Stories from Steve: 1977 AMC Pacer – 13 Miles

This story is possibly the most tragic account associated with any car in our foundation. The history of this car is more about the owner than the car itself.

Take yourself back to 1977 and think of a schoolteacher living alone on Long Island, New York. She lived in a single home amongst many in a section of Long Island called Ridgewood. In fact, her name and address were Leah B. Silverman at 1869 Willoughby Avenue in Ridgewood, New York 11237. As with so many rowhouse complexes, her home bordered on Willoughby Avenue, and then a parallel roadway ran behind her house and separated it from her garage.

In 1977, she was approximately 38 years old, having been born in 1939. At this time, she was still driving her “much maligned” 1960 Oldsmobile Delta 88, but finally decided to purchase a new car to replace it. She arranged to order a new AMC Pacer from Midville AMC/Jeep in neighboring Middle Village, New York (a scant three miles from Ridgewood). The car arrived on schedule in the winter of 1977 and was delivered to Leah. She promptly stored it in her garage but continued to drive the 1960 Oldsmobile.

Within weeks, Leah suffered a debilitating stroke, leaving her body and mind devastated. She never recovered, never drove a car again, became a recluse, and was only seen shuffling to and from the local grocery store for supplies. She must have lived a horrible life alone, being mentally and physically handicapped because of her stroke. Incredibly, however, she survived on her own in this condition until July 17, 2010, when she passed away, approximately 33 years after the stroke and 71 years after her birth in 1939.

Her home, garage, and possessions were held in limbo as legal teams attempted to find her will for estate planning. They found none of the above and, according to New York State law, her estate was to be handled by the county within which she lived. (That county was Queens County.) After the legal teams spent almost a year unsuccessfully searching for Leah’s will and relatives to claim her assets, the court of the State of New York for Queens County issued a certificate on March 3, 2011 verifying the fact that Leah’s assets were to be collected and sold at public auction by Statewide Insurance. This auction company is used by the Federal IRS, State IRS, and County IRS to dispose of unclaimed assets.

In talking to the owner of Statewide Insurance, I found that, in many cases, retrieving the assets is more difficult than selling them. In Leah’s situation it was particularly difficult, since she had become a hoarder: her house and garage were filled with bags of old food, trash, and junk.

As the team from Statewide cleaned the house, they encountered hundreds of these bags of trash, but they also found a very interesting phenomenon. Most bags contained a small number of coins. Word spread quickly and soon a local TV station arrived and captured footage of the clean-out for their evening news. After a short time and many bags, those involved with the cleaning felt Leah must have thrown her change from each trip to the grocery store into the bag containing the items she bought each day.

The workers finished cleaning the house and found the garage was filled to the ceiling with the same type of junk. But wait!—when they had cleaned about halfway down, they encountered the roof of a car. The roof had a few small dents and was extremely dirty, but it turned out to be our '77 Pacer with 11.8 miles on the odometer. What a find! Nobody in the area knew there was a car in the garage, especially a new car with very few miles.

The car and belongings went up for public auction on June 7, 2011. At the sale, Michael Maneri (co-owner of Caliber Collision in Lindenhurst, New York) bought the car. He used a ramp truck to transport the car to his shop and had employees clean just the left front fender. He then had his partner, Andy, put a write-up and pictures on eBay. We were constantly searching for low-mileage vehicles and saw this car immediately. We called, but after hearing the story and digesting the paperwork, we needed time to research the vehicle and felt they needed to completely clean the car to search for damage, rust, or unforeseen problems.

Everything they found was positive. They relisted the car and we bought it on July 22, 2011. Leah would be pleased to know that her car is now being enjoyed by so many people that visit here at our Foundation.

Written March, 2013, Steve Ames

Last Edited: October 20, 2025, JA

(Note of Interest: Notice passenger side door is 4” wider than driver side to offer easier passenger access. Nice little feature.)