MPD F.1 Pace Car
MPD F.1 Pace Car
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1998 Pontiac Grand Prix MPD F.1 Pace Car
I had been looking for a new car, starting in the summer of 1998. I first started looking when I went to an Oldsmobile dealer, to get free movie tickets they were giving away for test driving an Intrigue. After driving the car, I thought maybe I would look for a new car. At the time, I also looked at the Pontiac Grand Prix GTP (didn't want the GT, as it had the same engine as my current car). I was researching what cars to buy, on and off, for the next few months. In the middle of November I started go back to dealers, test driving some cars again. I didn't want an import(like and Accord or Maxima) and had my choice narrowed to the Intrigue and Grand Prix. I was real close to getting an Intrigue, even had a dealer loan me one for a weekend (mighty nice of them!) There are several reasons I didn't get an Intrigue (e-mail if you want to know why). It was pretty much narrowed down to a Grand Prix GTP, only things I wasn't sure about was if I want a coupe or sedan, and if I wanted a blue or silver car. I had a car all priced out, a dealer had even located some cars with the exact options I wanted (only in silver, not blue). When trying to decide if I wanted a GP, I subscribed to the an internet mailing list on Grand Prix's. [Info can be found at the Grand Prix Net] It was there I first saw pictures of the MPD F1 Grand Prix as well as some other limited edition GP's, like the prototype GPX and SLP's GTX. Unfortunately the F1 was out of my price range and only available from a few dealers in the midwest. On December 16th, Todd Coombes, owner of MPD, posted a message to the list that he was selling a Pace Car F1 for a really, REALLY good price. He emailed me some info and gave me the number for the dealer where the car was located. It was at Ed Martin Pontiac in Indianapolis, Indiana. Only problem is I live near Philadelphia, PA, about 700 miles east of where the car was. Luckily, a GP List member, Paul Jerkatis lives near Ed Martin Pontiac, he even bought his GTP from there. Paul saw the car personally and was kind enough to send me close to 20 digital pictures from all over the car(exterior, interior, under the hood, under the car,......). After a some more phone calls to the Dealer, Todd Coombes and Paul, I decided to buy the car!! That was on December 19th, 1998. All the paperwork was done via Fedex and fax. I used the dealer for financing too (0.9% - nobdy else could touch that rate!) The logistics of getting the car to my house were figured out after I bought the car. I could go to Indianapolis and drive it back or get it shipped to home. I ended up getting it shipped out by Classic Car Carriers, who are near Indianapolis. It only cost $650 door-to-door in an enclosed car carrier, which wasn't much more than if I drove it back (bus/plane ticket to Indianapolis, gas, food, hotel, tolls.) I'd recommend Classic Car Carriers if you are looking to move a car long distances. They are a small company with there own trucks. The owner actually delivered my car to me! They move lots of race cars and other high-dollar cars, like Rolls Royces. Let me know if you need info to contact them(ie. phone number). The owner said he had delivered all of Todd's F1's that he'd built, so I was pretty confident in them. I doubt Todd would have recommended them if he'd had trouble in the past. Classic Car Carriers picked my car up from the dealer on December 30th and stored it in their garage till it was to be loaded up again for delivery to me. My car was suppose to be delivered in the evening on Monday, January 4th, but I said if they can get it to me sooner, that was alright by me. New Years Eve was spent out with some friends, with me getting home pretty late at night(for me anyway). Around 9:40am the phone rings. My Dad yells up to me that my car is about 2 hours away! I got RIGHT out of bed, excited that my car was almost here! Then it dawned on me that I didn't have money to pay for delivery of the car. Good thing for MAC machines, since no banks were opened on New Years Day. Shortly before noon, the car arrives. I was expecting a big tractor trailer to bring the car, but it was a Ford pickup with a LONG 5th wheel car carrier(could hold 3 cars). My car was accompanied by a Porshe 911 on its way to DC. Since only two cars were being moved, they just used the pickup/trailer combo. My car was unloaded, the trailer was closed up and the car was finally in my possesion. It's a REAL good thing my car arrived early, since Indianapolis got hit by a huge snow storm New Years Day. If the car didn't arrive early, it definately would have arrived several days after the original date, due to the snow storm. I parked the car and then went inside to look over the owners manual. Then it dawned on me that I had no official paperwork on the car, just photocopies of the papers I sent back to the dealer. I was suppose to get a temporary Indiana license plate. That wasn't with the car. I called up Ed Martin and talked to my sales guy. That's when I heard of the snow storm in the midwest because only a few people were at the dealership, and my salesguy didn't know about the temp Indiana tag. On Monday, I talked to the sales manager(or maybe it was the finance manager), they would overnight a temporary license plate to me, which did arrive the next day. I could then drive my car legally! I then tried to get my car registered in PA. A car must be registered in PA before it can pass the state inspection. Unfortunately, I did not have the paperwork I needed from Pontiac/GM to get my car registered. That came a few weeks later, so I was finally able to get my car registered, tagged with PA plates, and inspected. I Finally got some pictures on the web of my car. No thumbsnails yet, but all
the pictures combines only total about 600K, so it's not that bad to load.
Some special features of the Pace Cars are:
My car is by no means a stock Pace Car. There is a company in Indiana, Motorsports Performance Design, Inc., which would turn a new Grand Prix GT or GTP into an MPD F.1 The F.1 package includes:
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