Chevrolet News:Sinkhole Swallows Up Eight Corvettes At The National Corvette Museum

[William Maley]

Not a great way to start a day at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky as a sinkhole opened up in the museum's Skydome area and taking with it eight Corvettes on display.

According to a statement from the museum, a security company notified officials around 5:44 AM that motion detectors had gone off in the skydome. Upon arrival, it was discovered that a massive sinkhole measuring 40 feet wide and 25 to 30 feet deep. Luckily, no one was injured when the sinkhole erupted.

The bad news is that eight Corvettes currently sit at the bottom of the sinkhole. The eight models are:

• 1993 ZR-1 Spyder on loan from General Motors
  
• 2009 ZR1 “Blue Devil” on loan from General Motors
  
• 1962 Black Corvette
  
• 1984 PPG Pace Car
  
• 1992 White 1 Millionth Corvette
  
• 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette
  
• 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette
  
• 2009 White 1.5 Millionth Corvette
  

At this time, the museum is closed to the public as museum officials and structural engineers figure out the damage to the Skydome.

Source: National Corvette Museum, Louisville Courier Journal

Pic Credit: National Corvette Museum

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

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[thedriver]

this is a big bowl of suck. those are some rare cars, I hope they can be saved.

[roadwarrior]

Wow. Not only are all of them rare, 2 of them are unique, irreplaceable examples. Like thedriver, I hope they can salvage and repair them all.

[Robert Hall]

In this pic it looks like a kid dropped some Hot Wheels in a hole in his yard...scary.

[aurora97]

Here is a chance for GM and The Velocity Channel to create a TV show based on the efforts to restore some of, or if not all, of the cars.

[SAmadei]

The emergency personnel allowed the museum to remove the ONLY 1983 Corvette from the area, otherwise it might have been swallowed, as well.

These sinkholes seem to be an epidemic on the rise, but I'm shocked that one could open in such a prominent place.

[SAmadei]

Looking at some of the footage online, I'm not so sure these cars will all be salvageable... or even recoverable. The first burnt orange Vette through the hole, (I suppose its the PPG Pace car), is soon followed by huge chunks of concrete.

There was a sinkhole in FL a couple years ago where the person in the house was lost and it was deemed too risky to retrieve the body... its going to be expensive and a difficult procedure to recover these cars. A big heavy crane is simply not going to be able to get very close.

I wonder if the compromised dome structure could be used as a gantry crane?

[David]

Why not get one of the long boom cranes with an extra large hook and like the games where you try to get your prize, try and hook the under carrage to pull the auto's up to safety.

What a sad day and lose for the auto work enthusiest.

[Z-06]

Nature - no amount of horsepower can win against it.

[William Maley]

The emergency personnel allowed the museum to remove the ONLY 1983 Corvette from the area, otherwise it might have been swallowed, as well.

These sinkholes seem to be an epidemic on the rise, but I'm shocked that one could open in such a prominent place.

Yep that was sometime early in the afternoon. Since then, the museum has been given the go ahead to move other vehicles out of the dome.

[yougojay]

What a way to bring national attention to sinkholes! Sheesh, with our beloved Corvette - unreal

No kidding about that photo, the cars look like toys...it's amazing