NATIONAL CORVETTE MUSEUM BASH Corvette owners rejoice in their cars, and in each other’s company, at Bowling Green TEXT BY: DAVID GREEN / PHOTOS COURTESY OF: NATIONAL CORVETTE MUSEUM
t’s chilly, overcast and occasionally raining on Thursday, April 26, in the rolling green hills of south central Kentucky. But nothing dampens the enthusiasm of the thousands of folks on hand at the National Corvette Museum for the annual Michelin NCM Bash. The Bash, a three-day extravaganza, is a celebration of everything about the Corvette. Corvette is many things but primarily the original — and, some maintain - the only American sports car. NCM, which opened in 1994, operates as a nonprofit and is supported by a network of members and numerous Corvette clubs. It is about a quarter-mile southeast of the GM Bowling Green Assembly Plant, which opened in 1981 and is where all Corvettes are built. Each year the Bash features the official rollout of the coming year’s edition of the iconic machine. This year, the 2019 ZR1 and Stingray models were on display. Two 40 | Southern Automotive Alliance / JUNE/JULY 2018
new exterior colors, Elkhart Lake Blue and Shadow Gray, were revealed. Since there was no 1983 model, that makes the 2019 Vette the 66th edition. But for all Corvette’s magical and enduring appeal, for all its performance capabilities, for all its gee-whiz aura, many Bash attendees insist that the car is only part of the magic and mystique of the car. “It’s the people,” says one Vette owner, Dave Heineman, a 70-year-old retired electrical contractor from south-central Illinois. “The Corvette brings us together. We make friends all over the country.” Teresa Hart, a lifetime member of the museum and a volunteer worker who moved to Bowling Green from California, echoes that sentiment. “We all say you buy the Corvette for the car, but you stay with it because of the people,” she says. “You get a family.”
We all say you buy the Corvette for the car, but you stay with it because of the people. You get a family. — Teresa Hart, National Corvette Museum volunteer
Like motorcycle enthusiasts, Corvette drivers often acknowledge each other with a wave. “Most of us still do the wave as we pass each other on the highway,” Hart says. It’s a very cool car indeed that draws all these folks together. “Corvette’s the American toy,” says J.W. Burton of Lynchburg, Virginia, who bought his first Corvette in 1960 and has since owned a number of them: “I think it’s about 10, I’m not positive” he says. Fanbase Interestingly, the museum is not a property of General Motors. It was established by enthusiasts, with no GM support, in 1994. But NCM and all its programs are great assets to the company. “I think it’s great, when you think about it, that the museum was started by Corvette enthusiasts on their own,” says Harlan Charles, Corvette Product marketing manager for Chevrolet. “That says a lot about Corvette and its following.” JUNE/JULY 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 41
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NCM events give GM an opportunity to connect in a special way with customers and potential customers. “They can get up close to the new model, they can give us information as to what they like and don’t like,” Charles says. “I think the customers like that, too. Where else can they get inside and talk to the people who make the car?” Katie Ellison, marketing and communications manager for NCM, notes that at the 2017 Bash, a poll was taken to get feedback on such questions as, would you be interested in a green Corvette, or an orange one? Museum events also attract new buyers such as Joe Kenda, the veteran detective featured in the Investigation Discovery television program Homicide Hunter; or singer John Oates, who bought one after he did some filming for a television series pilot last year, Ellison notes. Ellison says that corporate GM and the museum have always have a strong relationship. The separate-but-closely-related relationship has another benefit, Charles points out. “It’s a way to let the enthusiasts still be in charge of the museum and run these special programs,” he says. “And customers really love them. It’s the ultimate fantasy camp for a car guy.” Charles compares the complex comprised of the Bowling Green Assembly Plant, National Corvette
Museum and NCM Motorsports Park to another iconic automobile’s home. “The analogy is Ferrari in Italy,” he says. “At Maranello, they have the factory where they build the cars, the museum, the test track” at nearby Modena. Vette Pilgrims The Bash is a pilgrimage for Corvette owners of all descriptions who come from all over the continent to take part in a full agenda of activities on and off the museum campus, such as road trips to locations such as Rockcastle Shooting Center, part of the Mammoth Cave complex. Other popular attractions include O.Z. Tyler Distillery, up the road a piece near Owensboro, and Old
They can get up close to the new model, they can give us information as to what they like and don’t. I think the customers like that, too. Where else can they get inside and talk to the people who make the car?
