There are plenty of one-off Corvettes sprinkled throughout the history of the nameplate, but what about one for the millennials? The year 2000 saw the debunking of Y2K, the dot-com bubble burst and personal computers broke the 1 GHz barrier.
2000 also held the C5 generation of Corvette, and it was in full swing after being saved from the axe in the mid-1990s. Through Super Chevy’s look back at some of the most intriguing Corvettes in history, the 2000 C5-R Corvette comes up as a curious case.
In 1997, as the C5 Corvette was released, work began on the next Corvette racer to the track by storm. Pratt & Miller was delivered its own 1997 C5 Corvette, but it became a special, one-off vehicle in the end. You see, this particular Corvette was never meant for race day. Instead, the car would serve as a development mule and homologation vehicle for the upcoming C5-R, which would make its debut at the 1999 24 Hours of Daytona.
The Corvette was transformed into an all-out race vehicle, featuring a racing version of the stock LS1 engine, racing suspension, brakes, roll cage, a no-nonsense interior and a carbon-fiber wide-body kit. The entire car itself sprung longer, wider and lower thanks to the racing modifications.
The homologation C5-Rs then found themselves as show vehicles after being painted a subdued silver hue, but retaining every piece of race-ready gear. Calls for possible production of the car for the consumer swirled as the year 2000 hit, with industry analysts pointing at the upcoming 2001 C5 Z06 as a possible candidate to become a super Corvette. Of course, that never happened.
It’s unknown how many of this Corvettes were ever produced, and the particular C5-R pictured above now resides at the General Motors Heritage Center after a stint at the kingdom of Corvette: the National Corvette Museum.
Comment
We loved the C5 – the corvette has had so much development over the years!