Chevrolet has revealed the special-edition Camaro Convertible which will serve as the official pace car of the 2011 Indianapolis 500. The retro inspired Camaro is the 22nd Chevrolet chosen to pace the Indy 500 and is the seventh Camaro. Their will be 50 Indianapolis 500 Festival Committee cars built and they will all be styled after the iconic 1969 pace car – replicas of which have become among the most 
popular Camaros in the collector world.
The pace car, along with the matching festival cars, features a Summit White exterior accented with orange stripes and door graphics. The interior is trimmed in orange leather, including front seat headrests embossed with the Indy 500 logo, along with white door panels and instrument panel trim. The instrument panel trim features extensions of the orange exterior stripes.
The pace car, along with the matching replicas are all based on the SS model and are equipped with a 400-horsepower V8 engine.
“’It’s an honor for Chevrolet to pace the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500, especially during this landmark year,” said Chris Perry, vice president of Chevrolet marketing. “This is also a great opportunity for us to build on Camaro’s strong momentum, while supporting an important charity.”
Chevrolet’s newest convertible has been in development ever since the introduction of the coupe version but was constantly delayed due to the firm’s financial troubles.
“To compensate for the reduced structure of an open car, engineers often will make the suspension softer, making the convertible a boulevard cruiser,” said Al Oppenheiser, Camaro chief engineer. “Instead, we took the more difficult, but better path of bolstering structure rather than softening the suspension. We didn’t change a strut, bushing or spring rate from the Camaro coupe.”
GM is claiming that the result of the structural changes to the convertible body give it greater torsional stiffness than the BMW 3-Series convertible.
