2016 Chevrolet Camaro SS Convertible Indy 500 Official Car

For 2016 the actual pace car for the Indianapolis 500 was a white Camaro SS coupe, and Chevrolet sold a few thousand replicas of those. Even more desirable would be one of the 54 Indy 500 Festival Official Cars, used in the pre race parades and other official activities.

These were Chevrolet Camaro SS convertibles, specifically with the 2SS option package, with white stripes on a Hyper Blue Metallic paint job.

Powered by a 455 horsepower 6.2L LT1 pushrod V-8 driving the rear wheels through an eight-speed 8L90 automatic transmission, the 2016 Camaro 2SS was the quickest convertible pony car that Car and Driver had tested to date. Their sample ripped to sixty from a standstill in 4.1 seconds and nailed the quarter in 12.6 seconds at a buck thirteen through the traps. It circled the skidpad at 0.96g and topped out at a (governed) 155mph.

The one in the photo was snapped in April of 2016 using a Nikon Coolpix P7000.

1978 Chevrolet Corvette Indy 500 Pace Car

Sunday afternoon, not long after the dramatic photo finish down at the Brickyard, this 1978 Indy 500 Pace Car edition Corvette came tooling up College Avenue, probably on its way home from the track.

1978 was the Silver Anniversary year for the Corvette, and saw some styling changes for the C3 body style, most notably with the tunneled rear window being replaced with a compound-curved glass fastback (which was fixed in place and not a hatchback.) In addition to a Silver Anniversary edition, every '78 got 25th Anniversary badging. 

That wasn't the big special edition for 1978, though, because Chevrolet got the 'Vette in for its first appearance as the Official Pace Car for the Indy 500 and commemorated it with a Pace Car Limited Edition replica.

The Pace Car Limited Edition came with the L82 350cid V-8. With a dual-snorkel air cleaner feeding its four-barrel carb, 8.9:1 compression ratio, and dual exhausts, the L82 made 220 SAE net horsepower at 5,200rpm. A period test by Road & Track returned a 0-60 time of 6.6 seconds and a 15.3 second quarter at 95mph on the way to a 127mph top speed.

MSRP was $13,653 ($68,400 in today's money), but Chevy's decision to produce enough for every dealership to have one makes this one of the least-limited Limited Editions ever. Chevy hyped its special edition status in advertising, yet when all was said and done, with 6,502 examples produced, better than one in ten '78 Corvettes sold was a Pace Car. 

A quick googling shows there are a ton of nice, really low-mileage ones floating around out there, since a large number were bought and parked as "sure-fire future investments" that haven't even halfway kept up with inflation.

As you can see from this photo of a different one, with added side pipes, photographed back in August of 2022, they're not terribly uncommon. I've spotted at least four distinct ones in the neighborhood over the years.

The one above either never had the door decals applied or lost them in a repaint. I'm going to go with the latter, since it has neither the rear quarter IMS logo decal nor the Limited Edition decals on the fenders, both of which were installed at the factory, unlike the door decals that were dealer-installed. Also, the fender badges seem oddly placed and the rear spoiler's not there. It's possible that it could be an attempt to create a Pace Car clone, but why clone such a common car?

The one below was snapped in the summer of '22, like the sidepiped car.

The top car was photographed with a Canon EOS R and an RF 24-105mm f/4L IS lens in May of 2026, the second one with a Fujifilm X-T2 and 16-80mm f/4 R OIS WR lens in August of 2022, the third with an Olympus OM-D E-M1X and a Panasonic Leica 12-60mm f/2.8-4 lens in June of 2024, and the last one with a Nikon D7100 and a 16-80mm f/2.8-4 zoom in September of 2024.

1977 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Indy 500 Pace Car

For 1977, Oldsmobile got the nod to provide the Pace Car for the 61st running of the 500 Mile International Sweepstakes, better known as the Indianapolis 500. It was the fourth time since 1970 that Olds had paced the race, the previous three with various iterations of the midsize Cutlass.

The Delta 88 was a full-size Olds, which was freshly revised for the 1977 model year. The seventh generation of the 88 rode on a 116" wheelbase and stretched 217.5" between the bumpers.

More plebeian Delta 88 coupes could be had with a base 231cid V-6 rated at 105 SAE net horsepower or a couple optional V-8s, namely the LV8 110hp 260 cube Rocket or the L34 170 horsepower 350 Rocket.

