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Originally Posted by 5thGenIndy500
Hello BirthdayGirl, welcome to the Pace Car club...:-). The choice to Mod your pace car all comes down to a personal decision. However, I will be glad to pass along a couple of my thoughts on the subject. Collectability values of the 2011 Pace Cars would rank in this order. The most collectable would be any of the 51 convertible Festival (or track) cars. At the top of that list would be one of the 4 manual transmission festival cars. Next, would be the remaining dealer ordered pace cars, roughly 500 between the US and Canada. Most collectable among that group would be the ones ordered with the manual transmissions roughly 156 of them. Bear with me here I am making a point! I have owned and sold several Indy 500 Pace Cars over the years and I will tell you that resale value depends on rarity, documentation, original condition and mileage. Based on your question, you are looking for your pace car to maintain its value. So here is my advice; if you have one of the automatic transmission dealer purchased pace cars you have one the least desirable of the collectable pace cars already. Now don’t take that to mean that it is not collectable, just that it has a lot of competition should it be competing in the market. On top of that if you plan on enjoying the car and driving it, as it sounds like you intent to do, then mileage will also become a value issue. If you on top of that you intend to perform non reversible modifications it will only detract further from the cars value. If I were a serious collector and I was looking to buy a 2011 Indy 500 Pace Car, before I would even consider buying one of the dealer automatics I would expect ultra low mileage, original condition, well documented with the dealer and GM order documentation window sticker and build sheets. That sets the bar quite high from the collector’s standpoint. So the decision comes down to this; where are you right now as far as collectability? Is your main intent to keep the car as a collector car? Or do you drive and enjoy it. I hope this helps you with your decision.
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Well said. Only thing I would question is the position/future value of the Auto Festival Car vs. the Manual Dealer car. I had the choice last year and I decided to go with a Manual Dealer car for two reason, one, the low projected production numbers compared to the automatics, and two, the festival cars were used up pretty hard last year compared to 2010. Per GM's records, 153 Manual Pace Cars were built. I do not know if that includes the Festival ones or not so the total can be as high as 157 if the number I was given was strictly dealer manuals.