2015 Corvette - Nat'l Corvette Musuem Delivery

[Frosty]

OK guys - one guess where I was this afternoon - after a 9 hour drive from Michigan?

The museum delivery program starts at 7:45 a.m. CDT tomorrow morning. We are delivery #2 for the day. This is the Corvette we came to see and take delivery of, a 2015 Stringray LT3 convertible w/ the Z51 package. I might even get to press some of the button's.

Can you say "sinkhole survivor"?

I did find a Pontiac while I was here though....

[Frosty]

There are museum webcams in many locations around the museum, plus one on each of the cars scheduled to be delivery for that day. Ours happens to be the second delivery of the day. It starts at 7:45 CDT today.

http://www.corvettemuseum.org/webcam/

The car has a special museum placard with the owner's name on it.

Doesn't this Corvette concept model look like the 1988 Pontiac Banshee IV?

Corvette concept....

Pontiac Banshee IV.....

[Ringo64]

I feel like that's almost torture to see your Vette sitting there but you can't drive it BUT at least there seems to be so many cool things at the Museum! I am himming and hawing about the Museum delivery when I get my Corvette. I'm going to be creeping on you guys during the delivery .

Holy crap, see where they got their inspiration for the '88 Banshee. Do you know which was designed first?

[JUSTA6]

I did find a Pontiac while I was here though....

IMG_2781.JPG

Atta boy Frosty! Find the Pontiac in the Chevy puzzle. Looks like a cool roadtrip.....Man you get around!

[Ringo64]

Sooooooo.... How'd it go, Frosty?

[Frosty]

I did find a Pontiac while I was here though....

IMG_2781.JPG

Atta boy Frosty! Find the Pontiac in the Chevy puzzle. Looks like a cool roadtrip.....Man you get around!

Yeah I do bud. I put well over 2,200 miles in two weekends on the GMC Envoy Denali between Chicago/Pontiac Illinois and Bowling Green Kentucky.

I passed 4 GM assembly plants this weekend too on either I-69 or I-65. Flint Truck Assembly (1500HD and 2500 trucks), Lansing Delta Township (Traverse, Acadia, Encore), Fort Wayne Assembly (1500 light duty trucks), and Bowling Green (Corvette).

Sooooooo.... How'd it go, Frosty?

It was a very worth while experience. I was at the museum from around 7:30 am yesterday morning until 2:30-3:00 pm Central time. I got home at midnight Eastern. I took both pictures and some video.

We did the plant tour about 8 am before the crowds really came in. You can pay $7.00 to tour the plant on your own, but you get put into a tour group and its first come/first serve. So the group size can be 15-20 people. Our NCM delivery group was 5 (4 of us plus the NCM guide), so it was much more enjoyable and self-paced than the big group. The walking tour takes 60-90 minutes depending on the speed of the group. I never did find the front half of the '83 Corvette (the year of lost production) that is suppose to be near the entrance to the plant. Of course, it may be there, just not at the entrance we came in.

If you want to see how the Corvette is built, watch the Velocity Channel and look for a show called "How Its Made: Dream Cars". They just did an episode on the C7 Corvette. I have already seen the show. It shows more about how the Corvette is built than what you will actually see on the walking tour. I knew more about things on the line than my guide did because of the show.

The museum sure added on since the last time I was there in 2002. The whole entrance has changed, they have added the archives, the new delivery entrance along with the delivery "nursery",a theater, cafe, and much, much larger souvenir shop.

The Skydome area is still closed as you can see from the picture above. The floor has been repaired. They expect the repairs to be completed in June/July. Pilings have been driven down to bedrock to support the floor and rebar has been added to the concrete floor. Ultrasound and core drilling have been done through out the rest of the property to see that this does not happen again. However, you must consider that Mammoth Cave is only 25 miles north of the museum and it is the largest known cave system in the world with 350 miles of explored caves. So that whole area is filled with sinkholes and caves.

We got a lot of compliments from folks at the museum on Charlie and Betty's Corvette. It was the only convertible scheduled to be delivered for the day. They didn't get the Z06 engine. just the LT4, but they don't want or need that much performance either. You can really hear the difference between the 2 engines when the cars are started. The Z06 is significantly louder!

The museum prep/tour guide, Wayne, spent a lot of time with Charlie and Betty going through all the controls, menu options, does and don'ts, etc. for the car. He tried to program their phones into the bluetooth compatible link but their phones need to be upgraded first (even though they are bluetooth capable).

I will post pictures later tonight once I get the photos and video off the camera.

[Professur]

Yeah ... they added a whole new floor.

The museum sure added on since the last time I was there in 2002.

[Ringo64]

Sounds awesome! Really want to go there some day, if not have my Z06 delivered there . Sounds like an interesting and fun experience.

Hope they enjoy their Vette!

Can't wait for the pics/video!

[Frosty]

Yeah ... they added a whole new floor.

Rimshot !!!!

[Ghost]

whats going on in here? what did i miss?

[Ringo64]

whats going on in here? what did i miss?

Frosty bought a Z06...

Nah, his friend bought a Z51 C7 and did the Museum delivery so Frosty went with.

[6 Shooter]

FWA does HD's too...

[6 Shooter]

Did y'all stop by Art's Corvette/Art's Auto Mart, Inc.

http://www.artsvett.com

[Frosty]

My friends did because they got there 2 hours before I did. I saw it, but did not go in because of time. Wayne, the NCM guide said the place has been added on 3 times.

