In the old car community this event is getting a lot of attention. In 1957 the City of Tulsa put a brand new Plymouth Belvedere (along with some other items) in a buried time capsule to be opened 50 years later. The car was well wrapped with the best materials of the day, and the vault sealed as best they knew how.

http://www.buriedcar.com/

Well, June 15th is the 50th anniversary, and Tulsa was looking forward to pulling a pristine car from its tomb.

No such luck. Here are some images:

http://www.tulsachevys.com/Images/buriedcar/index.html

The car was submerged when unveiled. The pictures above are of the "dry run" of removing the car before tomorrow's official extraction. The car will be kept in its wrapping and trucked to the local convention center, where they will be able to hold a proper ceremony. Bring your noseplugs...

I was there when they buried it, the latest reports say, it may not be in that bad of condition, it was wrapped in several layers of waterproof plastic.

Cool, Nwokie! Go to the buriedcar.com site, I think they are having people archive their rememberances of that event.

Also check out the last few pictures of the second link above. The car is raised above ground level and you can clearly see a big tear in the plastic at the left tailfin. The car is covered with scuzz from the murky rusty water. The frame and body may be restorable, but all the soft trim, mechanicals and electricals have to be completely ruined. This car is going to need a complete frame-off restoration, and $$$ will have to be spent (because no one will restore a car with such a history half-ass). Maybe they can bring it back to as-new condition, then bury it again - properly - for the next generation to see.

Main things to remember was my dad saying, "Thats a stupid thing to be doing with a new car".

And they had free hotdogs, cotton candy and sodas.

It seems my school did a time capsle then too.

We all predicted what things would be like in 2007. I doubt if any one predicted that people would use 1500 dollar computers to play solitare.

As a history teacher, I think it's extremely fascinating how people predict "The Future" and how things actually turn out. In 1939 they had a diorama of how life would be like in the '60s, with cars traveling 100+mph on expansive freeways, and orchards with each fruit tree in it's own glass greenhouse.

For the Tulsa Plymouth they put 10 gallons of gas in the vault with the car, because by 2007 everything was going to be atomic powered.

..yet some of those futuristic things have been realized too!

We've got little portable communicators, that one can open, say the name of the person wanted, and it happens! (cell phone)

Our computers are fantastic, if you think about it. The global network, with it's many protocols, is on par with some of the best predictions. Run IRC someday, it's plenty futuristic in that people globally can interact, share information, run programs, get owned, etc...

We have magic food processing units that will warm food in seconds.

We can enter virtual realities as well. We can render scenes that do not exist in real time, and immerse people. It's no holodeck, but it's pretty damn cool. This, combined with increasingly parallel processors allows for the kinds of simulations I read about as a kid.

We have computers that can be spoken to with a high degree of accuracy. Google now works with the communicator in a crude fashion. "computer: tell me where the nearest chinese food place is, please!" heh.

We have early model self-replicating machines. They are not yet at the nano-scale (and I hope we just don't do this --we are too stupid to manage it properly right now), but they are capable of reproducing many objects from pure information.

In the very near future, it's gonna be possible to request the geometry for an object and have it reproduced for you. This is being done right now, but is expensive. One design for a machine, that can reproduce itself is open and avaiable now. Build it with ordinary means, then build others with it!

We didn't get the flying car though...

Encase the next car with the same material twinkies are made of. It'll survive anything . . . Even if the Sun supernovas on us.

Then you'd simply wind up with a "Deep Fried Twinkie" Still edible.

Monorails were really expected to be a big thing by the 2000's.

I remember one girl in our class predicted, there would be no more wars.
I think I predicted "Dick Tracy" 2 way wrist radios.

I think Time Capsules are incredibly cool. I'm not being sarcastic. I have had a nation to do one in my backyard.

I like to do little time capsules here and there, kind of impromptu.

One of the kid's toys was Buzz Lightyear doll that shouted "Buzz Lightyear To the Rescue!!" everytime the button was pushed. Very annoying.

Recently I remodeled the basement, and while I was sealing up a wall, in went Buzz. We'll see if his batteries still work when he's exhumed during the next remodel, hopefully not for decades.

Nice!!

I love that idea. Did you put him in a bag or something?

My parents made a time capsule for us when we were younger. I'm half tempted to crack it open.......ther's a 30 year old bottle of Jim Bean whiskey it it!

No bag. Just tossed him in. Interior walls are pretty stable environments.

Everytime I do remodel work on the house I try to leave little notes/prizes for a future generation. It's easy, fun, and good way to get rid of annoying kid toys.

It is also kind of fun watching them melt in a burning pile, especially things like the "Space Phaser" and "Tickle Me Elmo"! BURN baby BURN!!!!!! ECO friendly....NO....but Immensley Enjoyable!!!!

Side note: Tickle Me Elmo and Barney Video tapes make kind a a redish purple smoke!

I never will forget the day KUFO trashed a Tickle Me Elmo doll with the Hummer. They drove over it several times until he was all tickled out!

Wonder what else is buried around the country?

James Riddle....A.k.a. Jimmy Hoffa!

He can probably be found in multiple locations!

