General Motors and the National Corvette Museum are steadily working to repair the damage from a sinkhole that opened under the museum’s Skydome last year, one that temporarily added eight Corvettes to Satan’s car collection.
Certain of the collectible cars were damaged beyond repair, but GM pledged to help restore some of the survivors that weren’t too far gone. It finished the 2009 Corvette ZR1 “Blue Devil” last year, and will now start work on car number two.
That car is the 1 millionth Corvette made. It’s a white 1992 convertible with a red interior. The work will be undertaken by the Mechanical Assembly group at GM’s Design Center, which is typically tasked with building concept cars. Its fabricators have their work cut out for them.
Unlike the Blue Devil, which was so lightly damaged that it was still drivable after being removed from the sinkhole, the 1 millionth Corvette requires some serious TLC. There’s a bit of body damage — including a crushed windshield — and the entire car was filled with rocks and debris at the time it was pulled from the hole.
GM expects to complete the restoration by September. It’s also funding the rebuild of a sinkhole-salvaged 1962 Corvette that will be overseen by the National Corvette Museum. The other five cars will be displayed in their ruined condition, perhaps as a tribute to the power of nature.
The unsalvageable Corvettes include the 1984 PPG pace car, 1993 ZR-1 Spyder, a 1993 40th Anniversary Corvette, the 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06, and the 1.5 millionth Corvette (a 2009 model).
The museum also finished filling the sinkhole itself earlier this year, although there were initially plans to keep it open as a tourist attraction. Five destroyed Corvettes are probably enough of a reminder of this bizarre event.
Located near the Corvette factory in Bowling Green, Kentucky, the National Corvette Museum saw a noticeable increase in attendance last summer as news of the sinkhole spread. Silver linings and all that.
