Chevrolet Beretta Indy 500 Pace Car 1990

  • Thread starter The87Dodge
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The87Dodge

The87Dodge

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Info:
The 1990 Chevrolet Beretta was a very unique pace car for a NASCAR event. Usually, faster, muscle-type cars were used, and people were shocked to see a middle class sedan as a pace car. This Beretta paced the 74th Indy 500 on May 27, 1990. Unfortunately, due to quality issues, no Beretta pace cars were put into production, but there are an estimated 7,500 replicas.

Specs
Unfortunately, detailed specs were not available.
All that I could find out was that the Beretta had a 3.5L V6, and it went about 135 mph.
If anyone could find specs for this car, please post them,

Photos
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The87Dodge
It's a boring sedan "souped up" I guess. There were many "souped up" Berettas. RS, GTU, and the Z26 are just a few.
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Other than that yellow color, it looks alright 👍
 
"Quality issues" meaning that even with the big basket handle GM weren't able to design a convertible of the Beretta without the chassis potentially twisting itself in half.
 
Tornado
"Quality issues" meaning that even with the big basket handle they couldn't design a convertible of the Beretta without the chassis potentially twisting itself in half.
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All covertible Beretta pace cars are replicas. Obviously, the three Berettas used were hard topped coupes.
 
JKgo
...Uhh, the hints in the name of this car??

beretta_elite_ii_177_cal_bb_co2_pistol_black1.jpg

...That's a Beretta Elite II pistol...see.
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Oh right, the Beretta gun. Out of all the names, I don't get why GM chose "Beretta" for a mid size coupe and sedan.
 
The87Dodge
Oh right, the Beretta gun. Out of all the names, I don't get why GM chose "Beretta" for a mid size coupe and sedan.
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....Hah, I can now sorta imagine bunch of GM bean counters sitting in a boardroom with a copy of "All The Cool Names In Da World".
They just picked it 'cuz it sounded cool. No other reason. Probably.
 
The convertible was the one that paced the race. The whole thing ended up being an embarrassment for GM at the time since the pace car was supposed to preview the ultimately cancelled production convertible.
 
Tornado
The convertible was the one that paced the race. The whole thing ended up being an embarrassment for GM at the time since the pace car was supposed to preview the ultimately cancelled production convertible.
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My bad, all the pace cars that weren't convertibles are replicas.
JKgo
....Hah, I can now sorta imagine bunch of GM bean counters sitting in a boardroom with a copy of "All The Cool Names In Da World".
They just picked it 'cuz it sounded cool. No other reason. Probably.
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The Beretta isn't that bad of a name.
 
I owned one of these, great car! Mine was one of the few (1500) yellow Berettas, with the only option....Sunroof.
The seats were special, front and rear and the trim was charcoal instead of black (on the normal models). Not very powerful but I did race a Camaro RS and a Shelby Dakota with a v8, kept up with the Camaro and beat the Dakota.
I actually miss the car as I had a ton of fun in it, the GTZ model with a Quad 4 and manual trans was faster though.
Not a car for everyone, and personally did not like the teal version.

It also had nothing to do with NASCAR as they did not go to Indy until 1994. It was the Indy 500 Pace Car, from what I was to understand at the time, it needed to be able to average a lap of atleast 140mph to be the pace car. Not totally sure how true that is though.
 
Bowtie-muscle
I owned one of these, great car! Mine was one of the few (1500) yellow Berettas, with the only option....Sunroof.
The seats were special, front and rear and the trim was charcoal instead of black (on the normal models). Not very powerful but I did race a Camaro RS and a Shelby Dakota with a v8, kept up with the Camaro and beat the Dakota.
I actually miss the car as I had a ton of fun in it, the GTZ model with a Quad 4 and manual trans was faster though.
Not a car for everyone, and personally did not like the teal version.

It also had nothing to do with NASCAR as they did not go to Indy until 1994. It was the Indy 500 Pace Car, from what I was to understand at the time, it needed to be able to average a lap of atleast 140mph to be the pace car. Not totally sure how true that is though.
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Pretty cool that you owned it. Was it your daily driver, and how fast was it?
 
Bowtie-muscle
Street versions did, weren't convertibles either. Still, fun car.
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Do you know how much horsepower these Berettas had. What's crazy is that even though the Berettas may have been fun to drive, they looked the same all the way until 1996, and the design became dated.
 
JKgo
....Pace car's 3.5 were derived from the regular 3.1L. Pretty much same motor, in other words, besides the increased capacity.
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Yes, they had engine work. The Indy 500 Berettas were originally planned to have a supercharged engine, but to save money GM modified the normal 3.1L Beretta engine.
 

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