The National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green has learned how to turn lemons into lemonade.
The day a massive 40 foot sinkhole swallowed eight classic corvettes and left a gaping hole in the floor of the Skydome at the National Corvette Museum, employees thought visitors would stop coming.
Spokesperson Katie Frassinelli says…that’s not the case. “We’re pretty shocked that people like seeing the sinkhole, but then also the cars being as mangled as some of them are. That’s why initially we thought, pull them out of the hole and send them off for repair immediately, get the hole fixed immediately. Because that’s just what we thought and then the outpouring of interest is really what made us kind of look and say…ok…was that the right thing to do? Should we look at preserving this? Because this is a piece of our history now.”
Attendance was up 56 percent in March, the month after the sinkhole formed, and up again by 48 percent in April. Frassinelli says four of the eight mashed cars will be renovated this fall, the remaining four are crushed beyond repair…but they have become the most popular corvette’s on display and will remain at the museum.