonight we're going to have 10 choices- the largest number ever offered in Project Car Hell history- and every one of these vehicles is located within a day's drive of Buttonwillow Raceway Park. You've got six months, you've got a bunch of suckers friends to join your team, and now it's time to go race car shopping! Note: if any of the original Craigslist ads disappear, just go to the gallery at the bottom of the post for screenshots.

1. 1978 Jeep DJ5
Do you want to be just another team with a soporific Sentra or coma-inducing Camaro, or do you want to stand out? You don't need to go very fast to put in a strong showing at the 24 Hours Of LeMons; all you need to do is keep grinding out the laps. With that in mind, how about a machine that will let neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stay your drivers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds? Frankenstein up some fat swaybars onto this lightweight two-wheel-drive box and it definitely won't might even put down some respectable lap times!

2. 1987 Renault GTA Convertible
In theory, the extra chassis bracing in a convertible will make for an extra-stiff platform, once you get a roll cage installed, and of course there's the comfort factor of having those cowshit-scented soothing Buttonwillow breezes flowing past your helmet while all the other drivers swelter in their steel prisons. What you need is the hot-rodded ragtop version of the Renault 9-based Alliance, with 95 front-drive horses and Franco-Kenosha build quality. This one is just 300 bucks, and it seems pretty close to being in running condition: "i drove where it parks and i think it needs a fuse but easy to fix." Remember, French cars have a massive head start at the Index Of Effluency trophy!

3. V6 4X4 Geo Metro
An engine-swapped Geo Metro won the last LeMons race, so you know it's a superior formula. But what you really need in a racing Metro is four-wheel drive! Imagine the advantage you'll have when the track gets covered with dirt, oil, and shards of Porsche connecting rods, as you pilot this fine GM 2.8 V6-powered machine to victory. The project isn't exactly what you'd call "finished" yet, but it's not even close well on its way; what you get is a shortened Chevy S10 chassis with a Metro body sitting (loosely) on top of it. How much? 450 dollars in Trilateral Commission-approved fiat currency... or firearms... or GOLD.

4. 1963 Ford Fairlane 500
1960s Detroit Iron always does quite well in LeMons races, since what little does go wrong with the car on the track can be fixed in minutes by any random group of bystanders hanging around the pits. Just keep racking up the laps, try to avoid getting upside-down, and you'll cruise right past all them high-strung furrin machines. This Fairlane has the very first version of the Ford Windsor small-block V8, which you'll most likely be able to trade for a 302 + cash from some numbers-matching-obsessed Ford restorer. In fact, this thing is fully loaded with parts you can sell; we'd be shocked if you failed to squeeze 400 bucks out of it, which should provide the budgetary room to get some junkyard disc brakes and swaybars on it. Does it run? Well, it "ran when parked in my grandparents barn Last year," which would make you run away screaming if applied to a BMW, but a Fairlane? Easy!

5. Dodge Caravan Turbo
Who says you can't run a minivan at the 24 Hours Of LeMons? Chief Perp Jay Lamm hisself has stated that minivans are totally acceptable. And the Dodge Caravan Turbo will never in a million years could be a total sleeper winner; just look at what they'll do on the dragstrip! Sell all the interior crap, lights, glass, and so on, and you should have the cash needed to go junkyard shopping for an intercooler and bigger turbocharger. Then it'll just be a matter of Sawzalling the clearance needed for huge, sticky tires, maybe chop the springs, and you'll be showing busted engine parts that big tailgate to the competition!

6. 1985 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz
What kind of car did Robert De Niro's character, Ace Rothstein, drive in the movie Casino? Damn right, a Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz! That alone is reason enough to drive a Biarritz in the 24 Hours Of LeMons, and never mind that the car in the movie was destroyed by a car bomb. You get a stainless steel roof, an Olds 350 V8 driving the front wheels, and more style than all the other schmucks in the race combined! The deal we've found here gets you one putatively running Biarritz and another parts car, which means you should be able to make a few bucks selling all the crap you won't need for racing (we recommend that you have your racing seat upholstered with that snazzy Biarritz leather). As long as you can keep from frying the transmission, and your crew works quicksville with the front tire changes (big front-wheel-drive cars tend to eat front tires in a hurry on the race track, as all the Taurus SHO guys will tell you), you should have a snowball's chance in hell a great shot at the checkered flag at Buttonwillow.

7. 1967 Toyota Crown Wagon
Tired of all those Supras and Celicas in LeMons races? You need to show some real Toyota pride, by roaring onto the track in a vintage Crown! And, crazy as it seems, it's possible to get a Crown station wagon- which might even be close to running condition, though that's not the way to bet- for a LeMons-grade price. This '67 has the big six-cylinder M engine, and no doubt many valuable parts you'll be able to eBay-ize (to the same vintage Japanese car lovers who will want to skin you alive for trashing one of the last surviving Crown wagons in the hemisphere) into extra budget money. Spare parts might be tough to find, but it's a Toyota- who needs spare parts?

8. V6 Chevrolet Vega
If a Chevrolet V6 works well in an Opel GT, wouldn't it be even better in a genuine, all-American Chevy Vega? We've got that setup here, with some flavor of Chevy 90° V6 and a 4-speed already installed. It's plenty rusty, but so what? It runs! Well, sort of: "will need some work to make it road worthy." Roll cage kits are easily obtained for the Vega, thanks to all those Vega drag racers, and you might even be able to sell sufficient parts to afford some big swaybars!

