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Once-reviled '77 Pacer now cruises to Best of Show honors

August 13, 2000

BY ELLEN CREAGER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

OK, wise guys. She's heard the nicknames.

SUSAN TUSA/Detroit Free Press

Shirley Farrugia of Belleville will be in the Dream Cruise next weekend with her award-winning restored 1977 AMC Pacer X coupe. She calls the car "way ahead of its time."

Pregnant guppy.

Egg on wheels.

Terrarium.

Upside-down bathtub.

But these days, Shirley Farrugia is laughing all the way to the winner's circle with her captain blue 1977 AMC Pacer X.

"The Pacer was a car way ahead of its time. It came out about 30 years too soon," says Farrugia like a proud parent, patting the dumpy vehicle on its chrome luggage rack while it's parked in her Belleville garage. Around her, shelves are packed with "best of show" trophies for the little car that couldn't.

"Every time I turn around, somebody wants to buy it."

Farrugia, 68, has a rare, completely restored Pacer X coupe from 1977. Known as the Pacer Lady, she's one of only a few women amid thousands of men on the street machine circuit.

But is the Pacer a classic? You bet.

"We have parts from 28 states in that car," says her husband, Benny, 70, who tracked down most of them himself. Parts are nearly impossible to find because most of the 280,000 Pacers manufactured between 1975 and 1980 have long since been resoundingly scrunched into scrap.

Ironically, that makes the remaining Pacers rare. And collectible. And cool.

PACER PROFILE

Nicknames: Hamstermobile, Mirthmobile, Fishbowl on Wheels, Moonbuggy, Bubble Car, Jelly Bean, Greenhouse, Egg on Wheels, Terrarium, Pregnant Rollerskate, Glass Monster, Pregnant Guppy, A Ford Pinto That Has Been Holding its Breath Too Long, Piece de Resistance of Automotive Ugliness

Designed by: AMC styling vice-president Richard Teague

Built: 1975-80 in Kenosha, Wis.

Total produced: 280,000; sales fell off drastically after 1975

Cost New: $3,299

Weight: 3,172 pounds

Length: 171 inches

Width: 77 inches

Seating capacity: 5

Mileage: 32 m.p.g.

Technical: AMC 232-cubic inch 6-cylinder with automatic; second American car to use rack-and-pinion steering and first to use cab-forward design. Design specs called for a rotary engine and front-wheel drive, but that never happened.

Percent of surface area that is glass: 37

Other unique feature: Passenger side door is 4 inches longer than the driver's side door for easy access to back seat.

Original promotional tag line: "You only ride like a Pacer if you're wide like a Pacer."

Pacers in the Movies: Stars drove Pacers in "Wayne's World," "Wayne's World 2," "Good Burger" and "Oh, God!" Also featured in many TV commercials as a clunker.

Famous Pacer owners: Conway Twitty, Brigitte Bardot.

Clubs: AMC Pacer Club, 2628 Queenston Road, Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118; for information call 216-371-0226 anytime.

Pacer Web Sites:

http://www.amcpacer.com/ -- Center of the cult of the Pacer; photos, histories, collectors information, list of links to other Pacer sites. http://www.pacerfarm.org/ -- Another good Pacer fan and collector site.

www.classiccar.com/
clubs/pacer/ -- Pacer Club site, with links to other car sites.
www.mederle.de/amc/ -- History of the Pacer, as told by a German fan.

By Ellen Creager

"It's not a muscle car or hot rod. It brings a smile to people's faces when they see that little fishbowl," says Ralph Haney, show coordinator for the United Street Machine Association. The USMA sponsors more than 60 classic car shows and events annually in Michigan. Farrugia shows her Pacer on that circuit, so it will be at the State Fairgrounds this Friday and Saturday during the Woodward Dream Cruise, and at the Hospice 2000 Cruise in Brighton on Aug. 21.

"It's very well restored," adds Haney, "being that it is a Pacer."

