Chevy runs deep! This time Freiburger and Finnegan find out just how deep as they visit the infamous sinkhole that opened up inside the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green
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MotorTranscript
00:00 (engine revving)
00:02 - Wow, on this episode of Roadkill,
00:11 it is all about wrecking Corvettes.
00:14 - That's not gonna buff out.
00:15 (engine revving)
00:20 (upbeat music)
00:25 (upbeat music)
00:27 - In February of 2014, a giant sinkhole opened up
00:41 underneath the National Corvette Museum
00:43 in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
00:45 And it swallowed eight Corvettes
00:47 that are worth like jillions of dollars each,
00:49 and that is the most Roadkill thing
00:51 that ever happened to a bunch of museum Corvettes.
00:54 So we figured we needed to check it out.
00:56 We flew into Florida and tried to pick up
00:58 the junkiest Corvette that we could
00:59 so that we could road trip it all the way to Kentucky
01:02 and check out that sinkhole
01:03 and have a look at the Corvette assembly line
01:05 while we were there.
01:06 My mission was to find Freiburger and I
01:08 transportation from Florida to Kentucky.
01:10 So of course, I went right to Craigslist
01:13 and looked for the very worst Corvette I could find.
01:15 Hey.
01:19 Jamie Hannon owned a '75 Corvette
01:22 that he had bought six years ago,
01:24 found a bunch of rust,
01:25 and then gave up on this restoration project.
01:28 And he figured this is the perfect car for Roadkill.
01:31 It's got paint on it.
01:33 Dude, this thing is nice.
01:34 I'd never seen this car before we got there.
01:37 And I'm thinking, man, this doesn't look that bad.
01:39 But then we pulled the plastic off
01:41 and yeah, this thing was definitely Roadkill.
01:43 The interior was completely gone.
01:46 And what was there either came out of a Jeep
01:49 or was completely rusted into the ground.
01:52 So what's actually the dilemma here?
01:53 Does it run?
01:54 Well, there's no windshield, so.
01:56 There's one window in the state of Florida.
01:59 We've called everywhere.
02:00 It's in Orlando.
02:01 It's that hard to find a Corvette windshield?
02:03 Wow.
02:07 Oh, this is cheating.
02:08 We can leave now.
02:12 This is the nicest car with no windshield I've ever driven.
02:16 So we're checking out the Corvette
02:17 and in walks Don Schumacher, the Don.
02:21 Hi, how you doing?
02:25 Holy crap, that's Don Schumacher.
02:27 If you don't know who Don Schumacher is,
02:30 that means you're probably not an NHRA fan
02:32 because this guy's been around since the mid '60s,
02:34 racing stuff like the Stardust Funny Cars.
02:37 And today he is the single biggest owner
02:40 in top fuel teams in the National Hot Rod Association.
02:43 This guy, Jamie, is one of Schumacher's best friends.
02:45 They go fishing together all the time.
02:47 He mentions that he's going to the Las Vegas NHRA race
02:50 the next weekend.
02:51 I'm heading to Vegas on Thursday.
02:53 And he invites us to just come by the pits
02:55 and hang out, park our car in the pits and everything.
02:57 We can make this thing go to Vegas.
02:59 Screw the Corvette Museum, let's go.
03:01 We qualify Friday and Saturday
03:03 and eliminations are on Sunday.
03:05 You're welcome into the racetrack.
03:07 Just send me a text and I'll arrange for tickets
03:09 and hospitality and some good meals.
03:11 We're either going to the Corvette Museum in Kentucky
03:14 or maybe drag racing in Las Vegas
03:17 because Don Schumacher just showed up here.
03:20 - On the floor.
03:26 - All right, so we need to get some calipers.
03:31 - Wow, that's real bad.
03:32 - Oh, spinning tires.
03:36 - Do you see the steering wheel like is doing this?
03:41 - Oh yeah, it telescopes.
03:43 - It telescopes and when you take off
03:45 it comes back towards you.
03:47 As soon as we got on the street,
03:48 I rolled a stop sign because the brakes on the Corvette
03:50 were absolute garbage.
03:51 And immediately I get pulled over
03:53 for the second time on Roadkill.
03:56 Hey officer.
03:57 - You know the stop sign back there,
03:58 you gotta stop those, okay?
04:00 - This time the cop was pretty cool though
04:01 and he let us go.
04:02 He just said, get this junk off the street
04:04 and pull it right back from where you found it
04:06 and never have it be on a public road again.
04:09 Yeah, little did he know.
