1957 Plymouth dig up

[Ibanez]

quote:Originally posted by jof

Hello,

sounds exciting. Again my question: if somebody took some pictures (or will take some tonight), please send them over here to Germany to jof@gmx.li

Thanks in advance,

Regards

Jörg

They aren't great...but here are some pics I took with my cell phone out of the office window.


Link to photo Album

[Conan71]

Well, they've pulled the car out, I don't really see any harm to putting my "ground zero" photos up.  You can see tears on both the fins in this photo.



Here's another angle of the left fin, you can tell the trim looks pretty filthy, time capsule is in this photo:



Another:



Let's see if you can make out the "Valerie" and "Carol"



Cool Day:

[sgrizzle]

Ahh.. the obligatory "self portrait"

[jof]

Thank you wavoka and conan, this is exactly what I want []

Are there more pictures, maybe from yesterday or the day before (when they started digging, or when they discovered the water)?

Did anyone make a scan of the pictures from 1957? I can imagine that the local newspapers were full of that during the last week.

Regards

Jörg jof@gmx.li

[Dana431]

quote:Originally posted by jof

Thank you wavoka and conan, this is exactly what I want []

Are there more pictures, maybe from yesterday or the day before (when they started digging, or when they discovered the water)?

Did anyone make a scan of the pictures from 1957? I can imagine that the local newspapers were full of that during the last week.

Regards

Jörg jof@gmx.li

Here you go:

www.buriedcar.com
www.tulsaworld.com

[RecycleMichael]

Here is a nice media recap and some good pictures...

http://www.kotv.com/news/topstory/?id=129540

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

Ahh.. the obligatory "self portrait"

I photo-shopped out the bottle of ripple I was having for lunch.

[RecycleMichael]

Car makes Yahoo news...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070615/ap_on_re_us/buried_belvedere

TULSA, Okla. - Hundreds watched Friday as a crane lifted a muddy package from a hole in the courthouse lawn: a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere buried to celebrate Oklahoma's 50 years of statehood.

The wrapped car — a gold and white two-door hardtop — appeared brown and red as it came out of the hole, but it was unclear whether the color represented dirt or rust. A bit of shiny chrome was visible on the bumper. The car spent the last half-century covered in three layers of protective material and encased in a 12-by-20-foot concrete vault, supposedly tough enough to withstand a nuclear attack.

But event officials already had to pump out several feet of water from its crypt. The car was placed on a flatbed truck so it could be unwrapped, spruced up and officially unveiled Friday evening at the Tulsa Convention Center. Spectators packed the streets to glimpse its journey.

Whether the car will start was unknown. Those who gathered to watch it being pulled out of the ground did not seem to care. "I just need to see it," said Marc Montague of Auckland, New Zealand, among the couple hundred spectators amassed at the downtown site Thursday afternoon. "I've been waiting 15 years for this."

Also buried with it were 10 gallons of gasoline — in case internal combustion engines became obsolete by 2007 — a case of beer, and the contents of a typical woman's handbag placed in the glove compartment: 14 bobby pins, a bottle of tranquilizers, a lipstick, a pack of gum, tissues, a pack of cigarettes, matches and $2.43.

There was also a spool of microfilm that recorded the entries of a contest to determine who would win the car: the person who guessed the closest of what Tulsa's population would be in 2007 — 382,457 — would win. That person, or his or her heirs, will get the car and a $100 savings account, worth about $1,200 today with interest.

Thursday afternoon, legendary hot rod builder Boyd Coddington inspected the vault and what he was able to see of the car with his crew. The task will fall to Coddington, host of the TV series American Hot Rod on The Learning Channel, to try to start the thing up at a ceremony Thursday evening. Tens of thousands of tickets were sold for the event. "We're optimistic," Coddington said. "I'm really concerned about the rust on the bottom of the car."

Back on the day the Belvedere was buried, all Bixby resident Marlene Parker wanted to do was find a photographer for her wedding. Catching a glimpse of the car being lowered into the ground was the last thing on her priority list.

Unfortunately, not for the photographer: He was shooting the burial. This weekend, the 70-year-old will celebrate 50 years of marriage and may come downtown to see what all the fuss was about back then. "Probably across the pond people know about it," Parker said. "If nobody knew where Tulsa, Oklahoma was before, they do now."

[jiminy]

jof, look at the thread titled "few closeups of the dig" for a link to a lot of pictures of the initial opening.  There is a pic there that shows water all the way up to and over the deck lid, even up to the fins.

[Renaissance]

We're also at the top of the New York Times!

www.nytimes.com

[TurismoDreamin]

Here's a higher quality picture of that torn plastic over the fin section that I found today on flickr...

If water got under the wrapping layers, then there is no doubt that it would be ruined. Leaving a car under that much water over such a long period of time and you would know that water would seep into the car someway somehow. Even if the exterior portion was covered well, it would've still been able to rust from the inside out..instead of the outside in...or possibly from the inside and outside at the same time. But even after all these let down pictures, I'm still rootin' for this car. I'm still looking forward to its unveiling.

[Townsend]

Wow, that's great Tulsa's getting so much positive attention.  

Did anyone find the keys for the car?  I'd heard they were lost.

[jof]

quote:Originally posted by jiminy

jof, look at the thread titled "few closeups of the dig" for a link to a lot of pictures of the initial opening.  There is a pic there that shows water all the way up to and over the deck lid, even up to the fins.

Yes, that's what I just did - I got the pictures, and the quality is useful.

Hope that you'll have a nice time at the event. Wish I could be there also, but beaming from here to the US within seconds will last another 50 years (at least)...

Jörg

[TulsaSooner]

They got it in the Convention Center after some nice maneuvering by the forklift driver.  []

[Townsend]

On another positive note, the Arkansas looks like a very pretty waterway for all of Tulsa's visitors this weekend