Gone in 60 Seconds -- Vintage vettes swallowed by sinkhole


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A massive sinkhole that opened up under a Kentucky museum Wednesday morning swallowed several vintage and rare Corvettes.

The National Corvette Museum said the Bowling Green Fire Department estimates the sinkhole to be around 25-30 feet deep and 40 feet wide.

"This is going to be an interesting situation," Museum Executive Director Wendell Strode told the Bowling Green Daily News, noting that a structural engineer is at the Bowling Green facility to evaluate the damage inside its Sky Dome section.

Six of the cars in the sinkhole are owned by the museum; two others are owned by General Motors.

"It is with heavy hearts that we report that eight Corvettes were affected by this incident," the museum said in a press release.

The museum said the cars are a 1993 ZR-1 Spyder and 2009 ZR1 "Blue Devil" on loan from General Motors; a 1962 Black Corvette; 1984 PPG Pace Car; 1992 White 1 Millionth Corvette; 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette; 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette and a 2009 White 1.5 Millionth Corvette.

Strode told the Courier-Journal that emergency personnel allowed museum staff to remove the only surviving 1983 Corvette, which was at risk of joining the other cars in the sinkhole.

 

corvette-museum-sinkhole1.jpg?ve=1&tl=1

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But can't anything be restored? 

 

I was in the wreck which was really bad, many years ago (it was not my fault)..... I asked the tow truck driver to take it home... he said my car can not be fixed due to the bent frame... which could cost more than the insurance agent could pay for the damages on the front end.

 

I didn't believe him at first... and I got my best friend (who is a mechanic) to go with me to the junk yard to take a look at my car... he said he could fix it... oh well.. it was too late since I got another car..

 

Edit: I forgot to answer your question about be restored:

 

If anything can be restored as long as they can clean it up or have anything in stock from the after market vendors. And as long as not real bad damaged... make sure they are level, straight, even, etc..   you know?

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But can't anything be restored? 

Depends on how much money you have. I can't see repairing these vintage vehicles being anywhere near cheap.

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Classic Corvettes that were swallowed by a gaping sinkhole beneath the National Corvette Museum in Kentucky will be restored by Chevrolet.

GM's head of global product development Mark Reuss said Thursday the damaged vehicles are some of the most significant in auto history.

He says the company wants to restore as many of them as possible so auto fans can enjoy them.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/02/13/corvettes-swallowed-by-museum-sinkhole-will-be-restored/

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  • 3 weeks later...

The 1 millionth Chevrolet Corvette ever built has been recovered from a sinkhole that opened up under Kentucky?s National Corvette Museum last month.

 

It was the fourth car extracted so far out of eight historic Corvettes that fell into the hole, which appeared inside the attraction?s Skydome building during the early hours of February 12th.

 

The crews didn?t expect to get to the car just yet, as it was buried much deeper than the first three vehicles that were retrieved when the process began on Monday, but were able to haul it out of the rubble by just one wheel on Wednesday.

 

1-million-vette-hanging-660.jpg

 

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/03/06/1-millionth-chevrolet-corvette-retrieved-from-museum-sinkhole/?intcmp=trending

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