Corvette Forum Reveals the Rocky Road that Eventually Led to National Corvette Museum’s Success
Corvette Forum Reveals the Rocky Road that Eventually Led to National Corvette Museum’s Success
Corvette Forum Reveals the Rocky Road that Eventually Led to National Corvette Museum’s Success
As NCM celebrates 25 years, we chat with the museum’s retiring president, Wendell Strode, for a look back on its fascinating history.
The National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is celebrating its silver anniversary August 28-31. It is only fitting that we at Corvette Forum honor all the museum has done to help keep the unbridled spirit of our collective namesake alive. To that end, we hit the road and headed down to the museum.
We were fortunate enough to meet with the new president of the happiest place in the world (sorry, Disneyland!), Dr. Sean Preston. However, we were also able to chat with the man who led the museum for 23 of those 25 years, retiring NCM president Wendell Strode. It was a rare opportunity for us to pull into the crossroads of history.
It is staggering to think about how much we’ve seen America’s most beloved sports car grow and evolve over two decades. And the National Corvette Museum offers a wonderful opportunity to experience its evolution. Starting with a curvier take on the C4 body during the C5 era, and ending with the first-ever mid-engine machine of the C8 era. And Strode has a lot to say about the iconic Corvette, and the part he has played in keeping its legacy alive.
An Idea is Born
“The history of the museum goes back to the late ’80s, when [one of the board members of] the National Corvette Restorers Society (NCRS) brought up the idea of having a place for a repository for all things Corvette,” says Strode. “They developed that idea, lingered, talked about it some more; and then, at one of their national conferences in Bend, Oregon, the idea was shared with more people.”
One of those people, Ray Quinlan, told the NCRS that if they built a museum honoring the Corvette, he would donate his white-on-red 1953 C1. It took some time to put the idea together, but members of the NCRS were also interested in having a place where Corvette enthusiasts could see the history and the various models in the car’s then-nearly five decades of life on the road.
“About the same time, the plant manager at the Corvette assembly plant and some of his management folks were thinking that it’d be good to have a display area, a Corvette museum, as part of the factory tours,” Strode recalls.
Strode’s involvement with the National Corvette Museum began not as a member of the NCRS, nor as a Corvette fan in general but rather as a civic-minded banker in Bowling Green. He was involved in the city’s Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development. After the possibility of the museum caught his attention, he was all in. He met with Chamber CEO Danny Griffin, and suggested the museum become a main priority, especially with competition from cities like Flint, Orlando, and St. Louis.
An Enduring Legacy
“Danny put together a five-person task force [and] began to interact with some of those folks at NCRS,” says Strode, who was a part of the task force. They soon began planning the museum, talking to Michigan-based architectural firm Neumann/Smith Architecture, which would later build the NCM.
Meanwhile, Griffin met with landowners who owned undeveloped property near Exit 28 off of Kentucky’s Interstate 65, managing to get them to donate a total of 30 acres to serve as then-future home of the NCM. The state government put up the funds to build.
The idea soon transformed from just a plant project to “a Bowling Green project.”
“The first plan was to do a national fundraising drive,” says Strode. “The ultimate goal, however, was to raise $15 million to bring the NCM to life.
‘GM, and especially the leadership at Chevrolet, supported the museum; but they didn’t write a check to help the museum.’
“During that time period, that’s when the automotive industry was having one of those major downturns, and GM almost filed bankruptcy,” he remembers. “GM, and especially the leadership at Chevrolet, supported the museum; but they didn’t write a check to help the museum.”
Though the biggest players in the game were on the sidelines, donations nonetheless continued. According to Strode, ExxonMobil donated $250,000 plus memorabilia for one of the museum’s exhibits. Goodyear dropped $100,000 for the cause. While the employees at the Bowling Green plant and the UAW gave around $200,000 to $400,000. And the community donated a total of $500,000. Despite the effort, the total donations fell short of the $15 million mark the task force had hoped to raise.
“The strategy had to change,” says Strode.
They were able to get a loan from a lender that required a feasibility study. The study found that the museum could easily draw 200,000 visitors annually.
“Another factor, from the Chamber’s perspective, is that it would have been pretty easy for GM to make a decision [to move the plant] to Oklahoma,” Strode said. “It was a one-shift plant, one product. There was always concern…that it would be a pretty easy decision to move that somewhere. By having a museum here, they felt it might help cement [GM] to stay in this community. That was another reason to be aggressive in making this happen.”
With the loans secured, work began. Soon the builders were finishing the museum while Corvette caravans were leaving Nashville and Louisville to attend its grand opening in 1994.
