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Carsales Staff13 Feb 2014
NEWS

Corvettes swallowed by Sinkhole

US Corvette museum loses cars to subsidence

There’s more than a sinking feeling at the Kentucky (USA)-based National Corvette Museum. Indeed, the tourist attraction has lost part of its stunning collection of iconic sportscars thanks to a 12-metre wide sinkhole which opened up overnight.

The museum in Bowling Green is not far from the General Motors plant where Corvettes are built. In total eight cars were damaged.

Two of the cars lost were on loan from General Motors -- a 1993 ZR-1 Spyder and a 2009 ZR1 Blue Devil. The other six belonged to the museum: a 1962 black Corvette, a 1984 PPG Pace Car, a 1992 White 1 Millionth Corvette, a 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette, A 2001 Mallet Hammer Z06 Corvette and a 1.5 Millionth Corvette.

The Sky Dome where the incident occurred houses the museum’s “prime cars,” said Loiuisville’s Falls City Corvette Club President, Butch Hume.

“I was stunned,” he said. “We’re all feeling the same way.”

“If the sinkhole had happened later in the day when the museum was open, things could have been a lot worse,” he said. “Thank God nobody got hurt.”

When staff arrived they were able to save an irreplaceable 1983 Corvette. There were no production models of the Corvette built in 1983 and the only surviving prototype was on display at the museum.

Museum staff said they would repair the damage to the vehicles and the Sky Dome.

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