1957 Plymouth dig up

[cyndezu]

UMM, yea! Just do it!
Can I say that?  or is this reserved for shoes?

[jiminy]

Yeah, you can say that!

I'm somewhat ambivalent now about restoring the car.  As she sits now, THAT's the car we buried.  Love her for what she is and represents, not for what she looks like.  Now, if some of the sheetmetal is usable, then go for it.  The interior - I don't care if a repro kit is used.  But if all we can use out of the whole car is some of the chrome, then I say don't do it.  I'm curious what that bubbling on the metal is.  Paint? or some residual material from the cosmoline?  If that's rust from the inside bubbling the metal, then I'm not sure any of that can be saved.  Now if the metal is rotted around the edges, that can be fixed.  Guys like Boyd can fabricate entire panels, so that can be done.  It wouldn't be a practical undertaking at all, and would cost more than the car would be worth; it would have to be a labor of love.  But if we can use the bulk of the sheet metal, then we owe it to ourselves to try.  Give her a nice long acid bath, and see if she holds together.

[jof]

Hello again from Germany,

well, the show is over and the unfortunately the Belvedere turned out to be as bad as one could expect after discovering the water.

Thanks to everybody who shared his/her pictures, so I could take part from overseas. Over here you get only little information about the whole thing, some vintage car forums have links to some pages. Using this forum I am as close as i can get from Germany...

I did not see much about the interior, so my question to those of you who saw the car personally: was it comletely rotten inside? What was the smell? Just being curious...

If anyone has pictures from the engine or the interior, please mail them to jof@gmx.li - thanks in advance!

I read in one of the articles that "in 1957 Tulsa's civic leaders hoped to dazzle their future descendants with the scope of their own technological prowess" - well, they failed with that. It looks like the technological prowess (or progress?) was not that what they expected back then (please don't get me wrong - this is my personal point of view).

What I think is remarkable, that everyone was talking about the names and the population-guesses on microfilm. But they found nothing but some postcards when I interpreted the news correctly. How could this happen? Burying a car is so unusual, an the guesses were such an important thing (since the winner had the chance of owning a "brand new car"), so why  and how could the false information of microfilms sprread and last for 50 years? This makes me think of other information even longer ago - what's true and what is rumour? I hope they will have some more investigation and find a clue.

A few words to the water issue: over here most of our houses have a concrete or brick built cellar. One of the most important thing is to find the right sealing (waterproofing), so the first thing the architect does is getting an soil expertise with information about the groundwater. If groundwater is to be expected, a waterproof concrete is the first choice and the whole concrete gets a "paintjob" with sealing material (over here they use a black material which looks like tar). And of course the seams (joints?) get a special treatment.

Did anyone of you who personally got to see the shelter notice anything of that? I am just curious...

Again, thank you very much for your help that made me take part of the whole event from far away! Although the result could have been much better, what happened just happened, and nobody can turn time back to make it different.

Therefore I suggest to not restore the car, but leave it as it is and show it at the local museum as a unique part of Tulsa-history, as an effort to preserve something to the next generation, which unfortunately failed - there is nothing wrong with that, it's history now.

It is possible to restore a car around just on nut or bolt - but the result is not the car from back then, but a product of today. This unique time witness would just become another one of a bunch of restored Plymouth in the world.

What there is now is a very unique thing, and I am still excited looking at the pictures of the car back and now.

Again, that is just my personal opinion, and I will watch what is going to happen.

Best regards from Germany

Jörg

[sauerkraut]

quote:Originally posted by custosnox

I've noticed a lot of you have suggested burying another car.  This has already been done.  In 1998 a Plymouth Prowler (keeping with the Plymouth theme) was was put in a vault in centinial park downtown.  It was not put underground as the Belvedier.  Instead, it was placed in an above ground vault, in hopes of keeping some of the problems that have becoming apparent at bay.  It was also placed inside a plastic "box" inside the vault, sealed air tight. The plastic box was filled with an inert gas to protect the paint.  All oil and fluids were drained and replaced with synthetics that won't breakdown.  

This project was done in celebration of Tulsa's 100th birthday.  Here's to seeing it coming out in prestine condition in '48

Yes but I'd like to keep that car time capsule going for the TulsaRama event every 50 years. That other car is for another event. I had an idea of using a car like a VW Bug for the time capsule to be opened in 2057, it's small and it'll be easy to build a steel time capsule for it and it should be quite a car in 2057. Maybe use a 8' dia steel pipe and put the car in wraped in 3 layers of cosmoline and seal both ends and weld it up. Plant a sign that reads "Do Not Open Till 2057"[]

[sauerkraut]

JOF- it's a sad thing it failed, I hope the city looks into what happened and how long the car sat in the water and if  the car was really fully underwater at one time. I'd be intrested in knowing more. I at first figured the water level of about 3' was all the vault had in 50 years, but it really looks to me at one time the car was fully underwater, otherwise why was the roof and glass all ruined? If the water level was no higher than 3' then the top half of the car should of came out good. I can't see what could of happened to that higher water level if the car was fully under water at one time, if it leaked out thru a tiny crack you'd think the new rains would of keep filling the vault back up faster than any small crack could leak out the water. They say the vault bottom looked good and solid no cracks seen, soil tested dry too. it'll be intresting to know how long that car really sat in water was it in water from the late 1950's on up to 2007 or what? The sheetmetal from some close up pictures looks like it's paper thin.[]

[sgrizzle]

It is possible to restore the car, but I think cleaned and displayed is better in this case. Byt the time this one was "restored" there wouldn't be much left of what was buried. Some water and a soft brush on the outside will do wonders.