– Harlan Charles, Chevrolet Corvette Product Marketing Manager Besides the NCM Bash, the museum regularly draws crowds of aficionados to marvel at the Corvette’s enduring legacy
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The massive NCM complex is just a short distance away from the factory where all Corvettes are built making Bowling Green ground zero for the popular sports car
Friends Thoroughbred Retirement Center in nearby Simpson County. “Shifting and Shooting” at Rockcastle features various firearmrelated activities for fun or in competition for a trophy. O.Z. Tyler offers a taste of some Kentucky whiskey that’s way out west in comparison to the Bourbon Trail in the east-central part of the state. At Old Friends, Corvette enthusiasts can get a sample of horsepower in its original singular form at the first retirement home for thoroughbreds to be located at a racetrack – Kentucky Downs, in Franklin. Plus, there are opportunities to buy a book about Corvettes and get the author to sign it – Larry Herrin (Building the Dream: History of the Bowling Green Corvette Plant), Wil Cooksey (No Time to Cry, about the author’s years as manager at the Corvette Assembly Plant) and Kevin MacKay (Corvette Hunter).
Additional activities run the gamut from driving your Corvette or hot-lapping in go-karts at the NCM Motorsports Park, across Interstate 65 from the museum; watching as technicians disassemble and then reassemble an LT4 engine; listening to speakers on subjects from race-prepping your Corvette, to changes now being made in the Corvette Assembly Plant, Corvette racing, and so forth. There are seminars on the technology of the new Vettes, on the tires of event sponsor Michelin and an “under the hood” presentation by representatives of ExxonMobil. There is the Ladies’ Garage, presented by the women engineers of General Motors, and a Ladies’ Oasis for those who do count themselves among the gearheads in the Corvette family, but are still very much a part of it. There’s “Ask the Experts,” a walkup question-and-answer opportunity;
20th anniversary banquet for Corvette Racing; and a concert at SKyPAC (South Kentucky Performing Arts Center, in Bowling Green) by the Marshall Tucker Band. “The Boulevard” – Corvette Boulevard, inside the main entrance, resembles a small-town main street, with the Corvette Café at the end. For the Bash, the Boulevard is crowded with displays set up by some 18 vendors and partners of the museum. Products and services range from Titan Lifts and C*Magic wax and other appearancecare items, to Corvette-themed and other automotive artworks, to Spring Mountain Motor Resort and Country Club, which provides Cadillac and Corvette driving schools under direction of champion driver Ron Fellows. At the Ladies’ Oasis, there are another 20 to 25 vendors. At the beginning of the Boulevard, on the left, sits a yellow C6, an actual JUNE/JULY 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 43
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With the GM Corvette Assembly plant nearby, the connection between factory and owners is particularly close
car that has been modified into a racing simulator. Visitors can take the driver’s seat and, looking at three large video monitors in front and feeling the sensations of accelerating, braking and cornering, get a sense of what it feels like to drive a Vette at high speed. Shrine, memorial, landmark Centerpiece of the NCM is the yellow Skydome with its red spire, rising some 13 stories high and clearly marking the spot to travelers on Interstate 65. Its arching walls are adorned with portraits of Corvette Hall of Fame members such as charter members Ed Cole, Zora Arkus-Duntov, Harley Earl, Bill Mitchell, Joe Pike and Larry Shinoda. On the floor, underneath the shining dome, are a number of Vettes of historic value or racing pedigree. The Skydome, which houses select historic Corvette race cars and other models, was in the news for a frightening reason on Feb. 12, 2014, when the ground caved in under the Skydome floor, which 44 | Southern Automotive Alliance / JUNE/JULY 2018
collapsed and sent eight rare Corvettes on display tumbling some 20-plus feet into a gaping sinkhole. The Skydome reopened Sept. 3, 2015, with the eight victims on display, two of them restored and the others in various states of damage or destruction. The floor of the rebuilt Skydome features an outline tracing the portion of the floor that gave way in the collapse, and another outline of the underlying cave system that caused the collapse. But all those things aside, it’s the shared experience among people who love the cars that makes the event and the Corvette family special. For this year’s Bash, 1,448 owners registered to attend. Another 1,403 museum visitors pushed the numbers to 3,000 people who gathered for the threeday celebration. Their Corvettes crowded the parking areas surrounding the museum and around the city. Anything else seemed out of place. At random motel parking lots and
in the museum parking areas, Vette owners were out early, hosing off their cars, hand-drying the gleaming finishes, administering final touches to interior wipe-downs, as if they were prepping for a car show. Which, of course, they were. n
FAST FACTS: Corvette Museum • The National Corvette Museum attracted 228,744 visitors in 2017, the third consecutive year of increased attendance. The NCM Motorsports Park reported 60,840 visitors.
