The Kramer Pacer is a guitar series made by Kramer Guitars

Kramer Guitars

Kramer Guitars is an American manufacturer of electric guitars and basses. Kramer produced aluminum-necked electric guitars and basses in the 1970s and wooden-necked guitars catering to hard rock and heavy metal musicians in the 1980s; Kramer is currently a division of Gibson Guitar Corporation...

 from the beginning of the Kramer wooden neck period to the company’s bankruptcy in 1990.

The types

The pacer Imperial, (the very first) Special, Standard and Custom were débuted in 1981. The Pacer Imperial had two humbuckers and was made from 1981 to 1989. The Pacer Special had 1 humbucker and was made from 1981 to 1985. The Pacer Custom had 2 hums and was made between 1981 and 82. The Pacer Standard had 1 hum and was also made from 1981 to 82. The Pacer Carrera had two black hums and was made from 1982 to 1986. "The Pacer" had 3 single coil pickups and was made from 1982 to 1985. The Pacer Deluxe had one hum and two single coils. It was made between 1983 and 1987. The Pacer Custom I had a slanted hum and two single coils. It was made between 1986 and 1989. The Pacer Custom II had one hum and two single coils. It was made between 1986 and 1989.

In 2010 Kramer released the Kramer Pacer Classic, a H-H guitar with a locking tremolo. It is availiable in Pearl White and Candy Red

The heads

The headstocks of Pacers, like most Kramer guitars, went through a series of changes. From 1981 to 1982, Pacers had headstocks that were almost identical to that of a Fender Stratocaster

Fender Stratocaster

The Fender Stratocaster, often referred to as "Strat", is a model of electric guitar designed by Leo Fender, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares in 1954, and manufactured continuously by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top...

. Then, when Fender threatened to sue, they changed to a head known as the classic head. The classic head was like the Strat head but it had the ball cut off. This was made from 1982–84 and is often referred to as the "chicken" or "beak" headstock. In 1984, Kramer changed to the banana head or hockey-stick head. Later, the headstock took on a "pointy" profile, similar to that of the competitors of the day. These were made until 1990.

The Tremolos

The first tremolos were the ESP Guitars

ESP Guitars

, located in North Hollywood, California, is an American-based, Japanese-owned manufacturer of electric guitars and basses.- History :In 1975, Hisatake Shibuya opened a shop called Electric Sound Products in Tokyo. It provided custom replacement parts for guitars. In 1976, ESP gained a reputation...

 Flicker tremolos or the Rockinger tremolos. However, by 1984, the Floyd Rose

Floyd Rose

The Floyd Rose Locking Tremolo, or simply Floyd Rose, is a type of locking vibrato arm for a guitar. The first of its kind, Floyd D. Rose invented the locking vibrato in 1977, and it is now manufactured by a company of the same name...

 had taken over.

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