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Here's the story...
lIlustrated Corvette Series No. 107 - 1998 Indy 500 Pace Car Corvette
"Pacing the 500... Again"
What we didn’t know in 1997
was that there was to be a three-stage rollout for the new Corvette.
First, there was the big-splash introduction of the C5 in ’97
- the first new edition in 13 years. The following year, the
‘98 convertible stunned the motoring press, whose members
seemed unprepared for such a well-rounded car. And finally, in
‘99 we saw the arrival of the new Corvette hardtop. This was
the first fixed-roof Vette since 1967.
Automotive journalists were simply enraptured by the ’99
model. Car and Driver magazine voted the car to its “10 Best
Cars of 1999” list, while the readers of AutoWeek magazine
voted it “Best Car of the Year.” You
can’t buy advertising like that! When testers can only
complain about flimsy seatback latches or having to get out to put the
top down, it’s clear that all the fundamental elements of a
design are in place.
All of this netted GM increased sales
for ‘99. Even though the base price was increased $1,667, to
$39,171, buyers drove home 33,270 Corvettes, up 2,186 from 1998. The GM
bean counters were very happy.
The other big news for 1999 was the
Corvette’s return to factory-supported racing. Chevrolet
contracted race-car builders Pratt & Miller to build two C5-R
Corvettes to compete against the Vipers, Porsches, Ferraris, and others
in production-based racing classes. The C5-R had 600 horsepower and
weighed 2,510 pounds, paving the way for the 2006 C6.R Corvette racer.
The ‘63 Grand Sport lives on.
Chevrolet has a reputation for
regular evolutionary improvements and an occasional revolutionary leap.
Aside from the introduction of the hardtop version of the car, the
’99 Corvette had three new options and a host of minor
improvements. The “Telescoping Steering Column”
option allowed a 20mm forward-to-aft adjustment for only $350.
For $375, buyers could order the “Head Up Instrument
Display,” which projected all or partial instrument
information onto the base of the windshield. And for only $60,
customers could get the “Twilight Sentinel,” which
used a low-light sensor to automatically open the headlight covers and
turn on the lights. Minor improvements included a new door-sill plate
and improved, “next-generation” airbags. Aside from
a revised cylinder-head design, the 345hp LS1 engine was unchanged.
Since the ‘99 Corvette didn’t gain or lose any
weight, and the engine was the same, performance was as spectacular as
on the ‘98 model: 0-to-60 in just 4.8 seconds, 13.2 in the
quarter-mile, and a top speed of 175 mph.
Also, by ’99
“specialty” C5 Corvettes had started showing up
from Mallett, Lingenfelter, Callaway and others. You could say that the
Corvette definitely had its “mojo” back!
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