"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
28 July 2007There'll be a Fury if they failMiss Belvedere, the 1957 Plymouth buried in a Tulsa time capsule and unearthed in 2007 with serious corrosion problems, is relocating to Hackettstown, New Jersey, the center of gravity of America's Rust Belt, where Ultra One Corporation will deploy their Safest Rust Remover product and, it is hoped, take the first steps toward restoring the Mopar marvel to some semblance of its original glory. Robert Carney, nephew to Catherine Humbertson Johnson, sister to the late Raymond Humbertson, who submitted the winning entry in the Guess Tulsa's 2007 Population contest and was declared the winner of the car, has agreed to turn the vehicle over to Ultra One for extensive de-rusting. It's not a restoration process, per se:
According to an article in the Tulsa World, Carney has no plans to restore the car. "We're not going to take it apart and try to restore it," he told the newspaper. "Ideally, what we'd like to see is that when it's in pretty good shape, the car would go back to Tulsa for another unveiling."
One image has implanted itself in the back of my mind: a late-night commercial for Tarn-X in which the filthiest silver spoon you've ever seen in your life, encrusted with God knows what, gets dipped into the mystery liquid and comes out in two seconds ready for dinner with the Duchess of Earl. Getting the crud off Miss Belvedere is going to take more like six months, mostly because they can't just dip it in a vat, unless they have a vat the size of a parking space. Ultra One says before the next unveiling, they plan to have the engine running and all the lights working. (Via Hemmings.) they can't just dip it in a vat, unless they have a vat the size of a parking space. There are vats of that size in almost any vehicle assembly plant, of course. One would think the parent corporation of the erstwhile Plymouth division would be willing to make one of theirs available for such a publicity stunt. Posted by: McGehee at 7:07 PM on 28 July 2007Right now, the parent corporation of the erstwhile Plymouth division is busy trying to make sure that their house-of-cards financing deal doesn't turn into a round of 52 Pickup. Although you have to wonder if it would been different had the Tulsans of '57 buried a Dodge instead. Posted by: CGHill at 7:27 PM on 28 July 2007I didn't know Plymouth was making pickups in '52. Posted by: McGehee at 8:51 PM on 28 July 2007Apparently he didn't get the pun. Posted by: Milo at 3:29 PM on 11 August 2007 |