04:11 (upbeat music)
04:13 Before we can go anywhere,
04:15 the Corvette does need a little bit of work.
04:16 It hasn't been on the road in about six years
04:19 and it seems like it runs and drives pretty good.
04:21 We did a test drive out there.
04:22 The problem is the brakes are really, really bad.
04:25 Look at all that brake fluid all over the rotor.
04:27 This is the great thing about Roadkill
04:29 is people ask, what is the show really about?
04:30 What do you do?
04:31 We don't know.
04:32 You show up to do one thing
04:33 and all of a sudden the plan changes.
04:35 In this case, completely unexpectedly,
04:38 Don Schumacher shows up and we decide to go to Las Vegas
04:41 instead of Bowling Green, Kentucky.
04:43 We have no idea if we're actually gonna pull it off.
04:45 We need to drive something like 2,600 miles,
04:48 36 hours to get to Las Vegas here from Florida
04:51 in a Corvette that hasn't run in six years,
04:54 that needs a brake job,
04:55 that has no interior in the rain with no windshield.
04:59 - Check it out, I found the windshield.
05:02 Oh yeah, it's gonna be perfect.
05:07 - Here's the deal, our new Corvette
05:09 doesn't have a windshield
05:10 and we can't find one within three hours of where we're at.
05:13 So we're gonna make one out of a piece of acrylic
05:15 that we got from the hardware store,
05:17 trace it with a Sharpie, cut it out with a jigsaw,
05:20 tape it in place and whatever else is leaking,
05:23 we're just gonna cover up with garbage bags and tape
05:26 because it's raining, it's probably snowing
05:29 and we need to get this car on the road.
05:31 (upbeat music)
05:37 Custom.
05:38 Fixed.
05:44 He's gonna put just a couple of tech screws
05:49 in the windshield right now
05:50 to keep it from blowing out of the car while we're driving.
05:53 We change the oil, bleed the brakes, hit the road, right?
05:58 - In theory.
06:00 This is so nice now that after we put the factory trim
06:03 back over the Gorilla Tape,
06:04 I may go back here and slice the excess off,
06:07 just because we're that high end here at Roadkill.
06:10 - All right, now the big question is,
06:12 how am I gonna mount our tack?
06:14 When it comes to zip tie craftsmanship,
06:18 I'm hard to beat, pretty much the renowned expert.
06:21 Do you like the tension arrangement here?
06:25 - Pretty good.
06:28 - Yeah, I mean, it's sturdy.
06:30 - The general consensus here is that we may not make it
06:32 in three days to Vegas
06:33 and we needed some good luck.
06:36 And I spotted this in the rafters here.
06:38 And how can a bald eagle mounted to, is that a trophy?
06:44 But how can this not be good luck?
06:46 You could run for president in this car.
06:48 - All right.
06:49 Westbound and down.
06:52 - So after a quick brake job, oil change,
06:55 no tune up at all, we left Jamie behind,
06:58 jumped in his Corvette and headed for Las Vegas.
07:03 (cheering)
07:05 (upbeat music)
07:08 Vegas, baby, Vegas.
07:12 I think we're gonna make it.
07:15 - Tack doesn't work actually.
07:18 - That on the floor?
07:24 - Oh yeah.
07:24 That's floor.
07:27 When we hit the road, we did the quick math
07:30 and realized we were gonna have to drive 12 hours
07:32 just on this day in order to get to Vegas on time.
07:35 So we had no time to spare.
07:37 And that's when the Turbo 400 completely gave up,
07:40 ruining all hope of getting to Vegas in time.
07:44 How come it's our nicest car
07:45 and it went the shortest distance?
07:47 Actually, the charger didn't go very far either,
07:49 but it was fixable.
07:50 This isn't fixable.
07:51 - Fewest amount of zip ties on this one.
07:53 That's the problem.
07:54 - Yeah.
07:55 No, this would be us going on Craigslist
07:57 to try and find another vehicle.
07:59 Or we get a trans.
08:01 - That's a lot of time.
08:04 - Even if we find a transmission,
08:06 by the time we change it,
08:07 there's no way we're getting to Vegas in time for this race.
08:10 - We're probably going back to plan A
08:12 and heading up to the Corvette Museum,
08:13 but that's only if we could get this thing fixed.
08:16 We're loaded up on the trailer.
08:17 Jamie, who gave us the car, is hunting up a transmission.
08:20 We're gonna see if we can get it swapped out tonight.
08:23 - You ever towed a Corvette
08:25 with a bald eagle on the back before?