 

The Indianapolis 500 Pace Car version, of which Oldsmobile built 2,400 examples, came with the top of the line W44 403 cubic inch Rocket V-8, making 185 net horses. It was backed by a TH350 three-speed automatic and could push the 3,700 pound coupe to sixty in a little under ten seconds, which was decent by Malaise Era standards.

This example was photographed in October of 2025 using a Canon EOS 7D and an EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS zoom lens.

1998 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible Indy 500 Pace Car

For the 82nd running of the Indianapolis 500, the 1998 Chevrolet Corvette convertible was chosen as the official pace car, the fourth 'Vette to receive the honor.

The 1,158 Official Pace Car replicas were mechanically pretty much identical to the actual cars that paced the race, save for the light bar and the slightly freer-flowing intake on the track cars.

Painted a special Radar Blue color with yellow/white/purple decals, they had an eye-popping yellow and black leather interior and yellow five-spoke alloy wheels.

Under the hood was the 345 horsepower 5.7L pushrod LS1 V-8. (While the metric displacement was the same, the LS small blocks that had debuted in 1997 actually displaced 346 cubic inches and were a clean sheet of paper design not related to the small blocks that had been powering previous 'Vettes going back to the mid 1950s.)

When Car and Driver tested the new C5 1997 Corvette in hardtop coupe form, they got a zero-to-sixty time of 4.9 seconds and smoked the quarter in 13.4 seconds at 108 miles per hour. These would have been numbers associated with Italian exotica only a few years prior.

Base price of a '98 droptop 'Vette was $44,425, and the Pace Car package (which included a generous helping of luxury options as well as the eye-catching cosmetics) added $5,039 with an automatic or $5,802 for the six-speed manual. An interesting side note is that these were the first Corvette pace cars which had the livery applied at the factory rather than the dealer.

The one in the photo was snapped with a Canon EOS M and EF-M 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS in May of 2019.

1983 Buick Riviera Convertible Indy 500 Official Car

There are two automotive phenomena in play with today's ride: The Indy 500 Pace Car, and the Indy 500 Official Car.

First, there's the Pace Car. Pace Cars have mostly been convertibles, but more importantly, the Pace Car needed to be able to be able to perform the chores of the actual pace car in the race. During the Malaise Era, this resulted in actual Pace Cars that were heavily modified to be up to the high speeds involved, and those modifications were not applied to the replica Pace Cars sold for the street. As an example, the actual '83 Riviera convertible Pace Cars for the track (there were two built) had 4.3L twin-turbo intercooled V-6 motors that pumped out more than 400 horsepower and were in no way remotely street legal.

Then there are the Official Cars, which are used in 500 Festival events and parades leading up to the race and in the festivities on race day. Frequently these are the same make and model as the Pace Car, but not necessarily. In 1983, they were, though: Riviera convertibles.

Of the Official Cars that Buick provided to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that year, sixty were white Riviera convertibles with maroon interiors, making these somewhat rarer than the 502 Pace Car Riviera XX replicas.

This one was snapped in September of 2024 using an Olympus OM-D E-M1X and Panasonic 12-60mm f/2.8-4 zoom lens.

1963 Chrysler 300 Convertible Indy 500 Pace Car

Thanks to the fact that it's a motorsports mecca, Indianapolis punches way out of its weight class if you enjoy seeing cool cars. I've joked before that if you sit at my favorite local car-spotting site at the corner of 54th Street & College Avenue, sooner or later one of everything will roll past.

One day a couple summers ago that "one of everything" happened to be a 1963 Indy 500 Pace Car replica.

While the much more interesting "letter series" Chrysler that year, the 300J, had the badass Golden Lion 413cid "Wedge" engine with dual quads on those wild-looking Ram Induction manifolds, it was only available as a hardtop.

Consequently the 1,861-vehicle run of 1963 Pace Cars were built on a regular 300 convertible. Painted Pace Setter Blue, they came with the 305hp 2-bbl Firepower 383 V-8 and a pushbutton-shifted TorqueFlite three-speed automatic transmission.

The photos of this clean example were take in June of 2022 using a Nikon D800 & 24-120mm f/4 VR zoom lens.