50 YEARS OF PACER

Nineteen sixty-nine was the year of Abbey Road, flower power and the Valiant Pacer. Despite its 225-cubic inch engine and its unmistakably VF Valiant bodyshell, this Aussie Mopar was a far cry from anything the company had offered before.

HALF A CENTURY ON WE'RE STILL IMPRESSED BY THE THINKING THAT PRODUCED THE PACER – CHRYSLER’S WILD CHILD FOR 1969

It’s probably fair to say that the original Pacer caught the market by surprise. In March 1969 there was simply nothing else like it. Even though small-block V8 engines were available widely across the local Big Three (Holden, Falcon, Valiant), with Chrysler Australia having been first with the up-spec Valiant V8 sedan in 1965, the marketing dudes at Tonsley Park decided that the Pacer should use a mildly hot-rodded slant six.

Chrysler Australia had never bothered chasing any kind of youth market until the invention of the Pacer. Somewhere, there must have been a light