In 1998 GM experimented with a high metallic paint “Aztec Gold Metallic” for the 50th Anniversary in 2003. GM first took 5 cars and painted them. Then Will Cooksey and his team noticed that in certain light and angles the car looks like a different color from neighboring body panel. Then Corvette took 5 more cars and some advice from DuPont and tried again. With the same results Will Cooksey had an expert from DuPont fly out and try again with 5 more. The first series was painted on 10/22/1997. The second series was painted on 11/17/1997. The final five were completed on 11/26/1997. The paint results on all 15 corvettes were the same. All the body panels where removed from the cars and inspected.
Then panel-by-panel each corvette was hand assembled with the panels that closely matched. It is said that no 2 Aztec Gold corvettes look the same, but if you where not looking for the differences you would never see it. GM has a high standard for consistency, so the project was cancelled for “Aztec Gold”. All 15 prototypes cars were shipped to the GM Tech Center in Warren Michigan. There was a private auction only open to GM Executives and limited number of dealers. 3 Convertibles where made, 12 where coupes for a total of 15.
