National Corvette Museum Sinkhole

 
Last month the Corvette world was devastated as the sink hole that formed under the national corvette museum resulting in 8 of the world’s most sought after corvettes falling 30 feet into a hole. Yesterday live footage started streaming of the corvettes being recovered and the best news is the first corvette to be hoisted out was the “Blue Devil” (2009 Corvette ZR1) once the car was on the ground and checked by mechanics and engineers it was able to start up and drive away receiving only minor damage the vast majority of which was cosmetic. The national corvette museum has announced all of the damaged cars will be saved and restored to pristine condition. The Blue Devil is an iconic part of Corvettes racing heritage as this is the same 638 horsepower machine that challenged Blue Angel 7, an immaculate, blue-and-gold U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter jet to a one mile drag race in 2009.
 
Based on initial inspection, the ZR-1 sustained minimal damage, despite falling nearly 30 feet when the hole opened beneath an exhibit area on Feb. 12. The ZR-1 emerged from the depths of the sinkhole “The ‘Blue Devil’ is in remarkable shape,” said John Spencer, manufacturing integration manager for Corvette. “Cosmetically, the carbon fiber running boards are shattered, there’s some minor paint damage, and a small crack in the windshield. Mechanically, the worst damage is a split in the oil-supply line for the 6.2L LS9 V-8. If you fixed that, you could drive the ZR-1 back to Detroit.”
 
“The recovery of the ZR-1 went incredibly well,” said Mike Murphy, CEO of Scott, Murphy & Daniel construction. “Obviously, there’s a lot of work still to do. But, watching the ZR-1 drive out of the museum was a great start to the recovery effort.” As the cars are recovered, they will be shipped to the Mechanical Assembly facility, a small specialty shop within GM Design in Warren, Mich., where the best restoration approach will be determined. Mechanical Assembly has been part of GM Design since the 1930s, and today maintains and restores many of the vehicles in the GM Heritage Collection and GM’s historic concept cars.