Saturday, February 15, 2014

CORVETTES JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH!

 I am always honest and  I am not the biggest Corvette fan in the world.
Many of my friends were sending me the story about the sinkhole at the National Corvette museum last week. I wanted to do the story right!
Sometimes its like fate and the earth swallowed 8 Corvettes and I am not saying it is because of my terrible visit to the Corvette Assembly Plant  across the road from the museum! 
 


This is the actual video from the museum surveillance camera and from a robot flying camera.
First and most important no one was injured and second although I never want to see any car destroyed all of the rarest and most valuable cars in the museum were spared! 
When I saw the Blue and Silver lift I feared the car below was lost because it was on there when I visited!
It made it!
The cars lost? Below 
 84 PPG Pace car
 93 ZR-1 Spyder on LOAN from GM
 09 ZR-1 Blue Devil on LOAN from GM
 92 1 millionth and 09 1.5 millionth
 62 Corvette, 93 40th Anniversary 
01 Mallett Hammer Z06

                                                             The doomed SKYDOME
Looks like toy cars!
                                                                  Some complex huh?
 I am not an engineer,but does it appear that the Skydome is in the worst possible position in relation to that     drainage ditch??
I am guessing the earth has been shifting with the water run off underground for years and they are lucky the entire skydome did not slide into the drainage ditch, pretty badly planned huh? 
I have worked in 3 Chevrolet Dealers in my life and owned 12 Chevrolets! I am not driving any Chevrolets right now, but will be gearing up for a new car (everyday transport) soon and always buying and selling classic cars. 
 Ok I took a photo of a sign that said no cameras lol!
 The walk was very far through 3 empty lots and you notice it was pouring rain?
For a minute I thought of parking in the closest lots, but would I have slashed tires or been towed?
Childish and silly, I asked if I could leave my umbrella up front and I was told they could not be responsible for it so I had to carry it! Little did they know it was a camera spy umbrella!
Realize this is the highest profile auto assembly plant public tour there is and what you get is a  show playing that was on TV awhile back instead of a Chevrolet produced film during your orientation.  Our tour guide was a student working part time, I guess ,who kept rolling her eyeballs to try and remember her lines who announced each time that she was going to say something " I am now going to tell you". Not much info along the line, but my shock was when we arrived at work stations and various rowdy rap or rock music blaring. It also was very loud beyond the radios playing constant alarms going off and trailers racing to work stations as they ran out of parts. It was not a pleasant tour, rushed through and barely informative.   
I would think some sort of dress code with supplied GM Goodwrench or Corvette semi uniforms would be worn. My techs in my dealership shops would never dress like the people on this assembly line. 
At the end the quality control guy who was going to give my Z06 vette the thumbs up was wearing sneakers,shorts,football jersey and a backwards baseball cap. He can't get his hat on correctly, but knows my $100,000 car is good to go?
 Some very valuable Vettes could have been lost as seen in my photos when I visited.
 Zora Arkov Duntov's personal and only Vette he owned

 This vette below was made of a bunch of tiny photos seen below.

 Last car built in St. Louis and 1st Built in Bowling green!
 Gran Sport Racer
Indy 500 Pace cars
 1980 Turbo L82 that Chevy denies building

 The Corvette skipped 1983
 "Oh no it dident" - the only '83 built
 1968 Chevrolet Astro II
 1968 Astro-vette These 2 concept cars were sitting on ground zero when I was there and so very happy they were moved!
Gran Sport tributes

 You can have your new Vette delivered in the museum 

 Waiting their turn to be delivered in the museum.
You can also follow your car on the assembly line.
$700 for the album
$1300 buyers package with assembly plant follow along.
Engine Assembly $5800 and even if you just ordered a LS7 or LS9 crate engine without the Corvette!
 Z06,Z07 and ZR1 buyers can assemble their engine in Detroit with the Tech!
FYI that is non-other than Rick Hendrick!
Thank Duntov the engine tech has some pride in his appearance!
Just learned the assemble your engine program is suspended at the moment. 
FYI will not consider a new Chevrolet just from my Corvette plant experience!
I have another blog eventually about the F150 Rouge Ford plant great experience coming!
In a press release the museum has vowed to stabilize the building within a 2-3 week time frame.
Then 4-6 days to recover the cars from the pit.
The museum should be back in full operation by the 20th anniversary of the museum in August 2014!
 All 8 cars will be taken to a special project area of GM where they perform the restorations for the GM Heritage center.
The museum is not part of GM and a not for profit organization, GM understands the importance of these cars and is absorbing the costs. 







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