Corvette Museum Sinkhole — In this Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2014 photo, cars lie in a sinkhole that opened up at the Skydome showroom in the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Ky. The sinkhole that swallowed eight cars has become such an attraction that officials want to preserve it. They may even put one or two of the cars back inside the hole. The board of the museum in Kentucky voted Wednesday, June 25, 2014 to preserve a large section of the sinkhole that opened beneath the museum in February. AP

A massive sinkhole that swallowed eight cars at the National Corvette Museum in the US has become such a popular attraction that officials want to preserve it. They may even put one or two of the crumpled cars back inside the hole.

The board of the museum in Kentucky voted Wednesday to preserve a large section of the sinkhole that opened beneath the museum in February.

The damaged cars toppled like toys amid rocks, concrete and dirt. The cars carry a total value believed to exceed $1 million. The cars were eventually pulled out of the giant hole to great fanfare.

Museum officials say attendance is up nearly 60 percent from March to the start of this week. The museum sells sinkhole-related shirts, post cards and prints.

The museum struggled in prior years to keep its doors open, museum officials said.

The cars that took the plunge were a 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette, a 1962 black Corvette, a 1993 ZR-1 Spyder, a 1984 PPG Pace Car, a 1992 White 1 Millionth Corvette, a 2009 white 1.5 Millionth Corvette, a 2009 ZR1 Blue Devil and a 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette.

Sinkholes are common in the area, located amid a large region of karst bedrock where many of Kentucky’s largest and deepest caves run underground.

Sinkhole swallows cars at Corvette Museum in US