Miss Belvedere

carchaeologist

Miss Belvedere is the nickname given to a new 1957 Plymouth Belvedere sport coupe sealed in a 50-year time capsule and finally unearthed on June 14, 2007. It was chosen primarily for its Virgil Exner styling as a way of showing the people of 2007 the good taste and forward thinking of the people of 1957.

The car, with only four miles on the odometer, was sealed in an underground concrete vault as... part of the festivities of the US state of Oklahoma's 100th Anniversary, celebrated near downtown Tulsa. It was unearthed June 14, 2007 during the state's centennial celebration and was publicly unveiled on June 15. In line with the Cold War realities of late 1950s America, the concrete enclosure was advertised as having been built to withstand a nuclear attack. The concrete enclosure, however, was not airtight and allowed water to leak in, which caused significant damage to the vehicle.

Vehicle customizer Boyd Coddington and his team volunteered to start the car, once un-buried. That, however, proved impossible due to the car's condition. While items buried with the vehicle in their own protective vaults emerged unscathed, anything buried unprotected in the vehicle deteriorated completely. Among the items recovered from the trunk were a case of Schlitz beer and a large can of gasoline, intended to be used to start the car in 2007 if gasoline was no longer the fuel of choice for motor vehicles.

The car was intended to be a prize to be awarded upon the vehicle's unearthing to the individual or his/her descendents who would come nearest to guessing Tulsa's population in 2007. The winning entrant, one Raymond Humbertson, guessed 384,743 vs. the actual figure of 382,457. However, Mr. Humbertson died in 1979 and now only distant relatives remain.

In November 2007, Humberton's relatives shipped the car to the New Jersey facilities of Ultra One, a restoration firm whose specialty product is a de-rusting solution which is designed to remove only rust while leaving the underlying metal, paint and decals intact. It is estimated that the stabilization project would take roughly six months or perhaps longer given the difficulty of removing the mix of cosmoline and mud which caked on the car; there are no plans to disassemble and restore the vehicle. There is, however, discussion regarding the return of the driveline and electrical system to operating condition.

As of June 2008, the preservation process was still underway, as shown in a video posted by the New Jersey Star Ledger, with the stated goal to preserve the car as an artifact, not to restore it to roadable condition.

In December 2008, Ultra One deleted all the topics in their forum regarding Miss Belvedere. Attempts to contact Ultra One for comment went unanswered. The vehicle condition and state of repair have been presumed unknown until May 2009, when Dwight Foster of Ultra One participated in a podcast and provided details and new pictures, showing the Belvedere's restoration to be still underway, the car's exterior having been virtually freed of its rust and mud concretions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCE_wOWcjNw

I know its controversial, but i like the idea of what they are doing with the cleanup.

Blue850

They'd have saved themeselves a heap of work if they'd used a Fury



b1tch would have dug her own way out:D

Miklos

I remember when they dug this up.. thought it was absolutely hilarious!

mb1725

They did the same in 1998 with a new Plymouth Prowler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni1K_wB3bUg

It gets dug out in 2048!!

vektarman

mb1725 wrote: »

They did the same in 1998 with a new Plymouth Prowler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni1K_wB3bUg

It gets dug out in 2048!!

But how will the two occupants survive! :eek:

hi5

That will be no loss,a v6 in a hot rod,FFS:D

ahal

Be no harm to just fill in the hole as is

shagman

Love this...

"I am a little emotional, well it's because of my dad, he's the one that sprayed the gunnite on the vault"

Gunnite is spray on concrete, that'd be the eejit that did a half arsed job of sealing the vault then.

Big Nasty

Thanks for sharing Charce!

Awful pity the vault wasn't sealed properly.:(

mb1725

More here : http://www.forwardlook.net/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=33393&start=1

There's a lot of interest in her Stateside.