National Corvette Museum

National Corvette Museum, Bowling Green

I'm guessing the reason Bowling Green is home to the museum is because the only plant that makes Corvettes is also here, just across the street.

You kind of have to like Corvettes to bother to come here, because they charge $10 discounted senior admission and there's absolutely nothing here but lots of Corvettes and their history.  I do like them, though, and I figure this is a slice of Americana so is as worth visiting, in its way, as Mammoth Cave (both being masterpieces, you see).

This post is going to be mostly what might be called a photo essay.  You'll have to blow some of them up to read them, though.

explains how Harley Earl came to invent the Corvette

describes the models (left)

models of an early design

how fiberglass made the Corvette

the first Corvette

a clay model of a windshield design

explains the model (left)

WWII is, believe it or not, responsible for today's sports car

1947 MG

info about the '47 MG

early US sports cars

how the Opel camouflaged the Corvette

what's in a name?

this is a corvette

explains the corvette (above)

1953 Corvette (described at right)

1955 red Ford Thunderbird (see description at left)

1961's changes

1961 Corvette

what happened

Remember hearing a few years ago about a bunch of Corvettes that got dumped into a sinkhole?

Here's where it happened.

why it happened

another way to say it

And humor can have the last word on that:

The museum had a lot more exhibits than I've shown here - a series about Zora Arkus-Duntov, who is called the Godfather of the Corvette, other year models of Corvettes, a lot of technical information about gears and transmissions that I don't understand, several experimental cars built by other companies, more about karst landscapes and caves that I'd seen some of at the Mammoth Cave Visitor Center, more about their own sinkhole - lots of stuff.  

It'd be easy to spend a full day here.  I didn't even try the simulator they offer, which you can try out for $10 a ride, or the cafe they have in the building that offered good smells and not too expensive food, or the gift shop (of course) or lots of other hands-on things they offer.

I like this Route 66 map they have.

from Marietta, GA

from Waco, TX

Corvette Clubs from all over the country have sent in banners like these that hang in the parking lots at the museum.

"Save the wave" that you see on these banners refers to the chummy custom of one Corvette driver waving to another as they pass each other on the road.

somebody's pet