Featured Car: 1978 Black/Silver Corvette Indy Pace Car

Stunning, original L-82 Corvette Pace Car with only 879 miles!

As most Corvette aficionados know by now, the ’78 Corvette Indy Pace car is credited with starting the Corvette speculation market. The ’78 was the first Corvette to ever pace the Indy 500. So naturally, the boys at GM wanted to cook up something special for race day.

Originally, the plan was to build a very limited number of Pace Car replica’s to sell to the buying public. The initial amount was to be 300 to commemorate the ’53 Corvette’s production run. They would all have special paint, interior, and other modifications. Even the tires were going to be exclusive to the Pace Car! But after doing some calculating, the bean counters decided that some of the mods were going to be too expensive to justify a run on only 300.

In the meantime, the Wall Street Journal got word of what was going down in St. Louis and decided to do a story on it. Proclaiming the ’78 Corvette Pace Car as the next great collectible sports car! Well, it didn’t take long before the readers of said article started calling their local Chevy dealer wanting to purchase one of these special “collectible” Corvettes. Thousands of requests were made and many orders were taken. Obviously, many more orders than could be filled. As a result, potential buyers were getting pretty frustrated. During this time, it was decided that Chevrolet would build enough Pace Cars so that every U.S. dealer could get one. So, when all was said and done, approximately 6,500 were built.

Still, there were plenty of hurt feelings as cars that were ordered at sticker price, arrived at showrooms with asking prices almost double that in some cases! As a result, lawsuits were filed. And the rest . . . is history.

This absolutely beautiful Pace Car came to us from a local So. Cal collector. The car has acquired only 879 miles since new, but it’s been well cared for. And it’s serviced, smogged (for potential So. Cal. buyers) and ready to go! In addition to the Indy Pace Car Pkg, options include the L82 engine, Gymkhana suspension, leather seating surfaces and cruise control.