1998 Chevrolet Corvette

1998 Chevrolet Corvette

As I've previously mentioned, I've owned a lot of Corvettes, and four of them were 98's. This was the 2nd one I ever had and I think probably the least driven of them all.....and all of the pictures I have of it seem to be distorted for some reason so I'm going to keep this brief and just check another one off the list.

I bought this car in, I believe, 2002 after selling my 2000 model that I had really enjoyed. The 2000 was an automatic coupe and I decided I wanted to try a manual convertible. One out of two is what I got. The car had a lot of miles for being only four years old at around 60K so it didn't cost me an arm and a leg. It was also in really good shape so I was happy with it when I got it home.

This one was very similar to my 2000, but it didn't have the HUD system. The manual gearbox in these Vettes is pretty smooth. The clutch is a bit heavy, but the shifting action is a breeze. The car had an annoying 1st to 4th option. It would "decide" when you might want to just skip 2nd and 3rd and go directly to 4th in order to conserve fuel. It was rather bothersome until I learned to just not fight it.

The black interior was virtually identical to the 2000. The only difference was that this one had a few less options, and thus a few less buttons. There was a small tear in the driver's seat but my interior shop made it good as new for $80.

This is still the most impressive feature of these cars.

I have to admit that the C5 has grown on me a bit. It's still too uncomfortable to be a car you'd want to drive everyday, but it sure is fun to have one around.

I think I prefer the automatic in these cars to the manual. You really don't notice any appreciable speed difference, and it's not a fun car to shift.