Corvette Museum Will Fill Sinkhole

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

After much discussion regarding the merits of repairing the sinkhole that struck the Corvette Museum in February, and keeping in mind the seventy-percent boost in foot traffic afterwards, the facility has announced that it will be repairing the sinkhole, and restoring three of the eight cars damaged in the event, this November.


The NCM announced on its blog that the sinkhole will be filled-in after a November “Vets and Vettes” event.

Keeping even a portion of the sinkhole would require 35 foot retaining walls to be built inside of the sinkhole, additional micro piling, visible steel beams running through the hole, and soil nailing. All of these additional structural features are to ensure the safety of the sinkhole and prevent cracking and breaking of the sides in the future, which could result in stability issues, but take away from the natural look of the original sinkhole. The board also considered future maintenance issues that could arise if the hole was kept and the possibility that the hole wouldn’t look like a naturally occurring sinkhole any longer.

General Motors will be contributing approximately $250,000 to the repair of the sinkhole and the restoration of three Corvettes. The Blue Devil ZR1 prototype and the 1992 “millionth” Corvette will be restored by GM Heritage, while the NCM will restore the ’62 Corvette using GM funding. The other five will be left as-is in a special display.

Now’s the time to get to the NCM and see these cars — I know I’m going to.

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • AFX AFX on Aug 31, 2014

    What really happened here was that VW had some of it's workers dig a tunnel from their Tennessee factory over to the Corvette museum in order to get back at us for what the Allied tunnelers did to them along the German lines at Messines during WW-1.

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    • Schmitt trigger Schmitt trigger on Sep 01, 2014

      I read recently that near the French-Swiss border, where the Allies had imploded some German trenches and tunnels, that a farmer stumbled upon the remains of a "catacomb" where they found the bodies of 12 German soldiers. The soldier's personal artifacts were actually very well preserved, including a 1918 German newspaper which predicted that victory would come by year's end.

  • LectroByte LectroByte on Aug 31, 2014

    > Corvette Museum Will Fill Sinkhole That seems like one of the best uses of a "Corvette Museum" that I can think of. Sinkholes are a real problem here in the dirty South, especially after all this fracking got approved.

  • April April on Aug 31, 2014

    If they are lucky the sinkhole will be large enough to dump every Chevrolet Cobalt in existence in it. With a quarter million bucks I'm sure there would even be cash money left over. I'll be here all week, be sure to tip your waitress... :D

  • ExPatBrit ExPatBrit on Sep 01, 2014

    They could all those removed recalled GM ignition switches as filler. On seconds thoughts, the scrap switches are probably not strong enough and we can't have more injuries.

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