Mustang Pace Car

[The Observer]

I saw this item coming up for sale and I thought maybe Gregg could weigh in on whether this particular model is worth trying to collect:

[bmxninja357]

thats a sweet ride. if kept mint and low mileage its not a million dollar car but a very collectible one. the more info, news articles and photos you can find, owners, where it was a pace car the more its worth. how many pace cars. any special features. who were the drivers in the races it was pace car for? any signatures on it? and you will always if well kept get your money or more back.the lower the dollar price a collectible the easier it is to market if you ever need to cash in your chips.

just my opinion.
my car is also a ford. 1 of around 300.
peace man,
nice ride.
ninj

[bmxninja357]

guess its only right to show mine since i can see yours.

peace
ninj

[The Observer]

To be clear, ninj, the car does not belong to me and I doubt that I would actually try to purchase it. My question was basically aroused by curiosity regarding this particular model and year. Knowing that Gregg has had a lot of experience and knowledge with Mustangs, I figured he would be able to give an idea of what price level this could hit.

Also, I doubt that this car was actually used as a pace car in the Indy 500. From what I have seen during my research there were 1000 models produced as "pace cars" by Ford:

All these changes helped sales, with Ford selling over 123,000 Mustangs in 1994. It won Motor Trend's Car of the Year honors and was picked to pace the 78th Indianapolis 500. 1,000 Cobra Convertibles were produced to celebrate the honor, all of them built with a Rio Red exterior with Saddle Brown leather interior. This was the third time the Ford Mustang had paced the Indy 500, once with the original Mustang in 1964 and the first year for the Fox Body in 1979.

[NYGman]

As a Mustang fan/Owner/lover it is essentially a 1994 Mustang SVT Convertible, with a pace car appearance package. It is certainly a nice car, but I think its main value is with it being both an SVT and a Convertible, with a small bump in value for the pace car status. While this will command a premium, I am not sure this vintage will be that collectable. I do like them, I don't think the design has aged well. I wouldn't say no to it, but to be honest I would prefer to spend 20k on a 2011-2014 Mustang GT, and drive the snot out of it.

[The Observer]

...ut I think its main value is with it being both an SVT and a Convertible, with a small bump in value for the pace car status.

That is what I am thinking, after doing some initial research on my own.

[NYGman]

Look at values for 1979 pace car, abysmal. you either have a low millage (Sub 100) you just look at, start every so often, and drive a few feet a year, which may go up, very, very slowly, or it's just a decent used muscle car of theat vintage. Not much of an investment unless low milage. At that point you are buying something to enjoy and drive, and as I said, in my view 11-14 is better for that. Unless you have a connection to that car, I wouldn't got out of my way to buy it.

[The Observer]

No connection to the car and thus was not planning on buying it. My question was more of a thought experiment born out of curiosity.

More details are available now on the car:

1994 Ford Mustang Cobra- 2 Door Convertible- Special Jack Roush 5.0L V* Making 240HP- 5 Speed Manual- Ford Production 1000 Special Edition- 2nd Owner- Pampered- Garaged- Pristine- Recent Appraisal With Historical Notebook- 6,788 Miles

[JamesVincent]

If it really does have the Roush Racing engine in it that engine may be worth more than the car itself. Even then every manufacturer has had a pace car along the way and, as was said earlier, may be worth something as low mileage collector items. To a collector. Other than that not worth much to a normal person.

Funny seeing them advertise it as 240hp. Reminds me of why that time period sucked for real muscle cars when that was actually considered a lot for the time.

[Gregg]

Its not a Roush Engine, its a Roush Decal on an engine with different minutia like details to it that was built on the line at Romeo like all the other ones. I think it might have had larger intake valves or a little more compression.
That car might have a very limited bump up in value because it only has 7,000 miles on it but as a collector car, its pretty near forgettable.
Its funny, my Boss 302 is one of 4,000 odd made with another 4,000 near identical ones the next year, but they are truly collectable. Mine is worth about what it cost new almost 10 years later and it has 12,000 miles so low milage but not "collected" low. But it does have a lot of things that amount to more than just stickers and badges.
There is nothing about it that would make it much compared to a this year run of the mill GT Mustang, but was a special car when it was built. I guess that's why it will hold its value so much better than something like the Pace Car in the OP that is a lot more rare as to how many built, but like many things, if its made to be collectable, its not collectable.
Until the world exploed I was getting somewhat interested in a truly collectable car, a 2006 Ford GT but that seems to have passed out of the realistic. Too bad, the plan was to make it my primary Gettysburg car.

[Gregg]

There is a very good book about the late 80s auto industry that tells the story very well of the 1994 Mustang and how the original plan was for a car that eventually was sold as the Ford Probe very nearly was the 4th generation Mustang instead.

[The Observer]

An update on the bidding for the car is showing that someone is offering $6,000 for it.

[Convair]

Nice set of wheels...