Feb 12, 2015 09:01 AM EST
Car-Swallowing Sinkhole Filled at National Corvette Museum (VIDEO)

A massive sinkhole that opened up and swallowed a handful of classic Corvettes last year at the National Corvette Museum has been filled.

Thursday marks the one-year anniversary of the Corvette-swallowing sinkhole, and the museum is hosting a special ceremony to mark the historical event that will be streamed live on its website starting at 3 p.m.

Repairs to some of the vehicles swallowed by the 25-foot deep sinkhole are still underway, but the hole in the museum's Skydome display area itself has been filled up completely, according to a sinkhole update video posted on YouTube by the museum.

GM has completed restoration of the 2009 Corvette ZR1 prototype, known as the "Blue Devil" to Corvette fans, after being lightly-damaged during the incident.

The Detroit automaker has plans to fund the restoration of the 1 millionth Corvette, a white 1992 convertible, and a 1962 Corvette, which will be supervised by the museum.

Unfortunately five other Corvettes were too damaged to be repaired, but they'll be on display in their current crushed form as a reminder of the incident. 

"Those five have been on display since they were recovered from the sinkhole, and we plan to have a Cave / Sinkhole exhibit in the Skydome once construction is complete, which would include all 8 Corvettes," said Katie Frassinelli, Marketing/Communications Manager at the National Corvette Museum to AutoWorldNews.

Though losing all those cars is a shame, the sinkhole actually helped increase attendance last summer, as people flocked to the National Corvette Museum to see the aftermath first hand. 

"Attendance for 2014 was up 67 percent over 2013," said Frassinelli. 

Officials at the museum, which is located near the Corvette factory in Bowling Green, Kentucky, even considered keeping the hole open permanently.

"Our board had voted to explore keeping the sinkhole as an attraction, but after further investigation we discovered it would not only cost $1 million on top of the price to fix the building, but it would not really look like a sinkhole any more as we would have had to install concrete retaining walls and steel beams running through the hole," said Frassinelli.

So happy anniversary Corvette Museum sinkhole, here's hoping you don't swallow any more classic cars.

 

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