1998 Corvette buyer's guide: the convertible returns, the Indy Pace Car, weak spots and 2026 prices

The 1998’s big additions were the convertible, Active Handling and magnesium wheels. GM’s order guide insert called the convertible its “feature vehicle” and listed the rest of the year’s news (kit, PDF pages 2 to 5):

• The convertible (model 1YY67), with a top folded by hand, a heated glass rear window and an integral trunk.
• Active Handling (JL4), GM’s stability control, which arrived after the order guide was printed (see Active Handling, a midyear option).
• Magnesium wheels (N73). Bronze-tone five-spokes made by Speedline in Italy, lighter than the cast aluminum wheels, on both bodies.
• Two new paints, Light Pewter Metallic and Medium Purple Pearl Metallic, and one new leather, Light Oak. The 1997 had seven paints and three interiors (1997 kit, PDF page 8).
• An air filter-life monitor in the Driver Information Center.

The LS1’s rating, both gearboxes, the axle choices and the Z51 and F45 suspensions carried over. Car and Driver listed the quiet fixes: a fuel pump that no longer whined when cold, a smoother shifter, half a degree more caster and a recalibrated F45.

What came next. The 1999 added the fixed-roof hardtop, a head-up display, a power telescoping column, Twilight Sentinel and Magnetic Red, and dropped Fairway Green, Medium Purple Pearl and Light Carmine Red.

The key fob. A 1998 has passive keyless entry: with the slider on the fob set to passive, walking within about 30 ft of the driver’s door (20 on the passenger’s side) unlocks the car, and the buttons work from up to 100 ft (owner’s manual, PDF page 59).

The last C4 convertible had no trunk lid; the 1998 has one. GM’s chart describes “a true convertible” with a five-bow top that needs no latches at the rear, and a trunk it says swallows two sets of golf clubs (kit, PDF page 5). Lowering it means unlatching the front, releasing the storage lid with a button on the driver’s side, folding the top in and closing the lid firmly (owner’s manual, PDF page 121).

Car and Driver’s first test (opens in new tab) of a six-speed convertible, in its October 1997 issue, called that compartment “the first proper trunk on a Corvette since the 1962 model.” The 1962 was the last C1. The magazine gave it 14 cu ft with the top up and 11 with it down, lowered the manual top in 18 seconds, and reckoned it saved about 15 lb over a power top. Chevrolet’s rigidity figure, as the magazine reported it, was 21.3 Hz with the top down: only two hertz below the coupe with its roof panel in, and well above the 17.0 Hz of a Mercedes-Benz 500SL the magazine called admirably solid. Its testers felt no cowl shake.

The open car gave little away: 0–60 mph in 4.9 seconds, the quarter mile in 13.5 at 106 mph, 70–0 mph in 162 ft, and 167 mph flat out, drag limited, against 171 to 175 mph for the magazine’s coupes. It weighed 3,282 lb, six more than the coupe it tested in August 1997.

On August 1, 1997, GM announced that a caravan of the new convertibles would drive Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica in mid-September, a nod to the early-1960s TV series that starred a 1961 Corvette convertible. That was the plan; no source read confirms the drive ran as announced.

How many, and in what. Convertibles were 38 percent of 1998 production. Tops came in black (8,630), Light Oak (2,376) and white (843). By the stored VINs in NHTSA’s complaint file, convertibles drew about 8.9 complaints per 1,000 built against about 12.0 for coupes, a rough figure because some complaints carry no usable VIN.

The convertible’s bulletins, none of them a safety item: a clicking top (98831504, 1998 only), tonneau noise (831506), a squeak at the rear of the top (010867003), a B-pillar screw that wears a hole in the top (042602), the fifth bow rubbing the stowage lid (02040) and a trunk lid that doesn’t rise far enough (01660 and 3902).

GM’s Active Handling release (opens in new tab) of November 1997 said JL4 would become available on all Corvettes early in 1998. It reads yaw rate, steering angle and lateral g and brakes individual wheels to catch understeer or oversteer, and a competition mode switches traction control off. GM’s 1999 kit dates its arrival to the middle of the 1998 model year (1999 kit, PDF page 27). It cost $500, and it came standard on the Pace Car replica.

Bowling Green fitted it to 5,356 cars for 1998, 17 percent of the year; the proof is JL4 on the option label. It shares hardware with the ABS: if the Driver Information Center shows SERVICE ABS, the owner’s manual says traction control and the optional Active Handling are disabled too (owner’s manual, PDF page 151), which matters in a year whose brake module is hard to replace.

