Snow May Have Saved Nomad from Sinkhole

Zane Zander of Brillion, Wis., feels lucky. Zander owns an accurate replica of the 1954 Corvette Nomad—the Corvette wagon dream car that was shown at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York during the Motorama Show 60 years ago.

Zander and friends started building the replica in 1999. It took seven years to complete the project. Zander said there were hundreds of hours of hands-on work and many sleepless nights invested in the build.

Zander agreed to let the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Ky., display the car as part of a 60th anniversary exhibit. The car was to leave Wisconsin Feb. 10 and be at the museum Feb. 11. Zander believes it may have been in the museum’s Skydome area Feb. 12. That is where a sinkhole occurred.

At 5:44 am that Wednesday, the National Corvette Museum received a message from its security contractor that motion detectors in the Skydome had gone off. It was discovered that a sinkhole had collapsed within the Skydome.

No one was there and nobody was hurt. The Bowling Green Fire Department said the sinkhole was 40 ft. wide and 25-30 feet deep. Eight Corvettes fell into it. “I can’t say for sure that my Nomad would have been there,” Zander told Old Cars Weekly. “But that’s a possibility.”

Zander said he plans to go through with loaning his car to the museum. “I figure they need time to sort things out, so I have not called there yet,” he noted. “But I’m sure they’ll fix the damage better than ever and my car will be safe.”