1.  The 1997 Corvette features several first-time high tech innovations, such as black lights for the instrument panel and a "plastic" (composite) intake manifold.

2.  The first 200 production C5 Corvettes were painted red, not the traditional white color for the first production run.

3.  The 1997 Corvette is the first one designed from the ground up as a Corvette, with very little borrowing of parts from other cars. One of the few "Off the Shelf" parts are the exterior door handles which are the same ones used on the Oldsmobile Aurora.

4.  The 1997 Corvette is the first Corvette to have windshield wipers that sweep in the same direction instead of opposing directions.

5.  The 1998 Corvette convertible is the first to offer the same sport suspension package as the coupe. Since the C5 was designed from the start as a convertible model, the ragtop is nearly identical in structural rigidity to the coupe.

6.  The first Corvette to sport a real trunk since 1962 again appeared with the 1998 Corvette convertible.

7.  It takes 55 hours to build the new C5 Corvette, down from 70 hours for the previous C4 model.

8.  For the first time in history, the 1999 Corvette is available in three distinct body styles... Coupe, Convertible, and Hardtop (aka, "Fixed Roof Coupe").

9.  The 2000 Corvette featured new color choices to celebrate Y2K... Millenium Yellow and Dark Bowling Green Metallic... plus a new Torch Red interior option.

10.  Corvette's use of a titanium exhaust for the Z06 was the first ever for a mass production automobile.

11.  The 2002 Z06 windshield was thinner than that used in the coupe models, shaving 2.65 pounds per car. The lighter windshield was shared with convertibles equipped with the Heads Up Display (HUD) option, which was standard on 2002 Z06 models.

12.  The Magnetic Ride Option offered in 2003 uses a magnetic fluid which adjusts shock damping 1,000 times per second, roughly equivalent to reacting to each inch of road surface at 60 mph.

13.  2004 marks the last of the extremely successful fifth generation Corvette and was celebrated with the special Commemorative Edition Corvettes in Lemans Blue with special badging, graphics and interior appointments.

14.  2001 will forever be remembered as the year the Z06 performance hardtop was introduced with its 385HP LS6 engine and 6 speed manual transmission.