Chevrolet, National Corvette Museum to Restore Three Sinkhole Vettes

Image/National Corvette Museum

Chevrolet is financing the restoration of three of the eight historic Corvettes destroyed last February when a sinkhole formed unexpectedly inside the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY.

Concurrently, the museum’s board elected to fill and repair the sinkhole which created unprecedented interest in the museum over the past seven months.

Chevrolet and the Corvette museum will restore the one-millionth Corvette produced—a white 1992 convertible; a first-generation 1962 Corvette, and a 2009 Corvette ZR1 prototype named “Blue Devil.”

The GM Heritage Center will oversee restoration of the three Vettes.

The remaining five Corvettes were deemed too damaged to warrant restoration. (You can see photos of all eight Corvettes, including the three slated for restoration here.)

“Our goal was to help the National Corvette Museum recover from a terrible natural disaster by restoring all eight cars,” said Mark Reuss, GM Executive Vice President, Global Product Development, in an interview with the Corvette museum. “However, as the cars were recovered, it became clear that restoration would be impractical because so little was left to repair. And, frankly, there is some historical value in leaving those cars to be viewed as they are.”

Security footage of the sinkhole swallowing up the eight Corvettes has been viewed more than 8.3 million times on YouTube.

Despite the 66-percent spike in attendance, the Corvette museum board determined it would be cost prohibitive to maintain the sinkhole as the tourist attraction it has become.

“We really wanted to preserve a portion of the hole so that guests for years to come could see a little bit of what it was like, but after receiving more detailed pricing, the cost outweighs the benefit,” said Wendell Strode, the museum’s executive director, in a statement.

Construction is slated to begin in November when visitors will be able to watch the construction through a transparent plexiglass wall.

You can check out the National Corvette Museum’s official blog to read more about the decision to fill the sinkhole and restore the vehicles.