1957 Plymouth dig up

[breitee]

Absolutely! KOTV should be ashamed. Did we really need all of those commercials? What poor coverage of what should have been a great show. John Ehrling should have stayed retired. He is losing it. Sharon King Davis should have the common sense to know when to govern her tounge and stay silent. Jack Frank was wasted here and should have had more to do. They should have spent more time and used the cameras to show more of the car. Hopefully Jack Frank can salvage this embarassment and produce a quality DVD of the days events.

[Steve]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

I doubt it had coil springs, especially in the back. Keep in mind they had a decent amount of weight in the truck and I think the rear tires went flat again.

Wasn't 1957 the introduction of Chrysler's Torsion-Aire suspension, with twisting torsion bars instead of leaf or coil springs?  I think it was quite a car suspension technology revolution at the time and much touted in the advertising.  I think our rusty '57 Belvedere has this torsion bar suspension.  Packard also had a variation of torsion bar suspension at the time.

I recall Chrysler also pioneered unibody construction for cars; Lincoln also had unibody construction on their late 1950's Continenal Mark line.  Sad pieces of crap, those Lincoln Mark III, IV, and V as those cars had the structual integrity of a worn out rubber band!  Ford/Lincoln so hated those cars that they reverted to the Mark III name when they reintroduced the series in the late 1960s.

[jiminy]

quote:Originally posted by TulsaSooner


They couldn't because Ehrling was having a spasm or KOTV was having a commercial.  []

Yeah, what was up with the commercials?  They only had 1 break I think the first 30 minutes, then they starting showing 2 or 3 commercials every 3-5 minutes.

[T-Town Now]

I would bet you that car is restorable. Boyd is probably thinking that it will never be worth what it will cost to restore, but very few of them are. Even the most expensive Cadillacs and Lincolns usually cost more to restore than you could ever sell them for.

You do it for the love of the car. Tear it down to the frame and do a frame off restoration, if need be. Then stick it in the lobby of the new glass City Hall when it's done. Talk about making an impression on visitors to the city! What other city could claim such a thing?

I doubt the winner is going to want the car in this condition, unless they love old cars, and if that's the case, that might be the best thing for the car. But I would think it would be a nice gesture to give the car to the city, and allow it to be on display somewhere.

The more I think about it, the more I say it needs to be restored to show car status, and serve as a goodwill ambassador for the City of Tulsa for many, many years to come. What a story it has to tell!

No one wants to see an old rusty car, you can find those at salvages across the country. It will cost a lot of money to bring it back to like new, but I think it would be worth it.

[jiminy]

quote:Originally posted by T-Town Now

I would bet you that car is restorable. Boyd is probably thinking that it will never be worth what it will cost to restore, but very few of them are. Even the most expensive Cadillacs and Lincolns usually cost more to restore than you could ever sell them for.

You do it for the love of the car. Tear it down to the frame and do a frame off restoration, if need be. Then stick it in the lobby of the new glass City Hall when it's done. Talk about making an impression on visitors to the city! What other city could claim such a thing?

I doubt the winner is going to want the car in this condition, unless they love old cars, and if that's the case, that might be the best thing for the car. But I would think it would be a nice gesture to give the car to the city, and allow it to be on display somewhere.

The more I think about it, the more I say it needs to be restored to show car status, and serve as a goodwill ambassador for the City of Tulsa for many, many years to come. What a story it has to tell!

No one wants to see an old rusty car, you can find those at salvages across the country. It will cost a lot of money to bring it back to like new, but I think it would be worth it.

I'm with you, if it's at all possible.  We can always keep pictures of what it looked like out of the vault.  Wouldn't that make a cool exhibit?  I bet if they undertook it, they would get a lot of donations, not just from Tulsa, but from all over.

I hereby decree that all my state sales and income taxes for the next ten years be diverted from OKC MAP projects to the Tulsa Belvedere Restoration.

[T-Town Now]

Some info about the Belvedere:

The front suspension was torsion bars, the rear was assymetrical stub springs. So, the rear springs could be shot, or the rear body suspension mounting areas could have given out due to rust. 1957 was the first year for "Torsion-Aire Ride."

The car was Desert Gold with Sand Dune White inserts.

[ttownclown]

I really hope they find a winner quickly. 5 years in trust is too long.

It would be cool if the car was donated back, restored, and placed in the new Route 66 museum with an exhibit mentioned above.  If it not restored, it will eventually turn to dust.

[Lister]

Can anyone answer why they didn't put the capsule above ground in '57? I'm just trying to understand the logic of all of the fanfare with the wrapping and such. Maybe they thought it would be preserved in case of a nuclear attack, which was the predominant thinking of the time? I'm really having a hard time looking at 50 years wasted on a piece of rust that could've been brought out in pristine condition for the world to admire. As it is, I think most of the country, if not the world, is wondering "What were they thinking in Tulsee, OKiehoma back then?" I think the city came out looking like a bunch of hicks due to the condition of the car because of how it was "preserved" and the nature of the televised event.. Not to mention the damn country-donkey sounding people hosting the thing.

[TurismoDreamin]

Sad...yet a bittersweet end to such a long awaited event..




Lister, I would say that they buried it below ground because it was traditional to bury time capsules. Heck, in 1998, we still buried the Prowler.

[TulsaSooner]

I think pretty much all time capsules are under ground aren't they?

[TurismoDreamin]

^^Yea...cuz there would be a bunch of thieves out there with old skool priceless memorabilia..

[sgrizzle]

They always bury them.

Going back to the museum idea. I think a new time capsule, with drainage, and a plexiglass side window would be neat. So people could look into the vault part.

[ttownclown]

Maybe the vault exhibit could have a dummy car under the not-so-protective covering.

[sgrizzle]

and then refill it with water?

[Steve]

quote:Originally posted by Lister

Can anyone answer why they didn't put the capsule above ground in '57? I'm just trying to understand the logic of all of the fanfare with the wrapping and such. Maybe they thought it would be preserved in case of a nuclear attack, which was the predominant thinking of the time? I'm really having a hard time looking at 50 years wasted on a piece of rust that could've been brought out in pristine condition for the world to admire. As it is, I think most of the country, if not the world, is wondering "What were they thinking in Tulsee, OKiehoma back then?" I think the city came out looking like a bunch of hicks due to the condition of the car because of how it was "preserved" and the nature of the televised event.. Not to mention the damn country-donkey sounding people hosting the thing.

Well Lister, buried time capsules were kind of the rage in mid-twentieth century America.  Hindsight is always 20/20, right?

She was a heap of rust, especially inside, but I sure got a big thrill from all the anticipation and hype over this past week.  I was glad the time capsule survived with its contents remarkably intact.  The car, well they did the best they could I suppose, and I find it great that we have what survived and they were able to resurect it intact.