08:27 (dramatic music)
08:30 - We ended up towing the Corvette back to Jamie's shop,
08:33 where at least he softened the blow with a few beers.
08:36 And he also brought in a bunch of friends to help us
08:39 and a guy who had found a used turbo 400 transmission
08:41 somewhere in his stockpile.
08:43 And so we jammed on it.
08:44 We got the car up on a lift,
08:46 did an R&R on the transmission.
08:48 And by the time we were done, it was like midnight.
08:51 The U-joints in this thing are absolutely destroyed.
08:55 They're all notchy and loose and junky and lost.
08:59 We have the new turbo 400 here,
09:01 but it looks like somebody crammed a metric nut
09:03 onto the shaft for the shifter.
09:05 And so we're trying to cut some new threads onto it.
09:09 - So we left for Nevada 12 hours ago,
09:11 blew up the transmission 10 miles down the road.
09:13 These nice folks found us a used one.
09:16 We've got our old converter on here,
09:17 but brand new U-joints.
09:18 We're about to get back on the road.
09:22 For where, I have no idea.
09:24 (engine revving)
09:26 We had a running driving vet,
09:28 but still no hope of making it to Las Vegas.
09:30 The next morning we were stoked again.
09:39 We were Corvette Museum bound
09:41 in our perfectly good 75 Corvette.
09:44 - This car is really not that comfortable.
09:47 - No.
09:48 So we stopped for some tourist trap action.
09:50 And the thing about Florida is that virtually
09:53 every gas station overloads you with gator stuff.
09:57 - So a while ago, we were at an auto parts store
10:01 and we see this third gen Camaro, amazing car.
10:04 This flawless paint job, said Twix on the side,
10:07 something everyone should have, you know?
10:09 The best part about that car was it had a
10:11 alligator print interior and a real alligator
10:16 molded into the top of the dashboard.
10:18 Homeboy's got an alligator on his dash.
10:20 (laughing)
10:23 Look at it.
10:24 David fell in love with it.
10:25 And I think he's trying to bite that guy's rhyme
10:27 because he just bought a gator head
10:28 and zip tied it to our dashboard.
10:30 I think we're setting trends here.
10:32 That's what's happening.
10:35 - Yeah.
10:35 - So are we going to call it the Boogie Nights Corvette
10:50 or the AARP Corvette?
10:52 - I was going to try and find you a big gold chain.
10:55 - The great thing about Roadkill is I get to get out
11:10 and see the country and some family members.
11:12 It just so happened that our route to Kentucky
11:15 took us right through Georgia where my brother lives.
11:19 We spent nine hours on the road today.
11:20 None of them warm.
11:22 We're outside of Georgia now.
11:23 We're in like, what, Atlanta?
11:25 We're in Ackworth, Georgia.
11:26 And a few episodes ago, we met Finnegan's dad
11:29 in the middle of nowhere when we happened to be in Arkansas.
11:32 - Hey.
11:33 - Son of a bitch.
11:34 (laughing)
11:37 - This time, we're dropping in on his brother and his mom.
11:40 - I pretty much won't have to get her a Christmas gift
11:48 after this.
11:50 - I dressed especially homeless for this.
11:52 - You totally look homeless.
11:53 So once again, we surprised my mom,
11:56 who happened to be visiting my brother in Georgia
11:58 that night.
11:59 Right now they're going, "Mom, go answer the door."
12:01 She's going, "It's not my house.
12:02 "Why am I answering the door?"
12:04 There she is, she's coming.
12:05 Hey, Mom.
12:08 - No freaking way!
12:11 Oh my gosh!
12:12 - Hey there.
12:13 - Hello, sweetie pie.
12:15 - Hi.
12:17 - We ended up spending the night at his brother's house
12:19 and having a nice home-cooked meal,
12:21 which is rare, if not impossible on Roadkill.
12:24 And then the next morning, fired up our Corvette
12:26 and totally brought down the property value.
12:29 I don't think they want that thing
12:30 in front of their museum.
12:31 That would give Corvettes a bad name.
12:34 Good to see you.
12:36 Drive safely.
12:37 - And it's the last time.
12:39 (engine revving)
12:40 - Ooh, look at that.
12:42 (engine revving)
12:45 (upbeat music)
12:55 Now, I don't know if you realize
13:00 the true historical significance of this Corvette.
13:04 See, if you go back to Corvette history,
13:06 you look at 1953,
13:08 and that car had a inline six-cylinder engine
13:10 making 150 horsepower.
13:12 And 22 years later, they had eclipsed that.
