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In 2014 a sinkhole swallowed up 8 Corvettes at the National Corvette Museum. 10 years later, we look back at the damage, cars, and new exhibit.
The Corvette Cave-In
It’s now been 10 years since a sinkhole 40 feet wide, 60 feet long, and 35 feet deep opened up beneath the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky. If you’re a fan of the Corvette, you may remember that February 2014 day or seeing the overnight surveillance video as the sinkhole swallowed up eight Chevrolet Corvettes that were on display in the Skydome area of the museum.
Thankfully, the sinkhole happened in the early hours of the morning at 5:38 AM when nobody was at the museum, so nobody was hurt as a result of the collapse. Now, the museum has a summer exhibit that takes a look at the incident, the damage to the building and cars, and the rebuilding process.
The Damage That Was Done
When the three-story sinkhole opened up underneath the display floor of the National Corvette Museum, eight cars fell several feet into a prehistoric cave below. Some of the vehicles impacted were the 2009 ZR-1 Blue Devil prototype, a 1984 PPG Indy pace car, a 1993 40th Anniversary model, the one millionth Corvette, the 1.5 millionth Corvette, a 1993 Corvette ZR-1, and a 1962 model. The damage estimate? North of $1 million.
Before any repairs could even be considered, crews had to retrieve the vehicles from the debris. Equipment was used to make sure the cave was even safe enough to venture into. Then, after it was deemed stable, the process of retrieving the vehicles started. Cranes were used to lift out one Corvette after another.
The damage to each vehicle varied. The 2009 ZR-1 Blue Devil, for example, was in relatively good condition considering what had happened. Meanwhile, the Mallett Hammer Corvette Z06, the 1.5 millionth Corvette, and the ZR-1 Spyder concept were all almost entirely destroyed by the rubble. Each of the eight cars was deemed beyond repair, though.
The Repairs
Despite the ‘too damaged to repair’ prognosis, General Motors restored two of the Corvettes. The ‘09 ZR-1 Blue Devil was actually on display again after just six weeks of restoration. The 1992 1 millionth model, however, took a lot more work, requiring original parts and body panel work. It took four years before that particular ‘Vette made its way back to the museum. Many of the other Corvettes are now on display in the condition they were found in when they were lifted from the sinkhole.
Of course, the building needed extensive repairs, too. The Museum didn’t stop operating during the repairs. It opened again a day after the collapse, but it was several months before the Skydome part of the building was operational again, and two years before an exhibit on the incident opened. Before repairing the building even began, multi-gravity tests were done to make sure another sinkhole wasn’t forming. After a system of steel rods were put in place in the cave below, concrete was poured again.
The 2024 Exhibit
The Corvette cave-in made a lot of headlines in 2014 and this latest exhibit lets people experience it in a whole new way thanks to a virtual simulation of the collapse, the repaired and damaged Corvettes on display, and even a clear manhole cover that gives museumgoers a look straight down into the sinkhole! The National Corvette Museum took what was an unexpected turn of events and certainly made the most out of it for the Corvette enthusiasts out there.