• NCM is open seven days a week, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (admission closes at 4:30), except for New Year’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day • Tickets: $10 for adults, $5 for children 5-12, FREE for age 4 and under, $8 for seniors (62+) Source: NCM website, corvettemuseum.org
Not every sports car owner gets such intimate knowledge of his machine, but Corvette buyers can pay for the privilege
HANDS-ON PARTICIPATION: THE ENGINE BUILD EXPERIENCE
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here are plenty of restored Corvettes, customized Corvettes, Corvettes converted to racing machines, and so forth. Many of those cars have been built, rebuilt, or otherwise modified, by their owners. Chevrolet offers buyers of new Corvettes the opportunity to actually participate in the building of their brand-new car, through the Engine Build Experience. Buyers who selected this $5,000 option get to spend a day at the Performance Build Center in the Bowling Green Assembly Plant where they, with a professional assembly technician, put together the engine that will go into the customer’s Z06 or ZR1 Corvette. “There is no mechanical expertise requirement or prerequisite,” according to Performance Build Center Area Manager Bryan Lee. “We adjust the experience to the individual customer.” Customers may make adjustments of
their own, he adds. “We have some customers who want to watch, listen, and learn as our builder assembles their engine, but we also have customers that want to do 100 percent of the assembly with our builder guiding them through the process. We basically let them decide for themselves,” Lee says. Regardless, Lee notes, “An experienced builder accompanies the customer step-by-step throughout the entire process. The Build Your Own Engine option is here to provide the best experience possible, and we will work with all of our customers in order to make it an unforgettable one.” Lee says customers of all stripes participate in the program. “Typically, our customers come from a strong Corvette fan base,” he says. “Many own several Corvettes of various generations and models. However, there are days we come across customers that are buying their very first Corvette. “Throughout this program, we’ve seen celebrities, fathers and sons, spouses, brothers, Corvette clubs, et cetera. Each experience is special and unique in its own way.” It literally starts with a bare block, Lee explains. “Our blocks come in completely machined,” he says. “The first steps are to install the cam and the crank into the block.” Step by step, the process continues. Parts, tools and all ancillary materials are delivered to each work station. The customer arrives at 5:45 a.m. for a
continental breakfast, safety presentation and the first of many camera shots that will capture the experience for posterity. The build begins at 6:30. After a break for lunch at 11:45, work resumes at 1:30 to complete the assembly. The engine is cold tested, and after a completion ceremony, the newly built engine is moved into staging for its place in the assembly line, and the customer departs. But the program doesn’t end there. “The experience is not only gratifying for the customer,” he says. “It also creates a bond that our customers and builders share for the rest of their lives. Often times, they become close friends and remain in contact long after the build experience.” Customers stay in contact, exchange information, and there are examples on the website forum where a builder has a group of customers with whom he has worked, who all feel that they share a bond. Some customers who also take the Museum Delivery option invite their engine builder to be a part of the ceremony, Lee says. “They meet up at events such as the Bash, or at anniversaries,” he says. A personalized plaque and poster identifies the customer who performed the build. The customer receives a piston trophy and a polo and cap. n NOTE: The Engine Build Experience option is not offered while the Bowling Green Assembly Plant remains shut down for retooling. JUNE/JULY 2018 / Southern Automotive Alliance 45