The National Corvette Museum began lifting the first of eight Corvettes that were swallowed up by a huge sinkhole that opened up on Wednesday, February 12th of this year.

The first vehicle to come out of the massive pit was the legendary prototype 2009 ZR-1 “Blue Devil” on loan to the Kentucky Corvette museum from General Motors. It was lifted from the gaping hole at 10:35 am Kentucky time using a large crane. Once removed from the sinkhole, and after a few tries, the “Blue Devil,” cranked up and drove twenty feet to the entrance of the skydome.

The museum owns six of the Corvettes that were plummeted into the 40-foot-wide, 30-foot-deep hole. The “Blue Devil,” and a 1993 ZR-1 Spyder are on loan from General Motors.

Also in the hole awaiting retrieval are 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 White 1.5 Millionth Corvette.

The next vehicle to be lifted from the sinkhole will be the 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette. After that, the job gets more difficult as the remaining vehicles are buried in the rubble.

An estimate of the repair costs for the vehicles will not be known until they are all retrieved from the pit. General Motors said that they will conduct the repairs on the damaged vehicles.

Although this is the first sinkhole of its kind in the immediate area of the museum, the area underground in the Pennyroyal area are riddled with the longest and deepest caves in the state.