Racing NASCAR and Horsepower The Corvette Museum

Everything about the 60-acre campus located just off I-65 in Bowling Green, Kentucky says "unique." The buildings and the vehicles, attractions, exhibits and designs they house share an award-winning inspiration, and the five-decade history contained in those exhibits is a living tribute to the mystique of the American Sports Car.

The National Corvette Museum was established in 1994 as an educational facility and project showcasing 75 Corvettes manufactured from 1953 to the present, including meticulously preserved production models and unique concept vehicles. The 68,000-square-foot museum and grounds are located only a mile from the General Motors assembly plant where every Corvette since 1981 has been manufactured.

The museum contains dozens of fascinating exhibits and attractions for both enthusiasts and those new to the history of the Corvette. The tour begins with a visit to the main lobby where a featured vehicle from the museum's collection is presented along with a brand new Corvette visitors can sit inside for souvenir photographs. Nearby is the entrance to the Corvette Store, a 3,300 square-foot retail store offering a wide variety of custom merchandise and collectibles.

The first stop on the tour is the 200-seat big-screen Corvette Theater, where participants can watch a historical film, attend presentations by educational speakers or other special programs. Following the theater presentation, the tour travels down Main Street and Nostalgia Alley towards the distinctive and famous yellow "Skydome" structure, the largest display area in the museum. The Skydome contains a featured exhibit with the Corvette Pace Cars, privately-owned vehicles, NASCAR memorabilia and even the one-millionth Corvette.

Displayed throughout the museum are statues of designers, engineers and race drivers in the storied history of the Corvette each crafted by an internationally renowned sculptor. These sculptures are an especially important feature of the Design and Development Shop, an area featuring the process of engineering Corvette vehicles with technical information provided by General Motors, and including a cutaway chassis which displays the various vehicle safety features.

Nearby is the Performance Area which allows tour participants to join an actual hands-on Corvette racetrack pit crew trying to beat the clock refueling vehicles and changing tires using authentic tools and devices to simulate a real pit area. The Performance Area is designed to emphasize speed and horsepower among the Corvette racers and also features various additional cutaways of engines and transmissions from high-performance racing Corvettes. The 80-foot-wide room is surrounded by a 360-degree mural depicting racing Corvettes past and present.

The inner area of the Performance Exhibit has a slanted racetrack with racing Corvettes from the late 50s to the present, and a timeline detailing notable achievements in racing and engineering performance for the Corvette racing program. Some events at the museum even allow visitors to meet the Corvette Racing Team members themselves.

A similar feature of the museum is the full-scale diorama depicting the original assembly line which manufactured Corvettes from 1953 to 1981 in St. Louis, and which includes the stories of the UAW members who worked in that famous factory to build them. One can almost visualize the classic Sharks and Stingrays in the museum's Chevrolet Dealership Showroom being carefully constructed on that very assembly line. Tour participants wishing to connect to the manufacturing history of the classic factories can even purchase a collectible souvenir brick from the original Corvette assembly plant in Flint, Michigan from the supply which surrounds the diorama exhibit.

For those with plans to purchase a new Corvette, since 1995, the museum has offered the opportunity to take delivery of their vehicle right on the museum premesis. In the In-House Delivery Area, over 5,000 new Corvettes have been presented to their new owners by staff members after a complimentary tour of the museum. One has trouble imagining a more effective demonstration for marketing a new vehicle, to say nothing of marketing the mystique of the Corvette.

The National Corvette Museum will celebrate its 13th anniversary over Labor Day Weekend, 2007, where, during the 10th annual Hall of Fame Induction Banquet, new members will be inducted into the Corvette Hall of Fame, a part of the museum which recognizes those who have contributed in a remarkable way to the history of the Corvette. Some of those new members will offer seminars and presentations during the celebration, and the museum has plans to host a variety of other events during the three-day anniversary celebration, including road tour excursions, autograph sessions, a celebrity car show and a low-speed autocross.

The museum has ambitious plans, including the expansion of their existing multimedia archive and resource center, which already provides those with an interest in studying the fascinating history of the Corvette with access to an unprecedented array of unique information and educational material on the American Sports Car. The museum's expansion "Corvette Library and Archives" has the goal of becoming the largest and most complete library of research information about the Corvette in the world, and made available to researchers, scholars and enthusiasts.