When the 1978 Corvette Indy Pace Car was announced by Chevrolet, a feeding frenzy took place that we rarely ever see with automobiles that are in a different bracket than Ferrari and other such exotics.
Originally, Chevrolet announced that they would only build a limited number of these black on silver pace cars. As a result, collectors started a feeding frenzy to get their hands on one of these special Corvettes, and Chevrolet dealerships went bonkers charging well over list price for the car. In relation to today’s prices, a list price of $14,072 seems like simple chump-change to most. Some Chevrolet dealers bumped the asking price of their allotments to $20,000 – $25,000.
In some instances, the dealerships went back to the customers on their waiting list and announced that suddenly they could not purchase their pace cars without paying the additional “market adjustment”. As a result, some customers decided to take these dealerships to court in both the United States and Canada.
Chevrolet ended up building 6,502 Indy Pace Car replicas. Collectors bought the cars, sealed them up and threw them in storage lockers. Every so often, one of them trickles out of their long hibernation and up for sale or on the auction block. That’s what we have here.
With 56 miles on the odometer, this could be one of the most collectible 1978 Corvette Pace Cars out there so far.
This particular Indy Pace Car includes the optional L82 350 ci engine which produced 220 hp mated to a 4-speed manual transmission. Of the 6,502 1978 Corvette Pace Cars built, only 220 were built with these options. The last two 1978 Corvette Pace Cars equipped with these options, sold at auction for around $75,000. This particular one is listed for sale by Corvette Mike for only $49,000. Over on VetteTube.com, you can see a walk-around video of this barn find and get an idea of what it looked like before it was all cleaned up and prepped for auction.
Head on over to eBay and check out their auction listing for this incredible piece of Corvette history!