I went to the show on saturday. No matter how bad everything is made to look online and on that thing they called a broadcast, it was great to see the car. It's rusted but not gone. The rest of the show was a very great event.

For anyone wondering about the interior:


This made me chuckle:


As did this:



Also, they ran out but there was a booth where they made a "Miss Belvedere" shirt that was like the old airplane nose art that is really cool. They are supposed to have more for sale on Friday.

The Centennial people were selling shirts that say "What was buried is alive again!" which I'm thinking will be on clearance soon.

[sauerkraut]

Did they bury that car with the windows down?

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

Did they bury that car with the windows down?

Windows were up. They pulled out the passenger wing window and rolled the passenger front window down.

[Conan71]

Summary of my $.02:

-Topic is now most replied to in TN history and up there on the viewing list.  Helps prove regardless of the condition, Tulsarama was a success.  I bet local media web sites had vastly increased traffic this weekend.

-The car is an historically significant artifact.  Regardless of condition, the car has an intangible value which reflects the spirit and optimism of people who lived here 50 years ago.  This was far from a bust.

-Restoration?  Puh-leaze.  The car would be a replica when it was done.  This also takes away from it's historical value.  As someone who has made a living at restoring antique motor vehicles, IMO, there is nothing to start a restoration with here.  Basically what Boyd Coddington was saying.  Many different ways to preserve it as-is, don't worry about further deterioration.

-I floated around Breadburner's suggestion of displaying the car in a vault cut-away to more than a few people over the weekend, and hands-down it's a great idea.  However, we were surprized to see the vault already filled in when we walked down to the Convention Center for the unveiling Friday night.  I guess it would have to be a replica vault unless they wanted to undertake digging it back up and removing it.  I figured someone would be interested in figuring out how the vault failed just to answer questions.

-They said the winner will be announced at a press conference at East Tulsa Dodge at noon on Friday the 22nd.  I hope the winner will donate it to the Tulsa Historical Society.

-Boyd Coddington sort of made an donkey of himself when he stopped the show to introduce his "crew".  No applause.  A lot of people in the audience didn't even know who the guy was.  Granted, we should get a little more mileage out of this event, should it find its way onto "American Hot Rod".

-It's easy to second guess people's intentions and technology from 50 years ago.  My buddy gave me a good chuckle when he said: "The space-age technology in that cover failed, but good ol' boiler makin' technology preserved the contents of that capsule."

Pretty obvious they should have constructed another pressure vessel for the car as well before putting it in the concrete vault.

-It is what it is.  Let's make the most of it.  Thanks to the organizers for undertaking this event and to all the companies and people who volunteered time and equipment to make this moment happen.

[sauerkraut]

I thought this event was great, I'm an old car nut and like cars of the tail-fin era. The loss of the car hit me like a ball bat in the gut, the car is something that cannot be replaced. If this event saddens many people in 2007, I'd guess the people of 1957 would feel even worse. The gift they left for 2007 was a total loss, many even planners in 1957 worked so hard to be able to make this dream come true. I do favor that we bury another car as a gift for the people in 2057. We need to put that car inside a boiler-like vault welded shut. Tulsa's event made national news on Friday.

[sauerkraut]

I'd like to have a expert come in who knows about cars in water and see if he can tell how long the Plymouth sat in water, that will give a general idea of when the vault started to fill up with water.[]

[Chevy]

This story makes me very,very sad. I wonder how the people of -57 would feel if they knew? Was it really meant that we only would have to charge the battery, fill the tires and turn the key? Haven´t we found the true spirit of the fifties here? The world has never been so modern since. What would our friends from the past do with her now? She is a beauty and she looks at us with her big sad eyes - what have you done to me? You put me in a rust chamber for 50 years and almost killed me. Please make me shine again...But if she´s restored with 99% new parts it´s not her. I say if the some sheet metal is usable then restore her.

[rhymnrzn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Hs2AQwDgA

the retro aspect of this video and the pyramid of cars in the junk yard remind me of this time capsule.

[sauerkraut]

quote:Originally posted by Chevy

This story makes me very,very sad. I wonder how the people of -57 would feel if they knew? Was it really meant that we only would have to charge the battery, fill the tires and turn the key? Haven´t we found the true spirit of the fifties here? The world has never been so modern since. What would our friends from the past do with her now? She is a beauty and she looks at us with her big sad eyes - what have you done to me? You put me in a rust chamber for 50 years and almost killed me. Please make me shine again...But if she´s restored with 99% new parts it´s not her. I say if the some sheet metal is usable then restore her.

I wonder how thick her sheet metal is, it looks like one can polk a pen right thru the metal, much of the rust no doubt is from the inside out. The people left us a great gift they even left the key in the igntion for the winner to drive off with. The people of '57 worked very hard to give us this gift. it's very sad. If only they sealed the vault better.

[TurismoDreamin]

I was pondering to myself today at work as to why they had not tried harder to clean the car up a little more to make it a bit more presentable. I mean they did in fact scrape some of that stuff right off the front bumper to reveal some shiny chrome and it would make one wonder, if it were cleaned up a bit more, what would it look like?

I thought about this and came to the conclusion that they probably would clean it up a little bit more, but the fact that the car may belong to the winning guess, the dirtiness of the car could make the car just that much more undesirable. I think the people who are keeping the car right now are thinking, if we don't do anything to it at all, the winners may not want it and we might be able to keep it in a museum (which is where I personally think it belongs).

Just my two cents..