Corvette Museum

Before we went here, we were just revisiting places we had been before. We had come here before but they had just had a sinkhole form in the center of the museum. Anyway, here it is, The National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY.

Opened in 1994, it features over 80 cars.

The Corvette factory is here also

1953 was the first.year for the Corvette.

They were all convertibles.

1954 was also convertibles and also had a 6 cylinder engine.

1955 was the first V-8 engine.

 The gas station and garage

Note the mini Corvette at the bottom. 

It was hand built at home by a Corvette owner then donated to the museum.

 Roy Orbison liked Corvettes.

This was the one he owned when he died.

 The white one in the picture is the one they drove on their honeymoon

You can see his life like figure in the background

 NASCAR has a section in the museum, especially owner Rick Hendrick's

team, Jimmy Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon.

Hendrick is a member.

 The first pace at NASCAR's Brickhouse 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Jeff Gordon won the race.

Two former Indy 500 winners, A.J. Foyt and Danny Sullivan,  were in the race.

Foyt came out of retirement to run in it.

 The pace car for the 2005 Indy 500 is here

 also the one for the 2004 Daytona 500 driven by Ben Afflack and race won by Dale Earnhardt Jr.

A crash test Corvette.

Usually they shred them when the test is over.
The next room is where the sinkhole occurred.
You enter the room through a round room that is designed to replicate
a sinkhole occurring.
It was really weird being in it and having it collapse around you.

This room was built over a kidney shaped cavern 50 ft wide by 200 ft. long and
80 ft. down to the floor.
Outlined in white is the part of the floor that fell into the hole.
The red square is shown in the next picture.

 This is the trap door for a 48 inch manhole down to the bottom of the cavern.

The 80 foot deep manhole going into the cavern.

 What the museum workers saw when they arrived the next morning

Eight Corvettes fell in, six belonged to the museum.

 Some of the damage cars

A one of a kind prototype

 This 1993 was donated to the museum because the Hill and Karen Clark
could not bear to sell it. They thought it would be safe here and could visit it
whenever they wanted.

 The most heavily damaged car

 The least damaged and the first recovered.

when it was retrieved, they turned the key and it started.
It was driveable despite having fallen 30 feet.

 The millionth Corvette built

 restored by GM

The museum decided it could not discriminate so they added some fords

A 1924 Ames bodied model-T.
The body was built in Owensboro, KY and called the Kentucky Thoroughbred
due to its power.

It definitely will not out run a corvette

During WW2, Ford Motor CO was contracted to build jeeps using the Willis-Overland
design. One of the plants was in Louisville KY

1949 Kentucky State Police car

I had one of these at one time.

 The 1935 Ford coupe

Because of the powerful and east to work on V-8 engine,
it was popular with Kentucky moonshiners and rum runners.

From here, we went to a RV rally in Lebanon TN, then to a
North/East Alabama RV park on the Tennessee River.
We rode out hurricane Nate there, not much wind or rain.
Then on to Biloxi, MS for some good food.
Next we will some other RV in Gulf Port, MS then on to
Rayne MS for another RV rally before heading for FL.
We plan to be back around Nov. 3.