Farrugia owned a new Pacer back in 1976, when her five children were small. She hated it because the huge expanses of untinted glass made the youngsters broil like petunias in an August greenhouse. But she never forgot that pesky car.

So when her husband asked what she'd like for their 45th anniversary four years ago, she told him she wanted a Pacer.

And Benny said, "No, that's a junkyard dog."

And Shirley said, "Well, that's what I want."

Impossible? They found the 1977 Pacer X in Port Huron. It was owned by a 92-year-old woman and had 39,000 miles on it. It needed work.

They paid $1,600.

The Farrugias have restored many cars during their long marriage. They have worked on Model As, Model Ts, a 1965 Mustang convertible and a 1953 Ford Customline. But the pudgy Pacer was a challenge. First, it was an "orphan" car -- its manufacturer no longer existed. Second, few parts were available to restore it to original condition.

They hired body man Jerry Johnson in Port Huron to hand-dye the faded interior back to its original captain blue. They dug up a Pacer X luggage rack in a junkyard and got it re-chromed in Canada. Got door panels from Alabama. Tracked down rally wheels from a man they met at a car show. Found the engine parts piece by piece through luck and desperation. The car has many of its original parts, like its dashboard instruments and its glass, but the couple wanted the car to be perfect.

They have spent $14,000 restoring the Pacer. It is so clean you could eat lunch off the engine block, so true that it looks like a picture from the original AMC sales catalog. The front license plate says "Miss Shirley."

They're not sure what it's worth now. Maybe $11,000. Maybe more. Perfect Pacers often sell for about $6,000, says Frank Wrenick, founder of the AMC Pacer Club in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

Prices will rise as the car gets rarer.

"Pacers used to be very underappreciated, to put it politely," says Wrenick.

Shirley Farrugia drives the car to about 10 to 15 shows a year around Michigan. She would go to more, but she has heart problems, is a diabetic and had a mastectomy five years ago. Benny, a retired truck driver, has had two back surgeries.

But the bulbous little Pacer keeps them going.

"You can't just sit there. If there is a car show, we have to go," says Shirley. "I'm addicted to this car club and car shows."

The couple met when he was 21 and she was 19 and working as a carhop. After 49 years of marriage, 5 children, 11 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren, they finish each other's sentences. Remember old jokes. Brag about each other. On the long road of their lives together, their love of old cars has been a constant.

Like the Farrugias, the Pacer is a symbol of resilience. Blamed as the car that struck the death knell for American Motors, ridiculed as the "piece de resistance of automotive ugliness," derided by one wit as an ugly jelly bean and "a Ford Pinto that had been holding its breath too long," the Pacer now is a car with cult status. It also has gotten belated credit as the first car with the rounded shape and cab-forward design that are in vogue today.

When Benny Farrugia recently took the Pacer for an oil change, car-savvy kids in Belleville crowded around. As they peered in the windows, one asked, "Is this a concept car?"

And sometimes when Shirley and Benny are driving to car shows, other drivers will give the thumbs-up, or chuckle, or roll down their windows and shout to that little egg on wheels, "I used to have a car just like that!"

Contact ELLEN CREAGER at 313-222-6498 or at [email-masked]

MAPS | HISTORY | PHOTOS | STREETSIDE | GETTING READY
FREEP FRONT | DREAM CRUISE FRONT

Cruise off to a big start Friday evening

Our ode to the auto: On this day, the fastest and the slowest share the spotlight

Early birds filling up Woodward

Woodward closed as cruising starts

Dream-cruising Monroe family among stars in short IMAX film about Detroit

Once-reviled '77 Pacer now cruises to Best of Show honors

Oil in the family: When one self-proclaimed gearhead marries another, sibling revelry gives the annual event a whole new dimension

Residents gearing up for Dream Cruise

Car owners take different roads; Dream Cruise features bought, restored, kept and inherited classics

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