1978 Pace Car L48 - 4spd

[Robert F.]

How rare is this car?

[Tom R.]

Re: 1978 Pace Car L48 - 4spd

Hey Bob:

Too often the tag "rare" gets equated to "desirable" and that's not always the case and so it goes with the L48 4 Speed Pace Car. It's rare because it's a 1978 L48 4 spd better yet would be a Pace car with its documentation such as build sheet, window sticker, and a vehicle that matches up with those RPOs and broadcast codes. It's rare because probably few Pace Cars were built with this power team configuration.

The 1978 L48 used a Saginaw (built by Muncie) economy four speed transmission...it's a cast iron unit in contrast to the M21s and m20s in 1978 that were aluminum cases. I've been tracking these units to learn how the factory coded the RPO on the build sheet. While it may have been an M20 on the window sticker, I suspect it called out a different RPO on the manifest (build sheet). The L82 called out the M20 on the build sheet but it's possible that an L48 also called out an M20 but than a different broadcast code was used to pull from the parts bin...all of which is probably more than what you wished to learn.

I suspect you have a line on one...if you have other questions, feel free to drop me a note. Hope this helps.

[Paul B.]

Re: 1978 Pace Car L48 - 4spd

...I seem to recall the number was around 77 cars made in that combo. I believe there was a "VettVues" magazine that came out shortly after the 1978 run of Corvettes and they had all the info in one of the issues featuring the '78 Corvette with all the numbers on the "L-82 cars with 4spd", "L-82 cars with 4spd & CB Radio", "L-48 cars with 4spd", etc.

[Tom R.]

Re: 1978 Pace Car L48 - 4spd

Paul:

That's a pretty good recollection!