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If you order a new car you can select Museum Delivery. That means the delivery will take place at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green. The museum is directly across the street from the Assembly Plant. The museum makes a big deal of the deliver and Corvette fans really like to go through the experience. Included is a personal plant tour depending on on plant work schedules and some times closure to visitors. Right now the plant isn't open to visitors due to something they are doing there. You have to pay extra to get the personalized museum delivery and you have to pay to travel to the museum to get the car. Then you have the option of driving it home or having it shipped. Given the added cost to the car order and the cost of your travel (air fare to Nashville, rental car from Nashville to Bowling Green, hotel, food, etc) to and from the museum you can probably count on paying $2500 to $4000 more for the car depending on whether you drive it home or not.
I would like to do it but have a hard time accepting the added cost just to take delivery of a car.
If I was to buy a new one I would love to do a museum delivery. When we visited the museum in Apr of 2017 museum delivery cars were in the lobby of the museum. It was great. I would plan it as a vaction and enjoy the time there. Is it worth the money thats up to each person but what a great experience it would be. The only problem is not enough miles on it to take it on the museum track
It is an incredible experience. My wife and I flew to Nashville (on Southwest), did a one way car rental, stayed a total of 4 nights (2 in Bowling Green and 2 on the road home. Total cost was under $2000 including the $995 R8C option.
Here's our car on Corvette Blvd:
You can read about my Museum Delivery and drive home (and see more pictures) in this thread: My NCM Delivery and Trip Home
very cool bucket list thing we did last June. Basically they were with us from 10am to 5pm, doing a very detailed one on one indoctrination on the car, and museum tour along with 1yr museum membership. That did include a 2hr plant tour, which is now not available till 2019. Still, well worth it to us. We drove down from Indy day before with family and drove the new C7 home that evening. We actually did two trips, 3 weeks prior we did the build tour and watched our car being built, then came back for the delivery.
Last edited by jdsaengine; Dec 20, 2017 at 04:43 PM.
One more interesting fact about R8C. If your car has R8C, there is a sheet indicating Museum Delivery that stays with the car through the assembly process. It alerts the workers that that car is going to be a NCM Delivery. I believe they pay a little more attention on those builds.
My wife and I did the museum delivery in July. It was a great experience. One of the delivery people gets assigned to your car and you. When you arrive your car will be on the main drag inside the museum. The representative goes over the car with you and shows how all the stuff works. You then get a personal tour of the museum. For us, they turned on the PDR to record the car being driven out of the museum. They then take photos of you and your car.
We drove the car home to California with a stop in Little Rock for the 500 mile oil change.
The factory was closed for tours when we picked up the car and they said we could collect our personal tour when we go back.
I echo the sentiments of the others in this thread that have done an RC8 delivery. I took my daughter, her husband, and a guest with me for the delivery of my 15 Z51 Convertible and it was the best of times. We enjoyed the factory tour the most--and little known secret. Arrive early--we got there before 8 AM, did all the predelivery stuff with the car, then the factory tour, had them install the splash guards for me and then drove the car over to the factory entrance for pictures.
I would definitely wait until the factory is up and open for tours. Don't think I have ever met or heard of someone who did this, that didn't say they enjoyed it. And the cost never seems to matter.
I flew into Nashville the night before from Dallas on Southwest (one way flight was cheap--$99) stayed that night, the day of my delivery which was Wednesday Feb 5, 2015 and drove back Thurs-Fri. Had it been just me in the Corvette, I would have driven nonstop back to Dallas.
Cannot recommend it more--a great memory I wouldn't trade for twice what it cost.
I echo the sentiments of the others in this thread that have done an RC8 delivery. I took my daughter, her husband, and a guest with me for the delivery of my 15 Z51 Convertible and it was the best of times. We enjoyed the factory tour the most--and little known secret. Arrive early--we got there before 8 AM, did all the predelivery stuff with the car, then the factory tour, had them install the splash guards for me and then drove the car over to the factory entrance for pictures.
