We’re pretty sure that most of you will have heard the story:On June 15, 1957, Tulsa Town buried a brand-new Plymouth Belvedere along with along with several other artefacts (a pack of cigarettes, bobby pins, an unpaid parking ticket etc) in a cement vault, as part of a contest in which the person who most closely guessed the city’s 2007 population would win the Belvedere on June 15, 2007.

Today (Wednesday June 13), just two days before the ’57 Plymouth’s scheduled exhumation, Tulsa Town decided to open up the vault’s lid. To everyone’s misfortune, the workers discovered several feet of standing water and indications that the car had been submerged. Tulsa’s Public Works Department was summoned to pump the water out of the vault but since there was a danger that the water could be toxic, the Fire Department's Hazmat team was also called to the scene. Ironically, the vault had been built to withstand a nuclear attack, but apparently not water.

While the condition of the tailfinned Belvedere remains uncertain because the car was covered in cosmolene, a metal preservative then wrapped in plastic, the equation -’57 Plymouth, half a century and several feet of water, is definitely not promising. We’ll have more on Tulsa’s time-capsule latter on. Until then click “Read More…” below to see more photos along with a video

Via: kotv