The National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky was recently recognized by USA Today as a top-10 destination for car lovers. According to the 10Best USA Today Readers’ Choice 2024 awards, the museum has been ranked as the second-best car museum in the United States. The National Corvette Museum is located near the GM Bowling Green plant, the exclusive producer of the Corvette sports car since 1981.
As one might expect, the National Corvette Museum offers a comprehensive collection of vehicles and interactive experiences, offering visitors a chance to see “more than 80 Corvettes in period settings,” as well as a chance to “get behind the wheel in their Corvette Racing Simulator,” per USA Today.
The Savoy Automobile Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, takes the top spot in the list of top-10 automotive destinations, followed by the third-ranked Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Notably, the National Corvette Museum is the highest-ranked museum dedicated to a single brand or model, surpassing the Porsche Experience Center, which placed seventh, and the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, which ranked ninth.
As previously covered by GM Authority, the National Corvette Museum is now a Blue Star Museum for 2024. This initiative, managed by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Blue Star Families and the Department of Defense, offers free admission to active U.S. military personnel and their families throughout the summer.
In addition to its Blue Star Museum designation, the National Corvette Museum recently unveiled a new wireframe model of the C5 Corvette as part of the Driven by Design exhibit. This model, which showcases the fifth-generation Corvette’s sleek lines, played a crucial role in the vehicle’s design process, helping to propel the Corvette into the modern era of automotive engineering.
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Comments
While the Corvette museum is great, USA Today’s “Reader’s Choice” voters have apparently never been to Nethercutt or even Petersen (I’ve been to all 3)
Apparently those jokers have never been to the Gilmore Museum in SW Michigan. For sheer variety, it has no equal.
I live in Canada and have visited the Gilmore Museum twice. I actually got to see the real “Little Deuce Coupe”. It’s my #1 museum.
I have owned 5 Corvettes, 62, 66, 68, 01, 03. The gap? I got married.😁
Hahaha, it happens.
i have owned 11 new corvettes,59, 62, 63 SWC, 64, 65 396, 66 427, 96, 99, 02, 04 and 08. our son was born in 66 and he came home in a 66 450 HP 427 corvette. that was the reason for the gap. we have been to the NCM many times
The Henry Ford isn’t dedicated to a single brand. In fact, GM sponsors part of the museum. They have some of everything.
Gilmore needs to be here !
The Savoy, really the Savoy? While there are some nice cars in the museum, it’s hard to get excited over a museum who’s collection includes an AMC Pacer and Gremlin, a 60’s AMC Ambassador a Pinto, 60’s Plymouth Valiant and Ford Falcon, a 70’s New Yorker, an Olds Vista Cruiser wagon, and a late 80’s Cutlass.
The USA Today “Readers Choice” awards are a joke. The winners are the museums that can convince the most people to vote for them, sometimes over and over again (for weeks every year the Simeone sends out emails pleading with people to vote for them).
While I love the Simeone and happy to have it only 45 minutes from me, as far as I’m concerned it’s not even the 3rd best museum for vintage race cars. The Revs Institute in Naples FL and the Brumos Collection in Jacksonville FL are both in much nicer buildings, and have nicer displays. The variety, rarity and quality of the cars at Revs are easily the equal of those at the Simeone. The Brumos doesn’t have as large or rare a collection as the Revs or Simeone, but the cars there are significant and the touch screen tables with period pictures and a complete history of each car are far and away better than anything I’ve found at any other museum. Indianapolis’ Speedway museum is also a much nicer museum than the Simeone, though being a museum dedicated to Indy car racing, they don’t have the interesting variety of cars found at the Simeone.
As noted above, Henry Ford is not only not dedicated to one brand, I wouldn’t even call it a car museum. While there is a significant portion of the museum dedicated to cars, I’d rough guess it isn’t more than 25% of the floor space. They have large displays of trains, airplanes (which is the first thing you see walking in), farm tractors, clocks, large industrial flywheel motors, and much more I am forgettting. In addition, they also have the Greenfield Museum next door, which is reproductions of historic buildings (seperate tickets). Highly recommend this museum, been there many times and I live 5 hours away in WNY.
Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum in Auburn Indiana. Spectacular!