To mark the Corvette's silver anniversary, Chevrolet had the most significant redesign since 1968. The 1978 Corvette had new fastback rear styling, creating more passenger space and a larger rear window. The interior was also modernized, the speedometer and tachometer were redesigned in a new squarer more vertical style and a glove box was added. On the exterior, all 1978 Corvettes had a 25th Anniversary emblem.

1978 was not only Corvette's 25th birthday but also the first time they paced the Indy 500. To celebrate the event, Chevrolet built a series of pace car replicas. Chevrolet was extremely proud of the fact that as a pace car the Corvette was the first car to use a completely stock drive train, the first to be built from a one piece fiberglass body and the only pure two seater since before World War II. These pace car replicas had their own Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), separate from the standard Corvette, another first for the marque. The difference between the VIN number for the standard Corvette and pace car replica is in the eighth digit, the pace car replica has a 9, the Corvette a 4. As well as having their own identification, the pace car replicas had their own paint scheme which consisted of a two tone paint with a red stripe. The first 300 pace car replicas had tires specially made by Goodyear with 'Corvette' imprinted on the side. The extremely high demand for the pace car continually increased the quantity produced and in the end Chevrolet decided to build one for every Corvette dealer, a total of 6,502.