Jack Roush Built GMC Sierra

The PPG CART IndyCar Series was, in the late 1980s, one of the most commercially aggressive racing properties in North America, and its pace vehicles reflected that ambition. This 1988 GMC Sierra Pace Truck wasn't pulled from a dealer lot and painted — it was engineered from scratch at a reported cost of over $300,000 in 1988 dollars, a figure that translates to well over $800,000 today. Roush fabricated custom suspension geometry unique to this truck, fitted a 412 cubic inch aluminum-head small block with digital fuel injection, backed it with a Turbo 400 transmission, and installed a racing fuel cell along with a water brake cooling system borrowed directly from Trans-Am race car architecture. This is not a truck that was dressed up to look fast. It was built by people who build race cars.

The presentation is exactly what you'd expect from something constructed to lead a field of CART machines around an oval. The body is a complete one-off — no production Sierra wore this kit — finished in PPG's own custom red paint, a shade that remains stunning after nearly four decades. T-tops were fitted, which the seller correctly notes you will not find on another example, because there is no other example. Inside, four custom leather Recaro seats are still in place, and the rear-facing seats mounted in the bed give the whole package the theatrical quality of a machine designed to be seen at speed from every angle. The full strobe light system, period-correct and fully functional, completes the picture of a vehicle that was as much performance theater as it was engineering exercise.

At $75,000 with a clean title and 6,200 miles — miles accumulated almost exclusively at sanctioned events on dry days — this Sierra exists in a category with essentially no comparable sales data. That's not a red flag, it's simply the reality of purchasing a verified one-off with documented racing provenance. The new 20x10 and 20x11 wheels shod in 255 and 295-section ZR20 tires are a modern addition that purists may want to revisit, but they do nothing to compromise the underlying integrity of the vehicle. The bigger consideration for any buyer is this: artifacts like this one don't depreciate the way cars do. They appreciate the way history does.

This is an uncomfortable object to categorize. It's not a resto-mod, not a show truck, and not quite a race car — it's all three, built by one of American motorsport's most credible engineering names at the peak of CART's cultural relevance. Whether it belongs in a climate-controlled collection or on the IndyCar show circuit is a question for its next owner. What isn't a question is whether something like this will surface again. It won't.