Corvette Museum Sink Hole
I have been into Corvettes since I was very little. I remember my favorite toy as a child was a 1953 white plastic Corvette. I have owned over 25 Corvettes and have visited the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green KY on many occasions. My wife and I followed all the photos and stories on the Corvette Museum Sink Hole with great sorrow.
We recently returned to the Museum for our first visit since the disaster and thought we were prepared for what we would see but we were mistaken. The damage to some of the cars was far worse than we had expected. The Museum is a must see for any car enthusiast but the Sink Hole and its damaged Corvette victims is hard to describe.
This is an image of the sink hole after all the cars were removed. The cave in occurred at night when the museum was empty. Can you imagine the loss of life it had been open?
This photo was taken a number of years ago but the location is no longer there. It is close to the same as the image above. Previously, it was not uncommon to find many people milling around in these areas.
The “Blue Devil” was one of the last cars to “go in”. Its damage is very minor.
Even some of the small rocks from the sink hole remain the the grill opening.
This 1993 40th Anniversary Corvette was donated to the Museum by Karen and Hill Clark who purchased the car new. Its damage is significant but restoreable.
This is a picture I took of the 1991 Corvette Spyder several years ago when it was on display in the Museum. It was the first concept car built on the regular assembly line. It started life as a silver car with yellow interior.
Today, you have to be told what it was!
The 1,000,000 Corvette is a milestone in Corvette history but it is now nearly destroyed. Should a car like this be restored or left as is? This car was built on July 2, 1992.
As badly damaged as the 1,000,000 Corvette is the 1,500,000 appears to be even worse!
This car was built on May 28, 2009.
If GM did restore this car how much of it would still be the 1,500,000 parts? How about building an authentic tribute car and keeping this one next to it for future display?
I remember well the excitement of the PPG Indy Pace Car collection from back in the early 90s. They did some fantastic cars that actually paced the Indy Car races. This 1989 PPG Corvette was actually on display at the Museum when it opened its doors for the first time back on September 2, 1994.
This is another car that would require extensive replacement of parts to be restored.
As the owner of a 2001 ZO6 Corvette the site of this Mallette ZO6 made me a little sick. It had 700 HP with 575 Torque.
At first when the sink hole was discovered this car was missing, it could not be located. It was one of the first to “go in” and was completely covered. It obviously had some very heavy boulders fall in on top of it.
The damage is so extensive that from some angles it appears to be a single seater!
We have not shown you all the cars but this is all I could stand to post. We will bring you a report on the rest of the Museum that went undamaged in the near future.
