I was told that Petek might be able to give me some help with this one. It is a 1997 with 80,000 miles. Good codition and never have had any mechanical problems other that factory recall problems. The shift lever hav locked before but I had always been able to unlock it by holding the lever down and wiggling it. It has been lock for several days now and the car has nor moved. I am worried about being able to get it out of the carport since the trans is locked by the shifter. I could do the work myself if I knew what to do and how to do it.

Glad you found the site. He should see this soon I hope.

1997? That's a C5... I donno how to help you on that. Considering the advanced chassis and engine controls, I would not be surprised if there was a code for that.

Because I have no experience with a c5, I could only guess at the problem.
Like a c4, the shifter works a cable that moves the lever on the side of the trans. The lever turns a shaft that rotates a notched cam shaped bracket held by a spring steel lever. 99 times out of 100, the trans is not the problem.
I would unhook the cable from the side of the trans and see if it frees up the shifter. This will allow you to inspect the cable to see if it is binding.

Seems kind of late to answer this but here goes: I would say the solenoid at the bottom of the shift lever is bad. Especially since you said you used to be able to wiggle it until it finally stopped altogether. Only problem is that the unit is sold as the whole upper shift linkage.

When I replaced mine it was about $120. Took about 90 minutes. 30 of that was cleaning all the junk inside the console.

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You beat me to it mate, that is what i was going to sugest, and i reckon itll be the brake interlock solenoid or something related to that. You cant take it out of park without your foot on the brake, but try turning the key to unlock, and see if it will let you shift out of park without the ignition on. I know on a late C4 you can shift from park without the brake if the ignition is turned off (not if its on lock though, as that locks it in park using a cable from the steering column, which is another item you should check), im not sure if the C5 setup is the same.