Once the team from the National Corvette Museum had extracted all of the Corvettes that were swallowed up by the sinkhole, the task began of determining what cars would and would not be restored. The 2009 ZR-1 “Blue Devil” prototype and the 1962 Corvette were the least damaged. The ZR-1 has been restored and the 1962 is slated to be restored by a contracted shop in the future. The Mallet Hammer, the PPG Pace Car, and the ZR-1 Spyder were smashed beyond recognition or salvation, and the 40th Anniversary and 1.5 Millionth were beyond economical repair. But the millionth Corvette, a white 1992 convertible, was just on the good side of repairable. With the help of General Motors’ Design Center, the car was painstakingly restored over the course of four months and 1,200 man-hours. Only two parts had to be completely replaced (the clamshell hood and the front bumper cap were beyond saving) and the rest was conditioned, repaired, checked and verified. Any part replaced that had a signature of an assembly line worker was scanned and the signatures reproduced for the part, except for one piece that wasn’t able to be scanned. In that case, the Design Center tracked down the employee and had her sign the new piece to make sure that her name would still be on the car she helped create in 1992.
Neat!
um… at around 0.55, what is that car off to the left? that looks a bit like the Holden Hurricane show car from 1969….
Red: unknown Corvette Concept
Silver: 1973 AeroVette
Black: Buick Y-Job
Blue: Mako Shark 1
The first and only C4 that has been or will be restored.