Stephen’s 1986 C4 Indy Pace Car
1986 marked the return of the convertible body style to the Corvette range after a hiatus of 10 years. Of the 35,109 Corvettes built in 1986, 7,315 were Convertibles and all convertibles that year were designated as Indy Pace Cars – although the decals were delivered to owners in the luggage compartment, and many chose not to adorn their cars with the sticker pack.
My car is officially finished in Silver Beige Metallic, however most people see it as Gold or Champagne. Of the production run of 35,109 Vettes that year only 1383 were delivered in this colour, and it is believed less than 250 of these were convertibles, making this car 1 of less than 250 and therefore reasonably rare.
Mechanically the Indy Pace Cars ran the 5.7lt Tune Port Injected motor, this car backed by the standard 4 speed automatic. One difference the Pace Cars had was a slight uptick in horsepower due to the factory fitment of aluminium cylinder heads.
My car has also been “chipped”, well before my purchase, with an aftermarket e-prom and fitted with a front splitter and rear diffuser with side skirts and a lowered ride height. Outstandingly impractical additions to a car already with an already low enough clearance. But they ARE perfect for scraping kerbs, speedhumps and sparking up the underbody “x-brace” on undulations in the road surface at speed… 😊 And fairly early in my ownership, I replaced the grandpa spec exhaust with a 3” system, high flow cats and low restriction mufflers.
The original owners of this car were Mr & Mrs Phillips of Costa Mesa, near Huntington Beach in Southern California. On a trip to the USA in 2017, I went and found their address and knocked on the door, to find the current owners of the property were friends of the Phillips, who had retired to Arizona.
The Corvette was only 4 years old when it made its way to South Australia from the Phillips ownership in California in 1990.
The original owner in SA was Mr Jim Claridge, principal of Claridge Holden south of the CBD. His son told me many years ago how his father lavished attention on the car and regularly, after a 2 hour drive on a Sunday, he would bring it into the workshop and have his mechanics fettle away for hours.
I purchased the car in September of 2012. It had been for sale for over a year after the current owner from Angaston had sadly passed away. Ben Finnis of Classic Collectibles was based in Mount Barker at the time and brokered the deal for me with the widow to help settle the estate.
At the time, it had only 52,000 original miles from new and came with optional hard top, fitted and lined car cover, the “Indy Pace Car” decals in the trunk and two manilla folders, 4 inches thick, of history going back to the original purchase by the Phillips in California.
At the time of this writing in late 2025 it has approx. 78,000 miles on the odometer. I have enjoyed every mile it has done, on Zippel Cruises, Club Runs, Weekends Away, Cars & Coffees or just firing it up and going for fish & chip run on Saturday night to Semaphore….
No intention to ever part ways with this, my first Corvette, although at some point, I would like to add a Club-Reg eligible C5 convertible to the stable, most notably for the significantly better luggage & cabin space for travelling away…. But still love every drive in the C4 😊