Eight 1998 complaints to NHTSA name Active Handling, against ten for the 1999 and twelve for the 2000. Two, filed nine days apart in 2003 and 2004 and possibly about one car, say it engaged on a straight road and pulled the car off it. Those are owner statements, not findings; GM’s bulletin 3844 covers unwanted activation with trouble code C1282 on 1998–2004 cars. It’s still the 1998 option worth hunting for.

A 1998 convertible paced the 82nd Indianapolis 500, driven by Greg Norman: the 11th Chevrolet and fourth Corvette to do it, GM said, and essentially stock apart from a roll bar and strobe lights. Every replica is a convertible in the pace car’s paint, with yellow graphics, yellow wheels and black and yellow leather. GM’s releases call the paint Radar Blue; GM’s own option record for one replica calls code 21U “PACE CAR PURPLE METALLIC”, Corvette Action Center lists it as Radar Purple, and owners call it purple.

GM’s corrected replica release (opens in new tab) of November 24, 1997 lists what the Z4Z package included: the paint and graphics, the CD radio with Bose speakers, dual-zone air, dual-power leather sport seats, the memory package, floor mats and Active Handling, with the automatic and a performance axle at no extra charge or the six-speed at extra cost. With the automatic, it added $5,039 to the $44,990 base. GM’s first release, on November 6, had left included options out and quoted $2,800.

Corvette Action Center’s Bowling Green figures count 1,163 built, against the 1,158 GM announced, with 1,111 of them in its “domestic” column, the count the C5 guide and Hagerty use. classic.com’s split by gearbox cites no source, so it isn’t repeated here.

How to spot a fake. Decals, yellow wheels and yellow seat inserts can be added to any purple convertible, and owners in a 2011 CorvetteForum thread (opens in new tab) say they prove nothing. What proves a replica:

1. A 3 in the VIN’s sixth place. Every replica is a convertible.
2. 21U paint and Z4Z on the option label. A GM option record posted by a member in 2005 shows a real car with Z4Z alongside JL4 (Active Handling), FE1 (the base suspension), PA6 (the painted wheels), the MM6 six-speed and the 3.42 axle.
3. FE1, not F45 or Z51. Owners in the 2011 thread say real replicas had the base suspension.
4. The paperwork: window sticker, build sheet, dealer records.

Door lettering differs from car to car, and owners in a 2024 thread couldn’t say why, so it proves nothing either way. GM’s 2002 bulletin 051302 covers the replica’s decals.

The LS1 displaces 346 cu in, with an aluminum block and heads, 10.1:1 compression, sequential fuel injection and a 6,000 rpm redline. G in the VIN’s eighth place is its code.

The figures are from GM’s specification form, the owner’s manual and fueleconomy.gov. GM said the run-flats could go 200 miles at 55 mph fully deflated. The manual calls for 91 octane or higher, oil changes at no more than 10,000 miles or 12 months, and wheel nuts at 100 lb-ft (140 N·m); the battery is a Delco 78A-72H (OEM), and the battery guide shows where it sits.

0–60. GM’s figures for 1997–1999 cars are 4.72 seconds with the six-speed and 5.05 with the automatic, the quarter mile in 13.36 seconds at 109.4 mph, and 172 mph. Car and Driver’s convertible, at 4.9 seconds, came within two tenths of GM’s six-speed time.

Every count here is from Corvette Action Center’s production page (opens in new tab), which credits Bowling Green; shares are this site’s arithmetic, and totals include about 2,400 export cars. Three in four 1998s are automatics (23,978), split between the standard 2.73 axle (10,562) and the 3.15 (about 13,400); the 7,106 six-speeds all have the 3.42.

Z51 or F45. Z51 brings stiffer springs and bigger bars; F45 adjusts the shocks; the two couldn’t be combined. The magnesium wheels were mostly an export item: GM’s spec form lists magnesium for Europe and Japan, and only 155 coupes and 78 convertibles of the 1,425 sets are in the production page’s domestic column.

Fifteen gold (58U) and 14 Navy Blue (28U) cars complete the 31,084; neither color is on GM’s 1998 order charts. GM’s insert announced a new Sport Gold Metallic, but no GM document read ties it to that gold. GM expected Torch Red on 22 percent of cars (kit, PDF page 3); it got 28. The names are GM’s, where Corvette Action Center uses others. Fairway Green and Medium Purple Pearl were gone after 1998: those are the rare ones. Inside: black on 18,338 cars, Light Oak on 5,871, Light Gray on 5,450 and Firethorn Red on 1,425.

