The first year for the Kramer Pacer was 1981. The first necks were the Strat-copy headstocked necks. It should be noted that the very first prototypes outfitted with this neck were not Strat-style bodies at all! But in fact were bodies based on the 450G body shape from the aluminum neck era. The necks were the standard Strat headed necks found on early Pacers with then new "Kramer" logo and "Pacer Series" below that (note: the "Patent Pending" was not on the earlier models of any Pacer). Interestingly enough, these prototypes did not have tremelos but rather had a Gibson style bridge and stop tail piece.

The first production Pacers had the Strat styled bodies. There were 4 types, the Imperial(the very first), Special, Standard and Custom. For all practical purposes here, the Imperial and the Custom as well as the Special and Standard were the same guitars. The only difference being the pickups and the bridge options. The Imperial/Custom had 2 hums and 1 vol/2 tone controls as well as a 3 way switch. the Special/ Standard had a single hum and 1 vol/1 tone control and a 3 way phase switch. Pickups were called "Ultra Specs".

The input jacks on the Imp/Cust were side mounted. The Spec/Std ones were either on the face or the side. No doubt the face mounted Spl/Std bodies were actually Imp/cust bodies as the jack hole is located exactly in the same place as a 2nd tone knob would be. Necks were maple on maple with Schaller or Gotoh styled tuners that were unmarked. Some necks were one-pieced(no fingerboard). There have been one or two rosewood fingerboarded ones that appeared in this era but their validity is uncertain. Bridge options were vintage style gold trem, Rockinger or ESP flicker. There are also reports of another brass trem that was available also. Tuners were gold plated Schaller or Gotoh types with chevron or "wing" shaped buttons.

In 1987, Kramer came out with the only production flame top guitars it had ever produced. While a far cry from the regular Pacers, they were still listed as Pacers. First was the SC3, a bound Tele shaped body with a flame maple top, rosewood or maple fretboard, diamond inlays on the rosewood necks, a slanted hum and 2 singles, 1 vol and 3 on-off switches.The DC3 was the same guitar but was a double cutaway. These lasted less than a year and are very rare. They are also the only examples of Flame Tops ever created by Kramer in the wood necked era.

The specs for the original model were:

• Headstock: Strat-styled, non-angled;
• Fretboard: maple (standard) or rosewood (custom option);
• Neck: maple;
• Neck finish: light oil finish;
• Tuners: Gotoh/Schaller type (6-inline);
• Pickup: Ultra-Specs;
• Tremolo: Vintage style or Rockinger or ESP Flicker;
• Controls: volume knob, tone knob and pickup selector;

Some pictures to follow.



Blue model:






White model:






Prototype:








Red Special model: