Donated by Michael and Vickie Whitworth
As the dreary months of winter linger, many of us long for warm, summer days at a car show exhibiting our pride and joy Corvette, meeting other folks passionate for classic cars. These events, contrasted with the solitary hours spent maintaining, cleaning, and polishing, impart our Corvettes with a special story beyond a machine made up of steel, fiberglass, and plastic. Thus, donating a Corvette to the National Corvette Museum is often a decision of the heart for our donors.
This trophy is one example of the love poured into the 1985 Corvette donated by Michael and Vickie Whitworth in 2022 that was Bloomington Gold certified in 1997. They also donated several trophies, maintenance records, and photographs that provide a holistic story of their cherished Corvette, including pictures of their now grown son escorting his date to prom. Besides the care required to meet the standards of Bloomington Gold certification, this trophy is an example of the pride this owner had in taking their vehicle to local car shows.
One of the goals of the National Corvette Museum is to build our Collection thoughtfully. This means we do not always accept every vehicle or object so generously offered. Instead, a Collections Committee staffed by those both within and outside of the Collections & Exhibits department evaluates every offer using several criteria including condition, significance, and completeness of record. As stewards of a Collection that we preserve for many years, we must also factor the resources required for both the present and future including space, staff time, and other overhead costs to maintain museum quality environments. The trophy in the Whitworth’s collection is an example of the record that the Committee uses in its evaluation of each case for determining whether to accept vehicles and artifacts into the Collection.
As NCM continues to build its Collection, the Committee’s standards will only increase. The Collections department is currently working on more clearly defining criteria to improve the quality of our Collection and refine our wish list. We are currently seeking superior quality, award-winning Corvettes to add to our own Collection of original production vehicles in anticipation of the 70th Anniversary Exhibit opening June of this year. We are requesting the donation of a 2001 Z06 Corvette. This will fulfill our need of representing a Corvette for this production year and allow us to tell the story of Chevrolet producing a Z06 for the first time since 1963. Would you like to donate your 2001 Z06 Corvette, or do you have other artifacts and archival materials that may be a good fit for our Collection? Want to learn more about the donation process? Please visit our website here. And if you have any trophies that go with your 2001 Z06, you know we’ll want to look at those too!
