[VIDEO] National Corvette Museum Is Doing Some Preservation Work on this Special 1953 Corvette Roadster

If Ray Quinlan hadn’t donated his 1953 Corvette back in 1992, the National Corvette Museum might look far different nowadays.

“It had a big role in getting the museum,” NCM Vehicle Collections Supervisor Dan Garrett of the now 72-year-old car. “The NCRS board just wanted to do a library and archive. And with Mr. Quinlan’s donation, they decided to build a museum. So without this car, we may not have a museum here.”

But that gift was 33 years ago, and now the first car ever donated to the NCM needs some special attention to get it looking once again like it did when it first came off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan.

Helping refurbish No. 262 out of the 300 Corvettes built that first year in Flint, Michigan is Preservation Shop Intern Summer Votaw, a 20-year-old student at Southern Kentucky Community and Technical College.

For the past month, she’s been working hard to get the body of this special ‘Vette ready for a new paint job.

“It means a lot to me, especially for me to be this young and still be in school for my profession to be able to get the experience on something, something of this class of car. It’s been a really great eye-opening experience to me, especially with all the old fiberglass work I’ve been able to do and body work on that,” Votaw told WNKY 40 News.

Other work remains to be done, including the restoration of the original seats and many other high-labor tasks, before the car can be displayed at the museum again, hopefully by June.

Source:
wnky.com

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