[VIDEO] Keith Busse Offering Entire Corvette Pace Car Collection at Mecum’s Indianapolis Auction

Many Corvette enthusiasts strive to own a pace car or two.

Keith Busse took that goal a step further – a big step further – by collecting an example of EVERY Corvette pace car ever, all the way back to 1978.

Corvettes have paced the Indianapolis 500 a total of 14 times, and Busse has an example of each one of them. But his collection actually includes 16 cars, not just 14, because in 2004 three different colors were offered. He says he is the only person to have all three from that year.

Indeed, Busse – the 74-year-old co-founder and retired chairman of the board of Fort Wayne’s Steel Dynamics Inc. – is believed to be the only person to have such an entire collection from 1978 to 2017.

Now he’s decided to take his collecting efforts in a different direction (hoping a mid-engine pace car could begin another collection if Chevy goes through with the rumored change in a few months) and has placed the entire set of pace cars up for sale at the Mecum Auctions, set appropriately enough at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis May 15-19.

“What he has done is something that nobody else has done,” says Mecum television commentator John Kraman. “We do a lot of (auctioning) of collections, but this one stands out because you combine an extreme passion with a very narrow focus and a specific vision for assembling a collection that can never be duplicated.”

Indeed, four of Busse’s cars (2013, 2014, 2015, and 2017) had to be specially authorized by Chevrolet and Indianapolis Motor Speedway for him to duplicate using the officially licensed paint schemes and pace car graphics because pace car editions from those years were never offered for sale to the public.

At the auction, probably on May 19, the collection will first be offered together as one complete set, but if an acceptable offer isn’t made, each car will then be offered individually without reserve. Two tickets to this year’s Indy 500 set for May 28 will also be included with each car.

Proceeds from the sale will benefit the Keith Busse Automotive and Classic Art Foundation, which seeks to provide financial support to higher education institutions and charitable organizations in Northeast Indiana.

If you’re like us, you’re hoping that the collection remains together. After all, this is a very rare collection that can never be achieved again because of the unique lengths to which Busse went to reach his goal.

“I think they will go as a package,” Busse predicted, “but I know some guys who want them individually. At auctions, crazy things happen.” Busse thinks the cars will fetch between $1 million and $2 million.

Asked why he was selling the collection after going to such pains, Busse laughed and told The Journal Gazette newspaper in Fort Wayne “the real answer” is that he’s running out of space to store the cars. After all, he still has other Corvettes, “three or four” muscle cars, “two or three” vintage collectibles, and five exotic sports cars – a Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Porsche, and an Aston Martin.

Sounds like our kind of guy, huh?

Source:
journalgazette.net and Mecum

Related:
The Richard Cohen Collection of Five C2 Corvette Big Tanks is Headed to Mecum Indy
Mecum to Feature a 1967 L88 Corvette Coupe at Indy Auction
[PICS] The 2019 Corvette ZR1 is the Official Pace Car of the 102nd Indianapolis 500