Warwick Basses Pre-owned Corvette Proline Fretless 1997 (pre-owned)

A Golden Era Fretless

This is exactly the Warwick spec the players who know come looking for. A 1997 Corvette Proline Fretless, made in Germany during the period most bassists consider Warwick’s golden era. Solid two-piece flamed maple body, full wengé neck, unlined ebony fingerboard, and original MEC electronics. We get a lot of Warwicks through Bass Buddha, but the wengé-neck era Prolines don’t come around often, and a fretless one in this kind of condition is rarer still.

Brand & Heritage

Warwick has been building basses in Germany since 1982, and the late 1990s is the era that built the brand’s reputation. The Corvette Proline sits a step above the standard Corvette – solid flamed maple body instead of bubinga, premium woods throughout, and the kind of fit and finish that comes from a small German factory at the height of its game. Around 2001-2002 Warwick switched the Proline neck spec from wengé to ovangkol, and while ovangkol is a perfectly fine wood, the wengé-neck Prolines have become the era collectors and serious players hunt for. This 1997 has the right neck.

Body & Finish

The body is two pieces of solid flamed maple – not a top, but the whole body – finished in a deep translucent burgundy red oil that lets the flame figure read through clearly across both the front and the back. Maple as a body wood gives the bass a tight, articulate low end with a strong fundamental and clear definition through the mids. It’s a body wood that translates well into a band mix because it doesn’t sprawl into the low frequencies the way mahogany or alder might. With a fretless, that clarity is exactly what you want – every note speaks cleanly with the woody mwah Warwick fretlesses are known for.

Neck & Fingerboard

This is the heart of the bass. The full wengé neck is what defines the Warwick sound from this era – dense, oily, naturally lubricated to the touch, and tonally aggressive in the best way. Wengé adds a midrange grind and articulation you simply don’t get from ovangkol or maple. Combined with a 20″ fingerboard radius, the neck feels fast and modern – flatter than a Fender, with the kind of profile that lets you move easily across all four strings.

The unlined ebony fingerboard is in genuinely great shape – clean across the playing surface with no significant groove wear under the strings. Ebony is the right wood for a serious fretless: hard, dense, and resistant to the wear that a roundwound-string player can put on a softer fingerboard. It also gives you that characteristic glassy attack and singing sustain. 34″ scale, 24-position fretless layout with side dots for navigation.

Electronics

Original passive MEC J/J pickups driven by the active MEC 2-band preamp – the classic Warwick electronics package, and one of the reasons these basses still sound the way they do decades later. Three-knob layout: master volume with push/pull for active/passive switching, balance between the two pickups, and a stacked dual-pot for treble and bass cut/boost. The preamp is voiced musically rather than aggressively – boost the bass for solo work, dip the treble for a warmer fretless tone, or pull the volume knob to bypass the preamp entirely and run pure passive into the amp.

Sound & Feel

This is a fretless for players who want something with character. The combination of maple body, wengé neck, and ebony fingerboard puts the voice in the upper-mids and treble – clear, articulate, with plenty of bite when you dig in and a singing mwah on sustained notes. It’s not a warm-and-woolly Jaco-style fretless; it’s something more cutting and modern, and it sits beautifully in jazz, fusion, and progressive contexts where you need the bass line to be heard clearly. At 3.95 kg it’s a comfortable weight for long sessions.

Condition

Pre-owned in good honest condition for a 28-year-old instrument. There’s some light buckle rash and a few small marks on the body finish – typical signs of a bass that’s been played and gigged, not babied – and the fingerboard is in genuinely great shape with no significant groove wear. All electronics function correctly. Setup and serviced before sale, ready to play out of the case.

What’s Included

This bass ships in a non-original gigbag.