Famous Pacer Owners

Conway Twitty

Country music legend Conway Twitty owned a beige 1980 Pacer limited wagon, and the steering wheel was emblazoned with his initials, "CT". When he died in 1993, it was caught up in an estate brawl, and it was eventually purchased by his widow, Dee, at an estate auction for $27,500, and remained in her garage ever since. A look-alike was in the Cars of the Stars Museum (see photo at right) in Nashville, TN for some time. However, the museum closed on 28 March 2003, and there was an auction on 5 April 2003 to liquidate these cars.

John Paul Getty's Grandson

The grandson of Texas oil baron John Paul Getty owned a Pacer... and he could afford to drive anything he wanted to.

Brigit Bardot

French actress Brigit Bardot owned a Pacer.

Richard Petty

Richard Petty drove a Pacer. It was a "Lucky Games Green Pacer" in an ad for the Missouri State Lottery.

Denise Frostick

"Mais oui, elle est comme une grosse grenouille, mais elle est charmante."
"Yes, it is like a large frog, but it is charming."
"The statement is attributed to one Denise Frostick, French-born wife of the prominent British journalist Michael Frostick when she saw their new Pacer for the first time. I found this in the book Art of The American Automobile by Nick Georgano featuring American automobile designers and some great pictures by Nicky Wright, and has two exceptional pictures of Pacers. These were in the section devoted to Richard Teague. I've found a number of errors in the book and even mislabeling the year of the one Pacer." -Nolan Dehner

McKeel Hagerty

The CEO of Hagerty Insurance, insurers of collector vehicles, purchased a dark green 1976 AMC Pacer in 2004, the year after Hagerty Insurance gave away a Pacer in their "Nerd Car Sweepstakes". Ironically, in 2007, the AMC Pacer topped Hagerty's list of "Top Ten Questionable Designs", the result of a poll of 2500 clients.

NEW! Mitt Romney

The 2008 US Presidential Candidate owned a Pacer in his early years. Wrote Janssen McCormick in the Suffolk Journal on 6 February 2008, "Even during his moderate gubernatorial campaign, Romney came across as the classic stuffed suit. Cut from the same cloth as the hopelessly inept yet telegenic Kevin McClusky of John Ford's 'The Last Hurrah' (1958), most of his ads consisted of posing with his equally handsome family, selling himself as a man of the people because he once owned an AMC Pacer that broke down.