The National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky is home to some of the rarest Corvettes in existence. Most of the vehicles are donated by their owners for a short display stint (usually one year or so) under the infamous Sky Dome of the museum.
This morning, before the museum opened for the day, security were alerted to something happening when alarms began to sound. Rushing to the scene, they found a picture of horror: a sinkhole had opened up under the floor of the Sky Dome and literally swallowed eight priceless Corvettes.
The eight Corvettes were not private loan vehicles, however, say museum officials, but permanent display pieces. Two were loans from General Motors and the other six were museum-owned. They were still all of high historic significance, however, and it is not yet known if they can be restored.
The two GM loan cars were the 1993 Corvette ZR-1 Spyder Concept and the 2009 Corvette ZR-1 Blue Devil Concept, both of which are one-off conceptuals that have no equal. The others were a:
- 1962 Corvette, a 1984 PPG Pace Car Edition (rare), a
- 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Edition (rare), a
- 2001 Mallet Hammer Edition Corvette Z06 (very rare), the
- 1 millionth Corvette ever made (1992, irreplaceable), and
- the 1.5 millionth Corvette ever made (2009, irreplaceable).
From the image above, we can see that he ’62 is likely retrievable and not in bad shape.
Needless to say, the National Corvette Museum will be closed until engineers give an OK to the structure and assess the requirements for retrieving the cars and cleaning up the mess. No timetable for re-opening has been given as yet.
Update: Some good news from GM on this!