13:15 This Corvette, with its L48 350 engine,
13:18 makes 165 horsepower.
13:22 That's right.
13:23 This is the lowest powered V8 Corvette ever made.
13:26 And they're not even pissed off horsepower.
13:29 They're not even mildly annoyed horsepower.
13:32 But the good news is the interior is super comfy
13:37 with these Jeep Wrangler seats
13:39 and no dash to get in the way.
13:41 Yeah, this is about as good as a Corvette gets,
13:43 at least a roadkill Corvette.
13:45 (upbeat music)
13:51 So it's Thursday morning now,
13:55 and we're on our way to Bowling Green, Kentucky,
13:57 where we're gonna go see where they actually make Corvettes.
14:01 'Cause we need to give them a few tech tips
14:02 based on our intimate knowledge of this particular model.
14:07 - Yeah, here's where you screw it up.
14:09 That part of the car that allows water to go in the car,
14:13 don't do that anymore.
14:14 This is the worst Corvette ever.
14:16 It has no horsepower, no windows.
14:19 It's really cold.
14:20 The only thing keeping us from freezing to death
14:22 are these blankets.
14:23 But other than that, things are going pretty well.
14:25 And I'm feeling pretty good about this trip,
14:27 right up until the point where we ran out of gas.
14:30 - We were shocked to discover that the fuel gauge
14:35 in the Corvette wasn't really accurate.
14:37 We were able to jag across like four lanes of traffic,
14:41 up and off ramp, barely cresting the top of it,
14:44 just in time to hit another downhill part
14:46 where we're coasted into a gas station
14:48 within like 10 feet of the pump.
14:50 It couldn't have gone better.
14:52 Once we figured out how to keep gas in the tank,
14:58 it was pretty much smooth sailing
15:00 till we finally arrived at the Mecca of Corvettes,
15:03 Bowling Green, Kentucky,
15:05 which is the site of not only the National Corvette Museum,
15:08 but also the assembly plant where every single Corvette
15:11 has come from since 1981.
15:14 And they even had special parking just for us.
15:17 We finally made it to Bowling Green
15:30 and we're deep inside the heart of the Corvette plant.
15:33 This is where all the brand new Corvettes come from.
15:36 Right here, there's seven miles of conveyor belts
15:39 that go around inside this building.
15:40 That's a million square feet.
15:42 It's 14 acres.
15:44 - I was just at Disneyland like a week ago with my kid
15:48 and it looks a lot like this,
15:49 except this is brighter and moving a lot slower,
15:51 but somehow this is more fun than Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
15:55 - This is where the frame is actually built
15:57 from the ground up.
15:58 Frame is actually aluminum now as opposed to steel.
16:01 That makes it 99 pounds lighter and about 57% stiffer.
16:06 - This is where they all come together.
16:08 The engines being installed up from the bottom
16:10 or actually the body's being dropped
16:12 onto the chassis from above.
16:14 That's cool.
16:15 Oh, there, check it out.
16:16 - The headers are on it already.
16:18 - They obviously don't know how to do this right
16:19 'cause there isn't ATF all over the floor.
16:21 I don't see anybody looking for tools.
16:23 - I hate to say this,
16:24 but it really makes us look like amateurs.
16:26 - It kind of does.
16:28 So many people here are recognizing us,
16:29 people who work on the assembly line.
16:31 I think we're gonna be responsible
16:32 for ruining a couple of new Corvettes
16:34 'cause people are stopping working to wave at us.
16:37 - Dude, y'all the real deal.
16:39 - Oh, thanks.
16:40 - Oh, (beep)
16:43 - Ah!
16:44 Roadkill is awesome.
16:45 I can't begin to take it.
16:47 - Thank you.
16:47 - Oh, (beep)
16:49 My boys are gonna freak.
16:50 - (laughs) Cool.
16:52 - Hey, thanks a lot.
16:53 - Very nice, thanks a lot.
16:54 - You paid him to do that, didn't you?
16:58 Look at that, nobody's driving that.
16:59 - That's crazy.
17:01 - It's called our AGC robot.
17:02 It's the automated guided cart.
17:04 That's special vision technology.
17:06 So if you were to actually be standing in front of it,
17:08 it would patiently wait for you to move
17:10 before it moved on.
17:11 - After the tour, we finally reached the very end,
17:15 the place where these Corvettes spring to life
17:17 for the very first time and move under their own power.
17:20 And the very first thing they do after like 10 feet
17:23 is run over these gnarly stutter bumps
17:25 that settle the suspension for them.
