Academic takes vacation in small car (7)
I believe the answer is:
scholar
'academic' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'vacation in small car' is the wordplay.
'vacation' becomes 'hol' (holiday).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'small' becomes 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size).
's'+'car'='scar'
'hol' put within 'scar' is 'SCHOLAR'.
'takes' is the link.
(Other definitions for scholar that I've seen before include "Student or learned person" , "Subject of poem by 1 across" , "university type?" , "Academic; pupil" , "Person of learning" .)