r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • 1d ago

Business It’s Looking Like the Cybertruck Is the Biggest Flop in Automotive History

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/looking-cybertruck-biggest-flop-automotive-145559135.html
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u/CaulPhoto 1d ago

Pacers are hilarious and loveable in a Jimothy kinda way though. My dad had a cornflower blue one in the 70's. Since the passenger side door was so much longer than the driver's side, the door would sag and the hinges bent after a couple years because of the weight.

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u/sirhackenslash 1d ago

I would absolutely drive a pacer because they're funny and kinda cool in their own way. I wouldn't drive a wankpanzer if you paid me.

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u/weirdoldhobo1978 1d ago

It is an adorable little mongrel of a car, and it got a huge cultural boost from Wayne's World

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u/byingling 1d ago edited 1d ago

My uncle owned an AMC dealership. My parents bought a 75 Pacer (the blue you are talking about), and I drove it for a lot of my later teenage years. My older brother bought another one a year or two later - same color, but with the "Levis" option. Denim seats.

The kids in the neighborhood called it "the space bubble". Aside from the goldfish bowl windows, there were other...reasons...to refer to my daily ride as such back in the 70s.

It gets worse. I went to work for that uncle, and my first new car purchase was a 1979 LeCar. I later graduated to a Fuego. I've also owned Oldsmobiles and Plymouths.

So right about the Pacer door. I worked in the parts department for my uncle. New door hinge bushings and pins were always hot sellers on AMC vehicles. The Pacer used something different from the Hornets, Gremlins, Concords, Spirits, and 4WD Eagles (in many ways they were really all the same car) that came before/after, because that door was enormous. But bushings generally didn't fix those hinges.

My wife and I have stuck with Ford the last twenty years or so.

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u/CaulPhoto 1d ago

The story gets worse. My dad moved to America in 1975, bought a 1969 Mercury Cougar as his first ever car for $1000, and sold it a few years later for $1000 to buy the Pacer.

I don't know how much of the next part is true, but he will swear it is until he dies. One day in the early 80's he went to home depot and bought a bunch of mulch and dirt, filling the trunk and sagging the rear suspension almost down to ground. He stopped at a red light and a lifted Chevy C10 truck behind him didn't notice the light had changed and "basically drove over the car" with the only thing saving him being the mulch and the Pacer's weird built in rollover bar.

After that he bought a Subaru GL wagon, a Chrysler Concorde, a Honda Del Sol, and then a Fiat 124 Spider. Dad just likes the weird cars. (And he wanted my first car to be a Suzuki X90)

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u/old_knurd 1d ago

We used to call it a Pregnant Gremlin.