17:27 - I'm not really a Corvette guy.
17:29 You know, they're expensive.
17:30 I really can't afford one.
17:32 But I gotta admit, I walked out of this place wanting one.
17:35 - Finally, we arrived at our ultimate destination,
17:39 ground zero for Corvette destruction.
17:42 These are the ones they pulled out.
17:51 - So this thing fell into Middle Earth.
17:54 It's really not that trashed.
17:55 - Looks like most of the stuff in my driveway.
17:57 - Oh, okay.
17:59 Oh my God.
18:00 So Hill and Karen Clark donated their car to the museum
18:06 and this is how it gets treated?
18:07 - Yep.
18:08 - Pfft.
18:09 Not leaving my car parked here.
18:10 That one I just put right back in the hole.
18:13 How do we get to the hole, miss?
18:15 - You're heading that way.
18:16 - Keep on going.
18:17 - Just don't go in.
18:18 - Oh, we're going deep.
18:20 That's why we got these.
18:22 We knew the odds were pretty low
18:25 that the guys at the Corvette Museum
18:26 would allow us to actually ghost ride our Stingray
18:29 into the hole, but we thought we'd try anyway.
18:32 I mean, hell, we drove all the way from Florida.
18:34 How could they tell us no?
18:35 We have a car we'd like to donate to the museum.
18:38 - You do?
18:38 - But we want to put it directly in the hole
18:40 so it can no longer hurt any of mankind.
18:42 - Okay, what kind of car is it?
18:44 - 75 Corvette.
18:45 - 75, I thought we'd say Mustang.
18:47 - Oh, no, no.
18:48 No, we want to make a time capsule.
18:50 We want to make a donation.
18:52 - No offense, nobody wants this Corvette.
18:54 I would actually like to ghost ride the Corvette
18:56 into the hole.
18:58 Rick the gas pedal, let it go.
18:59 Where she lays, she lays.
19:01 - Think of a live video feed.
19:02 - Yes, that would be something I would like to see.
19:04 (laughing)
19:06 - All right, sweet hole, Bob.
19:07 Thanks for showing us.
19:08 - You're very welcome.
19:10 - I don't think Bob's gonna let me put my Stingray
19:12 in his sinkhole.
19:13 After a week-long immersion into the Corvette world
19:17 and seeing the sinkhole that swallowed eight vets,
19:21 we get it now.
19:22 Chevy runs deep.
19:24 So in the end, it turns out we kind of offended these guys
19:27 with the suggestion that our 75 should go back in the hole
19:31 and get covered up and paved over,
19:33 sort of as a memento to the Corvettes
19:35 that could have been lost.
19:36 And so here we bring you gratuitous Corvette violence,
19:41 all 165 horsepower worth.
19:44 (whistle blowing)
19:46 (upbeat music)
19:50 (engines revving)
19:52 (upbeat music)
19:56 (upbeat music)
19:59 (upbeat music)
20:02 (upbeat music)
20:09 (upbeat music)
20:14 (upbeat music)
20:26 (upbeat music)
20:28 - Yeah, the beauty of this is that we can't open the hood
20:42 because the cable broke.
20:43 - Yeah.
20:44 - So we're fine.
20:44 So I finally got the Corvette Stingray out of my system.
20:49 I'd kind of wanted one for a long time
20:51 and now I'd had a road trip in one.
20:54 If you think about it, this is a road kill win.
20:56 We took a car that had not run in six years,
20:58 fixed it, overcame adversity,
21:01 went to the Corvette assembly plant, saw the sinkhole,
21:04 and unfortunately did not get to leave our Corvette behind.
21:07 As usual, time was short
21:10 and we had to jump on an airplane home.
21:12 So we called up our buddies at Holley and said,
21:14 "Hey man, you can have the keys to our Corvette."
21:17 - Why are we always bailing these guys out?
21:20 Divas.
21:22 (upbeat music)
21:25 - Here's the choice.
21:32 You take it right back to that building over there
21:33 and park it, okay?
21:35 Not legit to be on the street.
21:36 - Okay.
21:37 - All right?
21:38 If I see it again, we're gonna have to tow it.
21:39 - That's my second choice.
21:40 - That's your second choice.
21:41 - Okay, well, I'm picking option number one.
21:44 - All right.
21:45 - Thank you very much for the courtesy.
21:46 (upbeat music)
21:49 (upbeat music)
21:51 (upbeat music)
21:54 (upbeat music)
21:56 (upbeat music)
21:59 (upbeat music)