Off with my son for Spring Break, so we decided last week to drive down to Bowling Green to visit the NCM and take the Corvette Assembly Plant tour.  The museum was pretty cool, but I have to say I was a bit disappointed, as they don't have that many pre-C4 Vettes on display.  I am really into the C2s and C3s, which they had a few, but a lot of space was spent on C5s and brand new C6s awaiting owner pickup at the museum.  Also not a lot of peeks at classic high performance engines, as nearly all cars had their hoods closed.

The factory tour was awesome.  A must-see for any Vette fan going through Bowling Green and wo hasn't toured an assembly plant.  I now know enough about the C6 to understand why they changed the designation from C5 to C6.  It is a totally different car that just happens to have a similar shape to the C5 because the C5 was already close to where they wanted to be in the wind tunnel testing and that seems to be the main driver of current Vette asthestics.  The C6 is an awesome car, but that remains my only complaint: they are willing to sacrifice looks in order for Car and Driver to report a top speed of 186 MPH.  I don't car about 186 MPH.  I care about serious acceleration and the classic Vette trademarks that seperated it from other cars:  the bulging fenders, pointy nose, retracting headlights, coke-bottle shape, sitting only inches from the road, mean engine and exhaust note.  All those things have faded away other than the engine.  With that said, I like the C6 FAR better than the C4 and C5.  The rear end is very cool, reminiscent of an early C3.

While I'm at it, for anyone visiting Bowling Green, maybe at this year's C3 Extravaganza, you really should drive the 30 miles north on I-65 to tour Mammoth Cave, the largest cave in the world.  It is really cool.  You can find it on the Web and pre-register for anything from a 1/2 hour "peeK" to a 4  hour, 4 mile walk through, or a 6 hour strenuous tour where you wear old clothes and do lots of climbing, crawling through tiny areas, etc.

Hope many of you can visit Bowling Green and KY this year!

One thing nice about the NCM is that it is always changing. I hope they get back to the older cars once the C6 has been out for a while.

I was there early last month and had the exact opposite experience. There had to be at least a dozen C3's in that dome room and throughout most of the walk through where they have the street scenes/store fronts were C1-3's. I really liked what they had as far as C4-6's go since most of them were significant in some way (aside from the new ones awaiting delivery), like the only 1983 Corvette left, the 1,000,000th Vette, a pre-production ZR-1 with body damage from testing, a C5 test mule with the camo still on it, others with special paint that never made it to production, ZR-1 Spyder and a ZR-1 vert.

Mammoth Cave sounds like a lot of fun.

Maybe the cave shoud be a visit during C3X?  Sounds like a good time.

We did the Diamond Cave last year and that was cool (about 55 F as I recall)
Mammouth would be great too, for about an hour or so.

chesh, What was the memento that the plant gave you for the $5.00 tour?

How many were in your tour group?

Was it worth the money?

We went on the 4 hour tour.  It was good excersize and fun, but not the tour for anyone with a heart condition or something else that would keep them from walking a few miles (fairly slowly).  I believe the fees were about $16 for adults and something less for kids.  We had a group of 120 with 2 guides, but they have frequent rest areas where everyone can gather round and hear the guide just fine.  The really cool part of the cave, with all kinds of stalagmites and stalagtites is at the end of the 4 hour tour.  They offer a much shorter tour (1 hour?) that comes in from exit of the longer tour, so you go straight in, see the cool section and pop back out.  If you sign-up for any tour, make sure you will see "Frozen Niagra", which is an area where a water fall left mineral deposits behind over thousands of years.  The deposits formed in the shape of the waterfall, leaving a rock waterfall.  Very neat.

I thought it was worth the money, but then again I had a day to burn.  Would I pass up a day of golf in order to go again, probably not, but that's another story, as I am a member of GA... golfers anonymous.  Not sure about the momento, but I'm guessing it's worth less than $5  ;-)

Sounds like you and your son had a great time on your little adventure. Were you able to take the vette? I hope to make the trip up this summer at least once and then again when the C3 Extravaganza is happening. 

I was actually thinking about making a run down there next week myself, since my days off are everyone elses work days... but now the car has to go back in the shop and have the wheel bearings on the right side looked at again. Just replaced the whole assembly....frustrating.....might have gotten a bad set up or they installed them wrong.

Didn't get to take the Vette.  It is very reliable, so I wouldn't have worried about that, but the forecast called for rain and I don't drive the Vette in Rain.