1957 Plymouth to Emerge from Tulsa Time Capsule

If you happen find yourself in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 15, bring a shovel. Buried beneath the dirt of the Tulsa County Courthouse lawn, about 100 feet north of the intersection of Sixth Street and Denver Avenue, a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe has been hidden underground for half a century. Swaddled in rust-resistant preservatives and gently placed inside a giant concrete sarcophagus, the tailfinned Plymouth was interred on June 15, 1957 as the centerpiece of a time capsule created for the 21st century citizens of Tulsa 2007.

They probably expected we would re-open the time capsule with hover-shovels -- unless, of course, we'd already perfected our atomic de-materializers. Regardless, in 1957 Tulsa's civic leaders hoped to dazzle their future descendants with the scope of their own technological prowess. So in addition to burying a brand-new Plymouth, they also packed the car with a variety of advanced products and wares -- including a case of Schlitz beer and the complete contents of a woman's purse. This explains why, when today's auto-archaeologists open the glove box of the buried Belvedere, inside they will find fourteen bobby pins, a ladies compact plastic rain cap, several combs, a tube of lipstick, a pack of gum, a wad of Kleenex, $2.73 in bills and coins, a pack of cigarettes with matches, an unpaid parking ticket, and a bottle of tranquilizers.

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