9. 1948 Buick Super Eight
Remember when serious road racers ran straight-eight-powered Buick sedans? Of course you do (provided you come from an alternate universe in which Dewey really did defeat Truman), and now is your chance to scare the living crap out of get the edge over the competition with this '48. Except for the hood- which you won't need, because you'll want to show off that torquey OHV eight- this car is totally complete. It appears to have been sitting for 10,000 years a while, but you've got Buick quality on your side here. Imagine piloting this ponderous stately dredging barge cruiser over and through past all those lesser race cars, straight to victory! We're sure those drum brakes will become hotter than the core of a nuclear reactor hold up just fine under the infernal balmy conditions of Buttonwillow in August, and that three-on-the-tree transmission should be pure agony the bee's nuts for racing!

10. 1977 AMC Pacer
Can you believe that we have yet to see an AMC Pacer in a 24 Hours Of LeMons race? That's a damn shame, but your team could be the first to clog up dominate the track with the Small, But Wide AMC. This one has been sitting for 12 years (probable translation: 22 years), but the seller says it runs and drives. The price tag is $350, which means you might be able to sell a few parts and fit a junkyard V8 into your budget... but why do that, when the AMC Straight Six is such a strong engine? Unlike pre-Malaise American cars, the Pacer sports front disc brakes, and the whole package is simple enough that it should be able to hold together for many laps.

The AMC Pacer looks crazy from any angle; as we saw in the DOTS '76 Pacer, it's pretty much impossible to tell if you're getting lens distortion when you photograph- regardless of angle- due to its weird bulbous appearance. Jean-Charles, the French distributor for the Pacer, figured the best approach was to demonstrate how not all big round objects look bad. Image source: Wikipedia

Yes, as the creators of the infamous Gremlin, the asymmetric Pacer, and the tape-stripe-tastic Spirit AMX, the American Motors Corporation will forever be remembered for making the worst American hatchbacks in history. But they're so ugly and quirky that they've actually moved full-circle and become lovable over the years. Well — at least the Gremlin and Pacer have. The world might need some more time to really appreciate the glory that is the louvered-rear, "rally-tuned" special that was the Spirit AMX. This 1980 model was the last car from AMC to wear the once-respected AMX badge. Underhood was a 4.2-liter inline six, which wasn't as bad as the hamster-powered four-banger in a Chevette, but not exactly a pavement-melter either. Be that as it may, have you ever seen a malaise-era compact look so badass? Didn't think so.

Images copyright: Mark Arnold / Jalopnik.com

The Pacer was supposed to have had a GM-built Wankel under the hood, but The General canceled the program (after a billion or so bucks down the drain) and AMC was stuck with a car that no longer had the oddball powerplant that would have justified the crazy styling. The Pacer X was the "performance" version, though in the Malaise Era that meant tape stripes and not much else.


When I photograph these cars, I'm always careful to set the camera's zoom so that there's minimal distortion of the car's lines. However, this is absolutely impossible with the Pacer- a photograph from any angle looks like you used a crazy fisheye lens.


Your world looks like this once you've stared at a Pacer for long enough.


I was nine years old when the Pacer first appeared, and I recall having a lot of bewildered discussion with my classmates about what the hell was the deal with this crazy-looking car. We'd drone out the Pacer's advertising slogan "It's small... but wiiiiiiiide!" whenever we'd see one (which was often; the Pacer actually sold pretty well). For what it's worth, the VW Thing rated highest on our collective Cool-O-Meter at the time.


Since the later Pacer was available with a 304 V8 under the hood, a 401-powered machine should be a junkyard bolt-in. Anyone who's done this gets instant Hoon of the Day status in our book.

While on the prowl for more vintage AMC goodness, we ran across this student project for Mr. Frisbee's Video Editing Basics class at the Art Institute of Dallas. We'll let the auteur — one "Noodlez" — explain his work here:

"This is a funny car commercial I did in Video Editing Basics. The car I think is a 1977 AMC Pacer, and it's just a commercial about selling a car and what the car is about. I used a beat by Young Dai and it's a commercial with a beat, haha, enjoy....."

Related:
Classic Ad Watch: Even Better Than a Pinto, and $104 Cheaper! [Internal]

Wow. We have no information on this car. We're not sure where Freetown is, but we have a feeling it must be something like Free Country, USA. But Freetown apparently decided to one-up Free Country's Gremlin and styled up a police-package Pacer. We're going to find this place and get arrested there, just so we can ride in it.

Found at Motorcities

Related:
American Motors on Television

Last week we posted on a bit the Belfast Telegraph did on the history of the Proud Ship Studebaker. This time, they're taking on the Pacer, and their invective gats are loaded with hollow points: "The AMC Pacer is really America's Austin Allegro, a Seventies car that was so uniformly inept in almost all respects that it has passed into folklore and become perversely 'cool'." Dear Telegraph, the Austin Allegro will never be as cool as the Pacer. Is this series some kind of revenge tactic for James Cameron's Titanic?

Classic Cars: AMC Pacer [Belfast Telegraph]

Related:
There's Nothing For Us in Belfast: Telegraph on Studebaker [Internal]

Ah, only in San Berdoo. This 1976 Pacer features a stonking Cadillac 472ci mill, but it needs a bit of work, especially requiring "exuast from the Exause manafolds back," which would include cats and um, and an AMC motor, because despite what the seller thinks, 1976 cars are required to pass smog in California. Oh, if only we still lived in Texas.

1976 AMC: Pacer [eBay]

Related:
The Kids of Today Should Defend Themselves Against the 70s: AMC s Spirit of 76 [Internal]

We were born in 1975, which meant that as a small child AMC's then- current lineup seemed interesting and futuristic to us. We also remember thinking Porsche 914s were strange-looking, yet kind of cool. Now generally remembered as the nadir of automotive design (along with the Vega, Pinto and Aspen/Volar twins), we still have a lingering affection for the '70s AMC products. Except for the Matador. Not even James Bond could make the Matador cool.

Pacers, Gremins and Matadors! [retroCRUSH]

Related:
In Praise of the Gremlin [Internal]