? automake-1.8.5 complains about autoconf

[BBrian]

Gnu utility folks,

I need to get automake-1.8.5 up and running so I have aclocal-1.8 so I can
compile FlightGear.  My experience may show a possible bug in the 1.8.5
distribution scripts (see 2nd to last paragraph), so I'm cross-posting to
the ~.bug newsgroup.

I'm currently using makeconf 2.13 with the 2.59 wrapper, and automake 1.7.6. 
When I try to build the automake-1.8.5 package, running ./configure errors. 
In the log file (config.log), I see:

configure:1846: checking whether autoconf works
configure:1853: cd conftest && eval autoconf -o /dev/null conftest.ac
Usage: autoconf [-h] [--help] [-m dir] [--macrodir=dir]
       [-l dir] [--localdir=dir] [--version] [template-file]
configure:1856: $? = 1
configure:1865: result: no
configure:1869: error: The installed version of autoconf does not work.
    Please check config.log for error messages before this one.

I'm getting a message that autoconf doesn't work when the script creates
the conftest directory, cds to conftest and runs autoconf.  But how can
autoconf work when there's no conftest.ac file?  Shouldn't I *expect* the
attempt to run autoconf to fail?  Is this a distribution bug?

I know my autoconf/automake combo works because I can successfully
configure, make, and install the plib, and SimGear packages, which are also
precursors to FlightGear.

Any thoughts appreciated!  [Replying to the "From:" address directly will be
auto-discarded for spam reasons.  I'll watch the newsgroup for a reply. 
Thanks.]

/Brian