Dammit, Karst! Remembering the Sinkhole Corvettes, 10 Years Later

Blame karst. No, that’s not a person, it’s a thing, and you may be standing on karst right this minute. It’s a German word originally used to describe a part of Europe where the terrain rests on a bed of soluble rock, typically limestone, which over time can basically wash away.

And when it washes away, it leaves a void, which can cause the ground above it to collapse, which results in sinkholes. And wouldn’t you know it? “Kentucky is one of the most famous karst areas in the world,” writes James C. Cobb, geologist for the Kentucky Geological Survey, in an essay titled, with the exclamation mark, “Kentucky Is Karst Country!”

Just after 5 a.m. on February 12, 2014, what is arguably Kentucky’s most famous sinkhole—and that’s covering some territory—opened inside the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, swallowing eight very valuable Chevrolet Corvettes.

“Wheels Up!” was the headline for the resulting story on NBC News. “Kentucky Sinkhole Eats Corvettes,” wrote National Geographic. “Tears were shed,” divulged the Museum’s then-executive director, Wendell Strode.

Shortly after the tears dried, the Museum leaned into the sinkhole story, quickly recognizing that it was a publicity bonanza. And it’s still mining that sinkhole, having just launched a new exhibit commemorating the 10th anniversary of the incident called “Ground to Sky: The Sinkhole Reimagined.”

Robert Maxhimer, the Museum’s Director of Cultural Affairs and Education, has a robust resume that includes nearly 10 years at the Walt Disney Company, creating content for worldwide exhibitions. But he admits that this is his first time developing an exhibit where the star is a sinkhole.

“The idea is to give people an opportunity to see these cars and tell the story of the sinkhole, and really focus on what we’ve done since then,” he told Hagerty. “What Corvette has done, what the Museum has done in the past 10 years.”

The exhibit opened earlier this month, and so far, “The reaction has been great,” he said. “Before we opened it, every time I went out into the galleries people would ask me where the sinkhole cars are, and this gives me an opportunity to point them in that direction. It’s always hard to see a beautiful car completely demolished, but we display that, as well as the ones that were restored.”

The victims of the sinkhole were an eclectic lot, as far as Corvettes go, and a pricey bunch. They were a black 1962 Corvette convertible, a 1984 PPG Indy Car World Series pace car, a 2009 ZR1 Blue Devil, a 1992 white car that was the one-millionth Corvette built, a white 2009 that was the 1.5 millionth Corvette built, a 1993 ruby red 40th Anniversary Corvette, a 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette, and a 1993 ZR-1 Spyder.

The first car pulled from the rubble was the ZR1 Blue Devil, in remarkably good shape. It and a few of its cousins were subsequently restored—one by the Museum staff, and two by General Motors—but the rest were deemed beyond help: The 1.5 millionth Corvette, the ZR-1 Spyder, the PPG pace car, the 40th Anniversary car, and the Mallet Hammer, which originally, investigators couldn’t even find. It was eventually located in the rubble inside the 30-foot-deep sinkhole, upside-down, pounded by a substantial boulder. That boulder now sits outside the museum’s Stingray Café.

The ZR-1 Spyder, the 1962 Corvette, and the 1.5 millionth Corvette were brought out of long-term storage to be displayed for the “Ground to Sky” exhibit. They sit next to the 2009 ZR-1 Blue Devil and one-millionth Corvette.

The repair to the Museum’s Skydome, where the sinkhole occurred, was a complex undertaking. “There were caissons put in that went down several hundred feet to reinforce the floor,” Maxhimer said. “There is an access hole, so you can actually look through a hatch to the bottom of the sinkhole. We’ve had geologists who have crawled down there and make sure there is no shifting or seismic activity. It’s cool for guests to be able to actually see down there.”

And since the Museum is located a mile from GM’s Bowling Green Assembly plant, where the Corvette has been built since 1981, the exhibit chronicles the past 10 years’ worth of Corvettes, which covers the end of the front-engine, seventh-generation car, the C7, and the transition to the mid-engine C8, including the 670-horsepower Z06, the hybrid E-Ray, and soon the eagerly anticipated 2025 ZR-1, which will be unveiled on July 26.

The “Ground to Sky: The Sinkhole Reimagined” exhibit runs through September 15. “Plan your visit to explore the Museum’s history,” says the press release, “and see the legendary sinkhole Corvettes before they return to long-term storage and out of public view.” Click here for more information.

And when you’re through, you can make the 30-mile trek over to see Kentucky’s other monument to what karst can do: Mammoth Cave.

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