If there is such a thing as a “sleeper” Corvette, Mark Kiel can make a pretty good case for his 1986.
Sure it’s a C4 — the “lost generation” Corvette that has not yet generated the same kind of following among enthusiasts as most of the other Corvette iterations. But spend a little time with the car, and hear guys such as Kiel extoll its virtues, and you find out it’s an easy car to love.
Not only is Kiel’s car beautiful, very well preserved and relatively rare — it’s darn quick, too. Not all 1986 Indianapolis 500 Pace Cars got the hot rod treatment right after leaving the factory, but Kiel’s car was one of a relative handful — it’s unclear exactly how many — that were fitted with a Paxton supercharger and other go-fast goodies that made for a full-blown performance ’Vette.
"It’s kind of a unique vehicle. It was made high-performance by the track firm Performance SE. It’s got a supercharger and all kinds of performance stuff on it,” notes Kiel, a resident of Dolton, Ill., while displaying his Corvette at the Iola Old Car Show. “They didn’t do it to all the cars. It just happened to be this one. They did it to some of the cars, especially the ones that went out on the track in front of the pack. This one originally had only 240 horsepower. It’s hard to peel away from the pack at 90 mph with 240 horsepower. So they modified a lot of them back then. The ’78 [Corvette] Pace Cars were modified, too, to help with their performance a little bit.”
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