The mangled remains of a powerful Corvette — barely recognizable to its former owner — were pulled from the depths of a sinkhole at a Kentucky museum Wednesday, completing weeks of painstaking work to retrieve eight classic cars that were gobbled up by the gaping hole.

The 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette was buried in dirt and rocks, deep beneath the surface of the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green. The mood was somber as the crumpled car, which boasted 700 horsepower thanks to performance enhancements, was pulled to the surface.

“It looks like a piece of tin foil,” said Kevin Helmintoller, of Land O’ Lakes, Fla., who donated the car to the museum last December. “I’m still glad I’m here, because I would have never believed it was this bad. I’m not positive I would have recognized it.”

Watch: Moment sinkhole swallows 8 Corvettes

At [...]

Bowling Green, KY (CNN) – All those cars that were swallowed up by the huge sinkhole that opened up inside the National Corvette Museum won’t be lost.

Eight cars in all went down when the sinkhole opened up last month. Museum officials have brought in heavy equipment to start removing the vehicles Monday. They hope to have three of the cars out by Wednesday, starting with those that are the easiest to get to.

Once all of the vehicles are out, they’ll repair the hole and then work on restoring the cars.

Source Article from http://classiccarcollectornews.com/national-corvette-museum-begins-pulling-cars-from-sinkhole/

by Steve Burns on February 18, 2014 via corvetteblogger.com

Back in 1990 Bloomington Gold introduced their SURVIVOR award for original, unrestored Corvettes. Award winners would need to be 20 years old, complete a short road test, and be at least 50% unrestored in 3 of 4 categories. Now, as we count down to the 2014 show, they’ve announced some sweeping changes to their SURVIVOR judging program.

SURVIVOR Corvettes are those that have remained largely original since new. They can be used as a guide by others restoring similar cars. As the SURVIVOR mantra goes, they’re “Worn in, but not worn out.” They are historically significant and shouldn’t be restored.

The new SURVIVOR award measures a car’s originality in Gold, Silver, and Bronze levels similar to Certification judging. SURVIVOR GOLD award winners are 80% or more unrestored in all four sections [...]

Snow is flying. Ice is accumulating. Roads are impassable. Power is out.

And the story of the day that’s getting more attention than the weather on social media is this:

“Eight Corvettes Swallowed By Massive Sinkhole At National Corvette Museum.” ()

Here’s how the museum in Bowling Green, Ky., to the iconic Chevrolet muscle cars:

“We received a call at 5:44 a.m. from our security company alerting us of our motion detectors going off in our Skydome area of the museum. Upon arrival it was discovered that a sinkhole had collapsed within the [...]