Spotlight on the National Corvette Museum
If you love America's Sports Car, get thee to Bowling Green, Kentucky.
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QuickTakes:
When asked to name an American sports car, many people would probably say Corvette. So iconic is this Chevrolet that it's been informally given the title America's Sports Car. If you're among the Vette's many admirers, you owe it to yourself to visit the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Founded in 1994 by members of the National Corvette Restorers Society, the Corvette museum now hosts a collection of historic cars and artifacts, educational programs and media, and a design and engineering gallery.
The museum campus also includes Chevrolet's Bowling Green Assembly Plant, home to Corvette production since 1981. There's also the NCM Motorsports Park, a 3.2-mile road course that opened in 2014 and features a variety of Corvette-centric driving experiences.
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The National Corvette Museum Celebrates All Things Vette
The National Corvette Museum features several exhibits in its 115,000-square-foot building that explore the past, present, and future of the Corvette. The site holds and displays a number of important cars from the model's long history, including the one and only 1983 Corvette in existence. (Chevrolet skipped production that year while it worked on a major revamp that resulted in the C4.) The museum is also home to the 1 millionth Corvette produced, several early first-generation 1953 Corvettes, and Corvettes from every generation — C1 through C8.
Additionally, there are concept cars, performance and race-winning Corvettes from the legendary Corvette Racing team, and even prototype and experimental Corvettes.
The latest temporary exhibit, An American Love Affair: 70 Years of Corvette, connects the sports car's evolution to key moments in pop culture over the past seven decades. The exhibit takes advantage of the museum's 8.5-foot-tall, nearly 300-foot-long LED video display wall.
Also on site is an exhibit called Driven by Design, which uses interactive elements, artifacts, hands-on objects, and motion-activated content to teach visitors about the Corvette's design history. The E. Pierce Marshall Memorial Performance Gallery showcases Corvette's racing history, and the McMichael Family Education Gallery is intended to inspire young people to pursue careers in automotive design and engineering.
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You Can Take Delivery of a New Corvette at the Museum
The museum also offers the R8C Museum Delivery Program, which allows buyers to take delivery of a new Corvette on-site. In order to participate in the program, buyers should check Option Code R8C at their Chevrolet dealer if available.
If you want to shop on the museum campus, the Corvette Store sells a range of Corvette-branded clothing, housewares, and car accessories. And when you get hungry, there's the Stingray Grill, a restaurant that was featured on Guy Fieri's "All-American Road Trip" show.
Other campus attractions include guided tours of the Bowling Green Assembly Plant and a number of annual events, such as the Michelin NCM Bash in April and the Hall of Fame induction in September. Beyond its signature events, the museum hosts exhibit openings, Cars and Coffee gatherings, and STEAM programming for students.
Since not every Vette lover can make the trip to Bowling Green, the museum takes its show on the road via its Museum in Motion events, which include tours of sites around the United States, Canada, England, and France. The gatherings have given attendees access to places such as General Motors' Heritage Center, the Milford Proving Grounds, and Consumer Reports' Auto Test Division.
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The Museum Also Showcases a Giant Sinkhole
One of the museum's most unusual exhibits is as much about science as sports cars.
Corvette Cave-In: The Skydome Sinkhole Experience revisits the day in 2014 when a giant sinkhole collapsed beneath the museum's Skydome. Fortunately, the collapse happened early in the morning, and no one was injured. Several cars weren't so lucky, as security camera footage of the incident shows.
The damage has since been repaired, but the museum has capitalized on the collapse with exhibits about the science of sinkholes as well as video and virtual reality explorations of the crater and the damaged vehicles.
The sinkhole drew international media coverage when it happened, and a recording of the museum's security camera footage has been seen more than 9 million times on YouTube in the nine years since.
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How to Visit
The National Corvette Museum is located at 350 Corvette Drive in Bowling Green, Kentucky. General admission tickets begin at $18. Guided tours are available.