[Frosty]

Here is the Corvette plant itself. Seems that GM bought the property from Chrysler back in the mid-to-late seventies. It was an air conditioning plant under Chrysler.

The tour is $7.00 per person, except to current GM employees and retirees and their guests, as well as active military personnel. The marquee above this entrance will display the names of all the owners who are taking delivery at the NCM that day. Charlie and Betty’s name are there.

Back at the NCM, here is the nursery, where new Corvettes come that will be delivered soon. Here they are gassed up, cleaned, detailed, and prepped.

Up to about 8-9 cars per day are delivered by the National Corvette Museum staff. You must show your driver’s license, proof of sale or origin, insurance, and provide a license plate in order to drive off with the car. Of course, the car is paid for or loan paperwork is done well in advance of this stage.

The guide will walk you through all the controls, menus, and features of the Corvette, and all the various does and don’ts of the car.

In the museum itself:

The only 1983 Corvette left in existence, the other 42 that were built were crushed.

Flint Michigan built Corvette - 1 of the first 300 made - this is # 282

A tribute to both the Mother Road and the TV show - Route 66 (staring Martin Milner and George Maharis and later Glenn Corbett)

A nice tribute to Chevrolet dealerships

The original Motorama Corvette medaliion that was never seen by the public

The Hewlett-Packard "Corvette" Unix workstation. I supported these during my years at GM. We used them for both high-end CAD as well as CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) workstations. GM licensed the Corvette name and logo to HP for use on these workstations at the time. Now Unix itself is nearly dead. in favor of Linux.

More photos to come...

[Ringo64]

Great photos! Definitely an experience for your friends and you

[Frosty]

Here is an interest series of shots about the now famous "sinkhole", the chronological order of events, the type of sinkhole it is, etc. Also remember that Mammoth Cave is only 25 miles north of the museum. It is the largest explored cave system in the world, with over 350 miles of explored caves, according to the National Park Service's website. So it should not come as any huge surprise that this area is full of sinkholes and caves.

Here is a series of pictures of the currently closed Skydome area. The floor is repaired with pilings to bedrock and cement reinforced with rebar. They hope to re-open this area in June or July. Five of the cars that fell in to the sink hole still have not been repaired (and/or may not be repaired).

In the museum store, you can buy souvenir sinkhole dirt !

[Frosty]

Here are some Corvette race cars.

Exhibit on how GM crash tests a Corvette.

Concept Corvettes over the years.

[Frosty]

Other famous/infamous race cars from the past - all non-Corvettes

An old Ford modified for bootlegging - the inspiration for many a NASCAR driver

Richard Petty's #43 Grand Prix - the only Pontiac in the place

Darryl Waltrip's Tide Car

Dale Earnhardt's #3 Wheaties car

Dale Earnhardt Jr's #8 Budweiser car (DEI car)

Benny Parson's old #72

Junior Johnson's #3 Chevrolet

Team Hendrick Cars - Gordon, Johnson, Earnhardt Jr

[Ringo64]

Well least they know how to make a tragedy not only into an exhibit but make some good money on it. Did you buy the dirt?

Very neat, I'm going to have to make a trip up there!

[Frosty]

Well least they know how to make a tragedy not only into an exhibit but make some good money on it. Did you buy the dirt?

Very neat, I'm going to have to make a trip up there!

Well the museum is not exactly making a killing on selling the sinkhole dirt, even though they've sold over 3,000 jars of the stuff already. It seems that even though the dirt is free, and using volunteers to fill the jars is free labor, it seems that buying the jars from Hobby Lobby and producing the labels for the jars costs about $6.00 each, so they are netting $4.00/a jar profit. Not a ton of money, but it is another $12k they didn't have before either. Call it a case of making lemonade out of a case of m,lemons, if you will.

No I didn't buy any of the dirt. I didn't feel the need. I have plenty of Kentucky Blue Grass in my yard. I don't need the dirt too.

[Frosty]

While I was at the NCM, I ordered two commemorative bricks for my father, one for the museum and one for him. The bricks were going to take 6-8 weeks to be made but they came in sooner than expected. I a got a letter from the NCM just before Father's Days that the brick had been installed at the NCM. I was able to give him the brick for Father's Day too. The museum brick is located in section HEX 3L of the Corvette Boulevard, the inside walkway lining the new addition in the NCM. This has the C4 logo on the brick - for obvious reasons.

 

 

 

My dad and his team were responsible for the liquid crystal display (LCD) instrument cluster that was installed in the C4 Corvette starting in 1984. He worked at AC Spark Plug division, which later became part of Delco Electronics after GM purchased Hughes Aircraft.

 

[Ringo64]

Nice, that's awesome! Poppa Frosty was involved in something very cool  

[Frosty]

Poppa Frosty has done a lot in his working career. He has several patents to his credit. He is an electrical engineer, so the cC4 Corvette instrument cluster was the highlight of his automotive career, he retired in 1987. He actually started working for old man Lear of Lear Jet back in the '50s and then North American Aviation working on the Voodoo in Columbus Ohio for awhile. He also worked on the Thor missile program at AC's facility in Oakcreek WI (outside Milwaukee). So I can honestly say he was also a rocket scientist. He is really rather amazing - of course I am very bias when I say that too.

[Ringo64]

I would definitely agree that he is rather amazing! Takes some skill, knowledge and a little rubbing of elbows to work on all that. Have any pics of his time working on the Vette?