The Uhrins' 13,635-mile Pacer

Curt Uhrin shares the story of the 13,635-mile Pacer he and his wife, Malia, purchased in July 2002. I had the pleasure of meeting them in Kenosha just the week before.

I faithfully read the Pacer List news religiously every day, and rarely post, but I have a little exciting story that I would like to share with all of you. I have always liked Pacers. I can still remember the first day that I saw the first Pacer in our town being delivered from off the car carrier to the AMC dealer across the street from the grocery store that I worked in at the time. I watched in awe while it was hurriedly unloaded, and driven into the dealer's garage. While in college, I traded in my Gremlin X with a 304 V-8 for my first Pacer. My Dad thought I was plain nuts. (See Curt's PacerMania site.) After getting married, my wife and I bought our our first car together, which was a firecracker red Pacer D/L which was loaded. We should have never have traded it in on our first new car (a new 1981 AMC Concord).

Sixteen years later while surfing the net, I came upon Jeni Panhorst's web site on Pacers [this site]. That did it -- I got the Pacer bug again, and I searched for almost two years until we found our current 1976 two tone Pacer D/L. For the past three years we have been bringing her back to life, and recently drove her to Kenosha for the 100 year meet from Penna.

Weird things do happen, and I have always heard of stories like this happening, but it always happens to the "other guy". Approximately two weeks ago, my sons told me that I had received an urgent phone call from a fellow Pacer owner who asked me to call him back as soon as possible. Upon calling this person back, he was hoping that I might be able to give him some help on trying to locate someone that possibly might want to buy a Pacer. His administrative assistant found my website on the net, and he thought that I might be able to help him find a buyer for his Pacer. I learned that as a school teacher, he had bought this 76 Pacer new, and had driven it approximately one year when he learned that he would have to quit teaching due to health reasons. He kept this car in storage for all these years, and every other year, he had a mechanic change fluids, road test the car, and then put it back in storage. It is a sand tan base Pacer that has a 258 six, one barrel, automatic, power steering & disc brakes, AM radio, light group, tinted glass, air, hubcaps and still has the original bias ply white wall tires on it. Now for the kicker...the car has only 13,635 actual miles on it! After seeing it, and striking up a deal with the owner, my wife and I are now the proud owners of a NEW Pacer. We picked it up today, and drove it home from a distance of 40 miles! They are still out there!