Museum celebrating 50 years of the Corvette

June 28, 2002 BOWLING GREEN, Ky. AP reports that the first 50th anniversary Chevrolet Corvette rolled off the assembly line about a week ago and the National Corvette Museum began its yearlong birthday party Thursday.

The main event is the Historic Corvette Motorama, representing every model year of the Corvette. The motorama, consisting of invited Corvettes from 1953 to 2002 model years, left Flint, Mich., on Monday.

It went through the General Motors Design Center in Warren, Mich., and made a stop in St. Louis, where the Corvette was made from December 1953 to June 1981, when production was moved to Bowling Green.

"The Historic Motorama is becoming very significant," said Wendell Strode, the museum's executive director. "It seems so appropriate to retrace the roots."

The 50th anniversary 2003 model will join the motorama Friday at the GM Corvette Assembly Plant and it will make its way to the museum, where the motorama will be on display this weekend.

Two concept cars that were made by engineer teams working on the C5 generation are also on the way to Bowling Green. The cars have never been seen in public, Strode said.

"We just hope that they get here," he said.

The Historic Motorama will parade from the assembly plant to the museum at about 2 p.m. EDT Friday. The Celebration kickoff, featuring the 101st Airborne division Screaming Eagles parachute team, will begin at 3:30 p.m. EDT.