Video by Joe Ligo offers good overview of the AMC Pacer’s demise

(UPDATED FROM 1/25/2014)

Joe Ligo has produced a well-rounded overview of the AMC Pacer’s short and mostly unhappy life. The almost 35-minute documentary is posted on YouTube.

“I’m impressed with the film,” wrote Truth About Cars writer Ronnie Schreiber (2014). “Ligo not only gives a fairly comprehensive look at the history of the Pacer itself, he also does a good job putting the Pacer into the context of AMC’s overall history.” According to Schreiber, Ligo produced the film as a communications major at Westminster College.

Ligo went on to create a YouTube channel called AutoMoments that includes dozens of videos, with a particular emphasis on “underdog automobiles.”

Also see ‘Joe Ligo is overly kind in Nash/AMC Ambassador film’

The documentary has some cool footage of the 1970s and interviews a variety of experts such as author Patrick Foster and AMC designer Vince Geraci.

Ligo concludes, “In the end, the Pacer program was just too expensive for the tiny company. It went against AMC’s tried-and-true strategy of shared designs and cost cutting,” Ligo argues, in a similar vein as historian Patrick Foster (1993). “But AMC also faced numerous problems outside its control. Between fuel shortages, foreign competition, government regulation and GM’s cancelling of the rotary engine, the program may have been doomed from the start.”

NOTES:

This is an updated version of a story that was originally posted on Jan. 25, 2014.

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RE:SOURCES

• Foster, Patrick R.; 1993. American Motors: The Last Independent. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
• Ligo, Joe; 2013. “The Unfortunate History of the AMC Pacer.” Ambassador Films. Posted December 7; accessed January 11, 2014.
• Schreiber, Ronnie; 2014. “Movie Review: The Unfortunate History of the AMC Pacer.” The Truth About Cars. Posted January 11; accessed January 11.