Did you all see this a couple months ago?

By Brian Alexander
Seattle Times staff reporter
April 26, 2007

Here’s something you wouldn’t expect to find inside a time capsule from the 1950s: pornography from the 1970s.

But faculty members at the University of Washington Department of Communications found just that when they opened a half-century-old time capsule Thursday and saw a centerfold and copies of Playboy and Hustler.

Atop the 50-year-old memorabilia were items from the late ’70s and early ’80s: adult magazines, an April Fools’ edition of The Daily, UW’s student newspaper, clip-on ties, women’s underwear, and nearly petrified Twinkies, among other things.

“I just think this is a great college prank,” department chair Gerald Baldasty said Thursday night after an event at which alumni from the classes that sponsored the time capsule got to look at what was inside. “We’re not upset at all; we’re just having a good chuckle over it.”

It didn’t appear that any of the original items placed in the capsule 50 years ago — reel-to-reel films and copies of local publications — were missing, Baldasty said.

The time capsule was locked away, implanted in the wall of the Communications Building, with an inscription that said it should be opened on the 100th anniversary of the first journalism classes at the university, which is this year.

The department is planning an event for Saturday to reveal to the general public what was inside its capsule, which sits outside The Daily’s offices. The more recent additions to the capsule will be part of that display, Baldasty said.

“We’re not hiding it,” he said. “We’ll have that out so people can see that, too.”

There aren’t any suspects in the case — though the general assumption is that someone from The Daily opened it one or more times between 1976-80, said communication alumni and development manager Victoria Sprang.

Opening it would have been no easy task, Sprang said. The capsule was sealed by 36 bolts that require a special tool to remove — it is also in a well-traveled hallway, so it would have been difficult to break in without drawing attention.

“I am so impressed that whoever did that kept quiet for so many years,” Sprang said.

Both Sprang and Baldasty wonder if the prankster or pranksters will reveal themselves.

All of the content will be on display from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday in Room 104 of the Communications Building.

© 2007 The Seattle Times Company

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Reading about the car, I had forgotten the contest, you wrote down what you thought the tulsa population would be in 2007, and the one closest gets the car. I could own the thing, I have no idea what I projected. Be my luck to win a totally rusted out car, and they'd probably charge me storage.
Wonder if the winner gets the 10 gallons gas, now thats worth something.

That's funny, Nwokie. I'm a statistics geek, so here we go:

I've got a book that lists the original price of the vehicle (a '57 Plymouth Belvedere) at a retail price of about $2,300.

The 2007 population of Tulsa is now approximately 390,000. It was about 183,000 in 1950, and 262,000 in 1960. So I'm guessing, based on that, many guesses were a lot higher than the current 390,000! Afterall, at that rate Tulsa would be well over 650,000 today. Of course, the metro area IS! You should have written down your guess somewhere!

I wonder if the winner has to pay the unpaid parking ticket, and if you dive it off, will you get busted for the package of tranqualizers in the glove box?

They put what the suppossedly average woman had in her purse in the glove box, 2.43 in change, some bobby pins, tranqualizers, cigaretts, hair brush.

Yes, tranqualizers were prescribed like anti-depressants back then! I remember my Mother saying she needed her "calm-down" pill! Valium, my best guess.

Anyway, I was also thinking about what a great era this was for autos. The '57 Chevy was, and still is, considered the cream of the crop of the era. Ford had their Fairlane, and between those two, they dominated. Everyone else was fighting for a distant #3. I'm sure a Plymouth was used in this promotion because they probably were not selling that well and needed the attention!

Actually, the "Forward Look" '57 Chrysler makes (DeSoto, Plymouth, Dodge, Chrysler, Imperial) were undercutting Ford and GM pretty hard. The styling was amazingly fresh compared to the more upright Chevys and boxy Fords. GM went into overdrive to catch up stylistically with Chrysler, resulting in the '59 "gull wing" Chevy. The '58 Edsel also pushed the envelope with it's styling - but then toned things down for '59 when sales went so poorly.

No, the '57 Plymouth wasn't hurting for buyers.

Well, my stats show that in 1957, Chevy and Ford had the majority of the market. I'm sure there were many who were partial to the other brands, but their numbers were not high in comparison. This is based on 1957 sales figures, I'm sure things changed within a few years as you say.

Oh yes, Ford and Chevy were still at the top of the heap in '57. But Mopar sales were climbing while Ford and Chevy were relatively flat. Got worse for the Top 2 in '58 with the Eisenhower Recession, which hurt every manufacturer - except Rambler, which had a banner year!

I think you make a good point here...Ford and Chevy were so strong, it forced the other manufacturers to come up with better products. But Ford/GM remained strong through the 60's, that can't be argued. The real changes started with the oil shortages in the early to mid-70's, and subsequently the progression of automation and higher mileage Japanese models in the late 70's into the 80's. Detroit never really could recover. Even though many Hondas and Nissans are now made in the US, they are doing it with a completely different business model than the old Detroit Big 3,(can we say less labor laws?)

It's an interesting subject, and one that probably will play out in the next decade. The ramifications will be huge.