Buried Alive: Two Cars Famous for Their Time Underground

There is a wide variety of famous cars still in existence that are all well-known for their own reason. Maybe it was the Mustang used in Bullitt, or perhaps a car owned by a celebrity. Whatever the reason, many of these cars are mass-production vehicles, one particular example stands out. For 1957 Plymouth Belvederes, Miss Belvedere is famous for no other reason than being buried for 50 years. Now over 60 years have passed since she was originally buried, but her fame grows more every day.

No, this isn’t a mystery involving a long-unsolved crime. Miss Belvedere was placed underground in June 1957, as a rolling time capsule by the good people of Tulsa, OK. While time capsules are nothing new, using an entire vehicle was indeed a new spin! A traditional time capsule was also buried alongside Miss Belvedere. When buried, residents were asked to guess what the population of Tulsa would be in 2007 with the reward for the closest guess being the car! The guesses were left buried inside the Plymouth alongside notes, music, beer, and various other items. Though the car was fully functioning and buried with a full tank of gas, extra oil and gasoline was buried in the tomb just in case the people of the future were no longer using such materials for vehicles.

Upon her ceremonial removal in 2007, the use of gasoline and oil was alive and well. Miss Belvedere, however, was not looking so hot. Though the cement capsule that was used to hold the car underground was intended to be sealed, an engineering error led to groundwater finding its way inside and covering most of the car at some point. The above picture shows what 50 years in a damp underground box can do to a car!

The winner of the contest was a gentleman named Raymond Humbertson, but unfortunately he had passed away in 1979. Thus, the car was given to his closest living relatives who shipped the car to Ultra One, a restoration shop specializing in rust removal. After many hours of meticulous and tedious work, Miss Belvedere came out looking much more like a car! Though this car is still in no condition to be driven, she now resides in the Historic Auto Attractions Museum in Roscoe, IL.

Miss Belvedere isn’t the only car that spent time underground, but she is probably the only car that was intentionally left there by the general public. This 1974 Ferrari Dino 246 GTS spent several years buried in the backyard of a Los Angeles home. There are several different stories that surround the discovery of this car with the most popular being that a couple of kids who lived in the home dug up the car while playing in the yard. While that was presumed to be the true story for many years, in 2012 Mike Spinelli of Jalopnik discovered this was not quite the case.

As it would turn out, the car was ‘stolen’ as part of an insurance scam by the original owners. The thieves would cut the car up, sell the valuable parts, and make the rest disappear. Though the emblems were torched off the rear of the car, perhaps to make it look like it had been destroyed, for one reason or another the car was never recovered from its underground hiding spot until the police received a tip about the alleged insurance scam.

After the car was recovered, Farmers Insurance sold it off just like any other vehicle. After the first new owner changed his mind about performing the expensive needed repairs, the current owner, Brad Howard, stepped in. As shown above, the Ferrari has been lovingly restored and has been in Mr. Howard’s care since 1978.

To learn more about these two vehicles, view this video on YouTube. If you would like to know the full backstory on Miss Belvedere, click here. To read Mike Spinelli’s Jalopnik article about his discovery of the real Dino story, click here. A video about the Dino and the current owner can be found here.

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