Pace Car Thread : Has this been done before?

[MRVW00]

Simple explanation. It was likely custom-made. In fact there was a body builder by your back door, so to speak. The firm of Hess & Eisenhardt, located in a suburb of Cincinnati, made Jaguar convertibles and others for domestic makers. My car was made into a convertible by them from a new car, just like the Jags. They started off in the hearse and ambulance business and built prototypes for the big 3. They ended up building armored cars, now under the name of O'Gara/Hess.

Well, ironicilly you mention them. My father worked for H&E during that time. I can confirm they didn't build anything during that time but Jags, and armored cars.

I was there.

BTW, I'm a top.

[patrikman]

Here is the official Safety Car of the ALMS/IMSA:

Awww...come on Mike. No videos from the back seat?

1971

The 1971 Indy 500 started horribly. Just before the drop of the green flag, Eldon Palmer lost control of the Dodge pace car, slid down pit row, and into the photographers’ stand at the South end of pit row, injuring twenty-two.

That's a surreal picture.

Oh that's cool. I think they were all yellow. I'd love to find some concrete information about how many were sold and even find out how many are still on the road.
I do like the idea of a dealership deciding the cars were too neat to send back and they sold them anyhow, I hope that's the actual story.

I just read that there was only 1500 yellow coupes? Holy ****, I have seen two or three in Northeast Wisconsin.

[Biff Beltsander]

GM reports that ZERO Beretta convertibles were sold to the public. However, many were produced in anticipation of them going on sale before they were axed due to safety concerns. The majority of them were crushed. GM did donate quite a few of them to various trade schools around the country to use in shop classes, and a lot of these still exist today and are even displayed by some of the schools. They were donated without VINs and cannot legally be titled.

I have herd that cars were donated, I know the pace car was based off the GTU which was the performance Beretta before the GTZ or to a lesser degree Z-26. I am hearing that a few went to GM dealerships and were ordered to be sent back, one dealership held out as we are now seeing with Caprice's that should of only been sold to law enforcement agencies. These cars were sold privately. I don't know how true that is yet if someone who knows cars is seeing on being driven for a beer run I'm inclined to think there may be some truth to it.
Well, I hope so.

Simple explanation. It was likely custom-made. In fact there was a body builder by your back door, so to speak. The firm of Hess & Eisenhardt, located in a suburb of Cincinnati, made Jaguar convertibles and others for domestic makers. My car was made into a convertible by them from a new car, just like the Jags. They started off in the hearse and ambulance business and built prototypes for the big 3. They ended up building armored cars, now under the name of O'Gara/Hess.

I love Hess & Eisenhardt cars, I am mostly aware of their limo and ambulance's however I've seen some excellent convertibles from them.

Well, ironicilly you mention them. My father worked for H&E during that time. I can confirm they didn't build anything during that time but Jags, and armored cars.

I was there.

BTW, I'm a top.

The plot thickens.

And zing!

[Biff Beltsander]

I just read that there was only 1500 yellow coupes? Holy ****, I have seen two or three in Northeast Wisconsin.

I saw one complete on Ebay Motors parts last year, was complete and had been sitting.

[manol2]