Prices new. GM’s order guide gives $38,060 coupe, $44,990 convertible, destination included (kit, PDF page 8), but no option prices. GM’s releases give two: $500 for Active Handling and $5,039 for Z4Z. The rest come from Car and Driver’s as-tested list of October 1997: magnesium wheels $3,000, F45 $1,695, the six-speed $815, sport seats $625, dual-zone air $365, the power passenger seat $305, memory $150 and fog lamps $69. The magazine put the Z51 at $350 and told readers to save $1,345 by choosing it over F45.

On October 22, 2026, NHTSA’s file (opens in new tab) held 399 owner complaints against the 1998, the most of any C5 year in raw numbers and the second-highest rate per car built. Twelve are flagged as crashes and one as a fire; five report injuries and none a death.

The themes are this site’s approximate keyword counts of the complaint text; one complaint can hit several. With the column lock left out, the 1998 drops to 8.3 per 1,000, as the years-to-avoid guide says. The bottom three rows are the 1998’s own: seats, rotors and parking brakes turn up far more than on the cars either side.

The recalls. NHTSA lists two GM recalls, the column lock and the lap belts. 00V111000 (2000) fixed lap belt webbing that could twist and jam in the retractor, with an insert fitted at each retractor opening; NHTSA’s closing summary covers 71,569 cars built before August 1999, which takes in the 1998 model year. 04V060000 (2004) is the column lock, and both 1998 gearboxes were in it.

The inquiries. NHTSA’s first look at 1998–1999 column lock modules (PE99-066, November 1999 to July 2000) ended without a recall. The recall came from a bigger investigation, EA02-031, which also records GM’s 2001 campaigns 1044 and 1044A for columns that failed to unlock at start-up on certain 1998–2000 cars.

GM’s bulletins for 1998 alone. Besides the top-noise and decal bulletins, NHTSA’s files code two more to the 1998 only: an inoperative rear defogger (838125) and an LS1 exhaust leak between a spark plug and the cylinder head (98022). Others cover 1997–1998 cars, among them a reduced engine power message (98876516) and fuel pump noise (836310A).

The column lock peaked here

The electronic column lock locks the steering when the key comes out, and 142 of the 1998’s 399 complaints mention it, more than for any other year. Owners describe columns that won’t unlock at start-up; one 2006 complaint blames a lock engaging while driving. The 2004 recall removed the lock plate on automatics and reprogrammed manuals, and a 2006 revision moved US manuals to plate removal too. SERVICE COLUMN LOCK on the dash means a tow to the dealer, by the owner’s manual. GM’s later special policy and aftermarket bypass modules are on the C5 guide.

An early ABS module, and few spares

The electronic brake control module (EBCM) runs the ABS and traction control, and every 1998 has the early type that generally can’t be repaired. Nine 1998 complaints name the module or both systems failing, two more sound like it, and eight of the nine (filed 2012 to 2022) call the part discontinued, unavailable or unfixable. Owners put a used unit at over $1,000 in 2021, and one 2022 complainant at “2K or more.” One 2012 complaint says a convertible’s module shorted and burned at the harness: one owner’s account, not a pattern. The years-to-avoid guide sets out the ways out when a module dies. Lit ABS and traction lights should take a module’s cost off the asking price.

Seats, parking brake and rotors

These are where the 1998 stands out in the complaint file:

• Seats that slide or rock under acceleration and braking: 15 complaints. GM bulletin 020850002 covers excessive driver’s seat movement on 1997–2002 cars, and owners report about a quarter inch of slide on manual cars.
• A parking brake that won’t hold: 10 complaints, one describing a car that rolled with the brake set and injured its owner. Owners blame shoe adjustment and hardened grease in the lever. No GM bulletin was found for it.
• Brake vibration and warped rotors: 10 complaints, against 2 for each year either side, and no GM bulletin.

Bolsters, shifts and belts

• Seat bolsters. GM bulletin 990850010 covers premature wear on the driver’s seatback bolster of cars built before VIN X5116322, which takes in every 1998.
• Early automatics. Bulletin 010730023 covers a harsh 1–2 upshift and a check engine light on automatics built before January 15, 1999: every 1998 automatic.
• Lap belts. 21 complaints, the most of the three years, and two say the belt jammed again after the recall inserts.
• The generation’s items: the harmonic balancer, the fuel gauge, battery acid under the tray and water leaks, all on the C5 guide and the battery guide.

The VIN is on the driver’s side of the dash, readable through the windshield (owner’s manual, PDF page 307). It starts 1G1YY; the sixth character is 2 for a coupe and 3 for a convertible, the eighth G for the LS1, the tenth W for 1998 and the eleventh 5 for Bowling Green. Corvette Action Center’s identification page starts the 1998 sequence at 100000 and gives engine suffix codes ZZC for the automatic and ZZD for the six-speed.

