[VIDEO] Carl Casper Exhibit Opens at the National Corvette Museum

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[VIDEO] Carl Casper Exhibit Opens at the National Corvette Museum

Photo Credits: National Corvette Museum


Carl Casper has done it all during his long career – car designer and engineer, racer, movie car builder, antique carriage collector and restorer, author, artist, sculptor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

Now he can add “exhibitor at the National Corvette Museum” to his lengthy and impressive resume.

That’s right. The NCM’s newest exhibit – Custom CARisma: The Legendary Creations of Carl Casper – is now open and will be included with Museum admission through December 31, 2023.

Carl Casper


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. For 55 years, from 1963 to 2017, Casper produced, co-produced, or teamed up to produce more than 1,000 car shows across the United States!

Several of his most legendary creations will be on display at the National Corvette Museum, including The Batman Returns BatmobileTM*, Turbo Shark Corvette, Popcorn Wagon, Young American Dragster, 51 Merc “Knight Cruiser”, Paddy Wagon, 32 Renegade Deuce and the Cosmic Invader.

Casper calls it “a tremendous honor” to have his custom car creations on display at the Museum.

“Hopefully, this exhibit will encourage, educate, and inspire all attendees, especially today’s youth,” he said. “May that spark enthusiastically motivate them to create new and innovative positive ideas, discoveries and inventions that will meet and far exceed all of our many future challenges.”

Carl Casper Vintage Advertisement


Casper says he has “admired, owned, and enjoyed” many of the eight generations of Corvette and adds that he has “always revered all of the remarkable engineers, designers, stylists, and entire team of America’s greatest sports car.”

Now, “being a small part of the incredible National Corvette Museum” is an “exceptional privilege” he will always treasure, Casper says.

Carl Casper sanding the Batmobile


His interest in cars isn’t surprising since Casper was born into a working-class Michigan family that assembled automobiles. “It’s what you did if you lived in Flint,” Carl once 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,” says Bob Bubnis, NCM curator of collections and exhibits manager.


Source:
National Corvette Museum

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