Filed under: Classics, Etc., Chevrolet


Preservation or restoration. That's the question that faces anyone dealing with classic cars, and it's the issue with which the National Corvette Museum is grappling in the wake of the sinkhole that opened up in its midst this past February.

In the months since the damage was inflicted, the museum had planned to keep at least part of the sinkhole open as a sort of memorial and tourist attraction so that visitors could see what happened. Unfortunately, it turned out that keeping the hole open would cost the museum more than closing it up. Much more, if you can believe it: instead of the earlier estimates that initially placed the cost of preserving a portion of the sinkhole at around $500,000, the eventual cost estimates rose to over $1 million.

Even if the museum had the funds in order to do so, the visible portion of the sinkhole would still require 35-foot retaining walls, steel beams and other reinforcements (not to mention proper humidity control required to deal with vapors emitted from the hole) that would have defeated the point altogether. So in the end, the board of directors have voted at its quarterly meeting to completely fill it in.

The hole itself, however, is not the only area in which the museum has had to choose between preservation or restoration. General Motors had originally pledged to restore all eight of the Corvette display models damaged in the natural disaster, but following an outpouring of requests from visitors and fans, both Chevy and the museum have opted instead to keep five of the less-damaged Vettes in the same condition in which they were extracted from the sinkhole.

In the end, Chevy will still restore two of the more substantially damaged Corvettes itself - namely the 2009 ZR1 "Blue Devil" prototype and the 1992 C4 convertible that was the millionth Corvette ever made - and will bankroll the restoration of the '62 model to be undertaken off site. The others will stay as they are. So while you may not be able to see the sinkhole for much longer, you'll be able to see at least part of the aftermath in those heavily patina'd cars for the foreseeable future.Continue reading Corvette museum to fill in sinkhole, leave five cars unrestored
Corvette museum to fill in sinkhole, leave five cars unrestored originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 31 Aug 2014 10:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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