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Chevrolet To Oversee Restoring Sinkhole Corvettes

What Mother Earth devoured, Chevrolet plans to resurrect. The carmaker said Thursday it will oversee restoration of the classic cars swallowed by a huge sinkhole beneath the National Corvette Museum in Kentucky. General Motors Design in Warren, Mich., will manage the painstaking work to repair the eight prize vehicles, the automaker said Thursday. The cars were consumed when the earth opened up early Wednesday beneath a display area when the museum in Bowling Green, Ky., was closed. No injuries were reported. The museum was open Thursday except for the area where the sinkhole occurred. Mark Reuss, GM's head of global product development, said the damaged vehicles rank as "some of the most significant in automotive history." "There can only be one 1-millionth Corvette ever built," he said, referring to one of the damaged cars. "We want to ensure as many of the damaged cars are restored as possible so fans from around the world can enjoy them." Just how the cars will be pulled out of the ground remains to be seen, said museum executive director Wendell Strode. The local fire department estimated the hole is about 40 feet across and 25 to 30 feet deep. The hole opened beneath part of the museum's domed section. "We feel pretty confident that most of the cars can be extracted," Strode said Thursday. "And we hope and believe that with just a little bit of luck, that all eight cars can be extracted and be part of the restoration." Chevrolet spokesman Monte Doran said some of the cars look to be in good shape, while others are buried in rubble. "It will likely be several weeks until we can get the cars out and assessed," he said. The GM Design team has helped restore other historic cars, but the Corvette project looks to be its biggest, he said. "These Corvettes are part of our history, and they want them restored properly," Strode said. "We're thrilled they're doing this." The cars looked like toys as they plunged into the hole, piled in a heap amid dirt and concrete fragments. The museum owns six of the cars while two - a 1993 ZR-1 Spyder and a 2009 ZR1 Blue Devil - are on loan from General Motors. The other cars damaged were a 1962 black Corvette, a 1984 PPG Pace Car, a 1992 White 1 Millionth Corvette, a 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette, a 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette and a 2009 white 1.5 Millionth Corvette. Pictures of the sinkhole showed a collapsed section of floor with multiple cars visible inside the hole.

GM doubles miles open to its Super Cruise technology

DETROIT — General Motors said on Wednesday owners of certain vehicles equipped with its Super Cruise assisted driving system will now be able to use it on 400,000 miles (643,740 km) of North American roads, doubling the current operating area as Tesla and other automakers race to deploy hands-free cruising technology. GM's Super Cruise system, like Tesla's Autopilot system, is a driver assistance system, and does not enable true autonomous driving. Spurred by Tesla's aggressive deployment of Autopilot, and Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk's promises of a more advanced "Full Self Driving" system, GM, Ford, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz are racing to deploy competing partial automation technology in major markets. At the same time, safety regulators are showing concern that drivers do not understand that Autopilot and similar systems are not designed to take over driving in every circumstance. The GM system's sensors and software allow a motorist to cruise with hands off the wheel on highways that have been mapped in detail. But the driver is expected to stay alert and ready to take over the car. GM uses technology to monitor the driver, and Super Cruise will sound alarms or slow the car to a stop if it detects that a driver is not responding. Starting later this year, GM plans to enable vehicles equipped with Super Cruise and the company's latest vehicle electronic system to operate hands-free on major, undivided highways in the United States and Canada, as well as additional miles of divided, interstate highways. Currently, Super Cruise operates only on interstate, divided highways. The expansion, enabled by wider digital mapping, will allow owners of properly equipped GM vehicles to cruise hands-free on stretches of Route 66 and the Pacific Coast Highway in the U.S. West or the Trans-Canada highway in Western Canada, GM said. Many of the new roads GM has mapped are in rural, heartland states where GM pickup trucks are popular. GM plans to offer Super Cruise as an option on its Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra large pickups later this year. GM has said previously it intends to offer Super Cruise as an option on 22 models by the end of 2023. Depending on the model, Super Cruise costs $2,200 to $2,500 to add as an option. (Reporting by Joe White in Detroit; Editing by Matthew Lewis) Related video: Cadillac Chevrolet GM GMC Technology Super Cruise

Next Chevy Silverado could get this built-in tailgate step

General Motors just received patent approval for a tailgate step in a pickup bed. And given the timing, don't be surprised if you see this on the upcoming 2019 Silverado pickup (not the mention its GMC Sierra twin), expected to arrive in late 2018. According to the patent, granted in December of last year, the whole mechanism is housed in the tailgate assemble. The magic happens when a portion of the top half of the tailgate swings down and a step folds out. There's also a handle that locks into position to help climb up into the bed. As trucks get bigger and taller over the years, it gets harder and harder to access the cargo bed. Ford's solution with the 2009 F-150 was a step that slides out from the end of the tailgate. Back then, Chevy made an ill-advised ad highlighting the feature for Ford. And while Howie Long mocked the F-150's "man step" Ford saw almost a third of its trucks with the option in the first year. The GM design seems to improve on Ford's idea as it appears to be wider and has a back to the lower step. That is, you don't have to worry about stepping through the ladder-rung design as on the F-150. Ford's tailgate step later spread to the F Super Duty, and other cargo access assists have proliferated through the truck world. On the most recent redesign, the Chevrolet Silverado took a trick from the Avalanche and added cutouts to the corners of the rear bumper that act as a foothold. Ford also offers a deployable side step, Chevrolet has running boards that scoot rearward with a kick of the boot, and Ram offers fixed wheel-to-wheel side rails. Nissan is in on the game too, with an optional folding step that tucks under the rear bumper. We don't expect Chevrolet to comment on when or if we'll see this feature in the showrooms. But given that engineers are already hard at work on the next Silverado and the timing of this patent lines right up with the new truck's development cycle, we'll be disappointed if this patent stays in the file cabinet. Related Video: