[VIDEO] Corvette Museum to Ring In Corvette’s 70th Anniversary With Star-Studded Exhibits

A legendary car designer is helping the National Corvette Museum celebrate the Corvette’s 70th anniversary in 2023.

The highlight of the year-long celebration at the museum will be “Custom CARisma: The Legendary Creations of Carl Casper,” slated to open March 10 and run through Jan. 24, 2024, according to Bob Bubnis, NCM curator of collections and exhibits manager.

“Anybody who’s on the I-65 corridor who’s into cars, especially back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, they know about Carl Casper,” Bubnis said in an interview with The Bowling Green Daily News.

Some of Casper’s most famous creations will be shown, including the Turbo Shark Corvette, Popcorn Wagon, Young American Dragster, 51 Merc “Knight Cruiser,” Paddy Wagon, 32 Renegade Deuce, and Cosmic Invader – along with the Batmobile from the 1992 Batman Returns movie. (By the way, Casper is said to be one of the few people to keep every car he created.)

“One of the things we try to do with all the exhibits here in the museum is give them some kind of universal appeal,” Bubnis said.

The exhibit will explore the many talents of this “Renaissance Man,” who not only designed custom cars (many of which appeared in movies and TV shows – witness the A-Team vehicles, K.I.T.T. and the General Lee) but also was a racer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He even organized more than 1,000 car shows across the U.S., including a 55-year running Louisville car show that once attracted 119,000 visitors.

Many of his designs became model cars, with several to be shown at the exhibit.

“We’ve noticed that whenever we tell people that the Popcorn Wagon is going to be here, all these older faces like mine light up, because we remember when we had those kits and putting those cars together,” Bubnis said.

Casper was born into a working-class Michigan family that assembled automobiles. “It’s what you did if you lived in Flint,” Carl told Motor Trend in a 2013 interview. “For a brief time, I worked in the bowels of the dreaded assembly line.”

Fortunately for all of us, he took that automotive DNA and turned it into a much more passionate career. Now, the museum hopes Casper’s work in the past will inspire a new generation of youngsters.

“You take somebody like Carl, who was able to use his imagination to do great things, and really, I think if you look at almost every exhibit in the museum, the whole idea is to get you intrigued about some aspect of the Corvette, whether it be racing or design or engineering or just the core of our world in general,” Bubnis said.

Who knows? You may even Casper himself at the museum as he plans to visit occasionally during the year-long exhibit.

During the 70th anniversary celebration, the museum is also planning another new exhibit with iconic cars from each of the eight generations to spotlight big milestones in Corvette history.

That’s in addition to longtime favorites like the Michelin NCM Bash in April, Military Appreciation Month and the Vet ‘n Vettes Event in May, the 29th NCM Anniversary Celebration in August and the Corvette Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in September.

Source:
BG Daily News

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