I would definitely wait until the factory is up and open for tours. Don't think I have ever met or heard of someone who did this, that didn't say they enjoyed it. And the cost never seems to matter.
I flew into Nashville the night before from Dallas on Southwest (one way flight was cheap--$99) stayed that night, the day of my delivery which was Wednesday Feb 5, 2015 and drove back Thurs-Fri. Had it been just me in the Corvette, I would have driven nonstop back to Dallas.
Cannot recommend it more--a great memory I wouldn't trade for twice what it cost.
Your video is way-cool! Thanks for sharing that! I'm headed to the Museum in just under 3 weeks to pick up my Admiral Blue GS Vert. I'm praying for decent weather so I don't have to end up shipping it home! Crossing my fingers!
Regarding costs: $995 for the R8C delivery. Airfare from you to Nashville: $150 from Seattle. YMMV. Rental car: $75. Cost to drive home: About $250=$300 a day without being frugal or spendy. I believe the costs cited above are inflated. The average cost to add R8C is more like $2000 unless you live a long ways away from Bowling Green.
Your video is way-cool! Thanks for sharing that! I'm headed to the Museum in just under 3 weeks to pick up my Admiral Blue GS Vert. I'm praying for decent weather so I don't have to end up shipping it home! Crossing my fingers!
Thanks. I'm sure you know the museum staff is accomodating if you need to reschedule due to weather--not sure where you're driving back to, but when I did mine in February 2015 the local forecast for BG was possibility of freezing rain, snow and sleet on the Wednesday afternoon (travel day for my trip up) through Thursday morning, clearing up sunny and cold on Thursday. The roads South of there to Dallas were all clear and nothing forecast for Thursday through the weekend, so I kept my travel plans as is, kept watching the weather online right up until I boarded my flight out to Nashville, and rolled the dice.
Weather was perfect albeit cold--never got the sleet/freezing rain in BG KY Wednesday night thru early Thursday AM. One of the advantages of Southwest is their Wanna Get Away fares can be rescheduled at the last minute without change fees (but cost can go up). I got lucky with the weather cooperating.
But it was 10 days or so later (forget the exact timing) BG got a major snow storm that shut the plant for a couple of days. So they do get bad weather sometimes. As long as you don't have snow covered roads to deal with you shouldn't have to have the car trailered home.
Good luck with your trip--hope the weather gods smile on you too.
Last edited by boxster99t; Dec 21, 2017 at 01:53 PM.
I echo the sentiments of the others in this thread that have done an RC8 delivery. I took my daughter, her husband, and a guest with me for the delivery of my 15 Z51 Convertible and it was the best of times. We enjoyed the factory tour the most--and little known secret. Arrive early--we got there before 8 AM, did all the predelivery stuff with the car, then the factory tour, had them install the splash guards for me and then drove the car over to the factory entrance for pictures.
I would definitely wait until the factory is up and open for tours. Don't think I have ever met or heard of someone who did this, that didn't say they enjoyed it. And the cost never seems to matter.
I flew into Nashville the night before from Dallas on Southwest (one way flight was cheap--$99) stayed that night, the day of my delivery which was Wednesday Feb 5, 2015 and drove back Thurs-Fri. Had it been just me in the Corvette, I would have driven nonstop back to Dallas.
Cannot recommend it more--a great memory I wouldn't trade for twice what it cost.
If I was to buy a new one I would love to do a museum delivery. When we visited the museum in Apr of 2017 museum delivery cars were in the lobby of the museum. It was great. I would plan it as a vaction and enjoy the time there. Is it worth the money thats up to each person but what a great experience it would be. The only problem is not enough miles on it to take it on the museum track
I took my C7 to the track right after museum delivery. It was just a touring lap, since I wasn't going to hammer the car. We did follow the leader, and I was asked to hang right on the tail of the leader. That didn't happen! I was too worried about a rock chip on my new car. There was one tight section that I should have braked harder before corner entry. Good thing about museum delivery...the drive home handled the 1500 mile break in process. I then took the car to COTA for some real track time. 2:38.0 laps, once I learned the track. Great memories!
