At the beginning of July in 1992 the one millionth Corvette came off the line in Bowling Green, Kentucky. This was an occasion to celebrate for Chevrolet as its top performance model had been built to this number to be one of the most successful performance cars ever made. the entire team in the plant was on hand and signed various parts of the car and even Zora Arkus-Duntov made an appearance to witness this event even though he was 83 years old at the time. While this Corvette was certainly something to celebrate it ended up leading a boring life.
The one millionth Corvette was painted white and had a red interior. The engine was an LT1 and this was one of the C4 models which made it a gloriously beautiful car to witness. Of course this was a convertible and it was powered by the LT1 engine to make it even more of an impressively built model. As I mentioned, the life of this car was boring for most of the time it existed and the grand inaugural drive for this car was to be taken across the street to the National Corvette Museum where it would reside for several years with no real action although it was a tribute to the success of the Corvette name.
After several years this Corvette found its way to an unlikely place in the world; at the bottom of a sinkhole. The sinkhole occurred under the National Corvette Museum and has been described as one of the most unusual events to ever take place in the automotive world. This couldn’t have happened in any stranger way, but the one millionth Corvette, along with many others, ended up at the bottom of the sinkhole. In fact, this sinkhole ate up eight of the Corvette models as it spanned forty feet in an unexplainable manner.
With eight Corvettes at the bottom of the sinkhole you might think Gm would just take the cars to the scrap yard and not restore them, but instead this Corvette along with many others have been restored. In order to keep as many of the parts that were signed by the team at Bowling Green in 1992 GM dedicated four months and 1200 man hours to the labor of rebuilding this car. They were actually able to keep ever body panel and even the frame and windshield surround from the original car.
After this labor and months of restoring the museum along with most of the cars that fell in the sinkhole, the one millionth Corvette is back on display at the museum. Here we are twenty-four years after this Corvette was built and only driven across the street to be put on display and this car may have the most interesting story of its travels of any Corvette ever made. While it didn’t put miles under its tires at the track or spend time showing off around the town by its owner, this Corvette should continue to be celebrated and admired by all who love the Corvette and what it stands for.
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