The option label isn’t in the glovebox on a 1998. The owner’s manual puts the Service Parts Identification label “on the cover assembly for the rear left-hand compartment storage pocket,” one of the three storage compartments behind the seats. It lists the VIN, the paint and every production option, so it’s the proof for JL4, Z51, F45, N73 and Z4Z. GM moved it to the glovebox for 1999.

Against a 1997. A 1997 can’t be a convertible and can’t have Light Pewter, Medium Purple Pearl, Light Oak leather, magnesium wheels or Active Handling.

Against a 1999. A 1998 can’t have a head-up display, a telescoping column, Magnetic Red or a hardtop body; it can have Fairway Green, Medium Purple Pearl, Light Carmine Red and the Pace Car package. The X in a 1999’s VIN settles it.

1. ABS and traction lights out after start-up and after a real drive. If either is lit, the price has to cover a used module or a conversion.
2. Recall proof by VIN for the column lock and the lap belts.
3. The column lock. Start and stop the car several times, key fully out each time, and ask what was done and who fitted any bypass.
4. The option label in the left rear compartment against the ad: JL4, Z51 or F45, N73, the paint code.
5. On a Pace Car: the 3 in the VIN, 21U and Z4Z on the label, FE1, and the paperwork.
6. The convertible top: up and down, listening for clicks and squeaks, and look at the material near the B-pillars and the fifth bow.
7. The trunk lid on a convertible: it should rise when released.
8. The driver’s seat: rock it and brake hard to feel for slide, and check the bolster.
9. The parking brake on a slope.
10. Brake vibration in a firm stop from speed.
11. Shifts on an automatic, especially 1–2, with no check engine light.
12. A C5 specialist’s inspection and a read of the records; the C5 guide’s list covers the rest.

From January 1 to October 21, 2026, Bring a Trailer (opens in new tab) listed nine stock 1998s and every one found a buyer, for $10,000 to $41,000: 9 sold, median $16,500 (two Pace Cars among them), by this site’s count. Without the Pace Cars, seven sold for $10,000 to $24,750, a median of $14,800. A Specter Werkes GTR conversion ($51,000) and a supercharged Lingenfelter coupe (unsold at $15,000) are left out as modified.

Over the 12 months from October 22, 2025, there were 12 sales and a median of $20,625, but one 14,000-mile Pace Car accounts for two of them ($24,750 in November and $23,000 in December 2025, after a $28,500 sale that October). Nine sales is a small sample, and auction cars skew clean and low-mile. For scale, six stock 1997 coupes sold in 2026 for a median of about $15,400, and four 1999s for $24,000.

Hagerty’s valuation tool (opens in new tab), in an archive copy of February 7, 2026, valued a 1998 in #3 (Good) condition at $16,400 coupe, $17,600 convertible, $21,200 Pace Car; the coupe and convertible figures are the same as for a 1997 or a 1999. classic.com’s Pace Car page, archived February 12, 2026, gave a market benchmark of $30,016, with sales from $12,500 to $52,800; no classic.com figure for a base 1998 could be read. These are past sales and valuations, not a forecast.

On the records, the 1998 sits between its neighbors: better than the 1997, worse than the 1999, with the column lock at its peak and the early brake module in every car. Several 1998 owners call theirs reliable apart from the column lock, and plenty more say condition and records beat the year.

Buy the six-speed convertible with JL4 on the label. It’s what 1998 brought to the C5: the open car with a real trunk and a body stiff enough that Car and Driver felt no shake, plus the year’s best option. Convertibles sold for a median of $14,800 on Bring a Trailer in 2026, coupe money for the car the year is remembered for. Most 1998s were built as automatics, so a six-speed takes some finding, and it’s worth a little more.

The Pace Car is for the buyer who wants the Pace Car. Pay for one only with Z4Z on the label and the paperwork; the 2026 sales ran $28,750 to $41,000, well above Hagerty’s $21,200, so check the miles and the history behind any price.

The coupe is the cheapest way into a 1998, with the bigger cargo hold and the lift-off roof, and two sold for $10,750 and $24,750 in 2026.

The warning lights decide the deal. A 1998 with dark ABS and traction lights, recall paperwork and a thick folder is America’s sports car with a 345 hp aluminum V8, and five of the nine 1998s sold on Bring a Trailer in 2026 went for under $20,000. If the lights are on, or a later car costs little more, the 2000 guide and the years-to-avoid guide make the case for waiting a year or three, and the best Corvette years guide shows where the 1998 sits among every generation.