You're backwards. The FRC came first in IIRC 99. I believe the LS1 FRC then dissappeared when the ZO6 came out, all FRCs were then ZO6s.

And it's pretty easy to tell a FRC from a ZO6 FRC. The ZO6 had the little rear brake scoops (and different wheels)

 

Before the Z06 all FRC's were Z51/6 speeds.

 

that's good to know.

 

Oh, I know that, I just meant that it basically looked like a Z06, minus small things here and there. (wheels, brake scoop, etc)

I did not know that they were all automatically Z51 cars with 6 speeds. That's cool.

 

If I'm not mistaken, the original concept was to make it a stripped (by Vette standards anyway) model, w/a base price of 29,999 or something like that (this was in 1997 dollars remember). It would have had cloth seats, manual locks, smaller wheels and tires, ect. But when it was still being planned, I think they realized that they would be able to sell every car they could build, and were greatly outselling the C4's pace, so they ended up more or less making the car pretty well equipped, and it only ended up being like $500 less than a similarly equiped coupe.

Some of the restrictions of it were that it was only available as a 6 spd, and Z51 only, as mentioned above. But also, you couldn't get a couple of the colors, the only interior color you could get was black, and then only the base seat. I can't remember if you could get the mag wheels. You couldn't get the telescoping wheel either

 

I was never really fond of the FRC. It looked sorta strange to me. It never fit with the lines of the car.

 

I believe you're right. This "stripper" Vette only ended up being like $1000 less than a normal coupe. And I liked the look of the hardtop C5. Really set it apart from every other C5 and made Z06's VERY easy to spot

 

I thought the hardtop was the best looking C5 as well.