It took almost two months to even locate it, but the 2001 Z06 Mallet Hammer Edition Corvette was finally retrieved from the infamous Corvette Museum sinkhole on Wednesday.
The last of the eight Corvettes pulled from the wreckage, it was by far the most damaged of the cars that were swallowed up. You can see for yourself in the before and after pics below (see before/after photos of the other seven Corvettes here).
The Mallett Hammer was donated to the Museum just this past December by Kevin and Linda Helmintoller of Land O’ Lakes, FL. Upon hearing the car had been located, Kevin Helmintoller traveled to Kentucky to witness the rescue operation.
“I expected bad, but it’s 100 times worse,” he said in an interview with the Corvette Museum blog. “It looks like a piece of tin foil… and it had a roll cage in it! It makes all the other cars look like they’re brand new.”
The Helmintollers spent 13 years modifying the Corvette, which they purchased new in 2001. The Mallett Hammer conversion was completed in June 2002 and since then, the car has had many modifications to push its power output to 700 horsepower and 575 ft.-lbs. of torque at the flywheel.
All eight Corvettes will be on display at the Corvette Museum through August before General Motors attempts to restore them.
The ones that are restorable anyway.
something fishy…………..how could it have gotten ate up like that in such a short time.
Vettes are fibre glass it shatters on impact and they had to dig to locate the car so it was apparently buried under tons of debris so that would explain the excessive damage
Vettes are fibre glass it shatters on impact and they had to dig to locate the car so it was apparently buried under tons of debris so that would explain the excessive damage
It looks like the Heavy Equipment smashed it!
I wonder if that’ll be on the carfax report
That’s red dirt !