Yahoo Movies The National Corvette Museum Is the Home of America's Sports Car
Bowling Green, Kentucky, has been home of Corvette production since 1981. In the decades since, it has been the origin point for everything from the last years of the long-lived C3 to the world-beating C8 Z06. In the late 1980s, that made it the perfect place to build a permanent shrine to the long-lasting American sports car.
The resulting National Corvette Museum has been open since 1994, growing to eventually include a massive collection, a Hall of Fame, and an on-site race track. The 115,000 square foot museum now houses almost every notable Corvette variant imaginable, displayed in a variety of exhibits showcasing both the history of the line and its long-held place as a core piece of Americana. The museum is extremely close to the modern line, too; the facility is less than a mile from the factory where the C8-generation Corvette is produced.
In 2014, part of that collection was famously swallowed by a sinkhole caused by a cave underneath the facility. The outline of that sinkhole remains on the rebuilt museum floor, along with a viewing window into the cavern that caused the problem underneath. When the hole formed, it swallowed eight cars, including the millionth Corvette built.
Both the National Corvette Museum itself and the nearby NCM Motorsports Park circuit are major focal points of Road & Track's upcoming Smoky 600 rally. The event will start with time on the circuit, while a guided tour of the museum will follow later in the day. Applications are open now, with the rally set to start on June 8th.
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