The Time Capsule Car: The Story of Miss Belvedere

So, let’s set the stage. The year is 1957, the month was June, the place was Tulsa, Oklahoma, the number one song for 1957 was “All Shook Up” by Elvis Presley with The Jordanaires. Oklahoma became the 46th state in the Union on 16 November 1907. Oklahoma would celebrate 50 years of statehood in 1957.

The city of Tulsa wanted to do something special to commemorate the 50th anniversary of becoming the 46th state. The city would come up with the “Tulsarama” Golden Jubilee Week celebrations, and the organizers decided that they would bury a car as a time capsule to celebrate the occasion. That car would be a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere dubbed “Miss Belvedere”. She was a gold and white sport coupe, and she only had four miles on the odometer when she was buried.

One of the coolest things about Miss Belvedere’s burial would be the American flag that was added as a memento, it only had 46 stars. There were glass containers of oil and gasoline in the trunk with hopes of starting the car when the tomb was uncovered. They added a case of Schlitz beer, and there were things from a lady’s purse, Tulsa maps, Luther Williams placed a wedding photo of his daughter Nancy Hughes in her wedding dress. Miss Belvedere interred at the Tulsa County Courthouse on South Denver Avenue.

The committee decided that when Miss Belvedere was uncovered in 2007 which would be the state’s centennial year, the car would be given to the person that best described the population of Tulsa in 2007. When the car was unearthed it was found to be damaged because of water because of the tomb seal had been broken. Miss Belvedere was in sad shape. There are possible factors that caused the vault to be breached: Traffic above the vault and water main breaks near the vault, in any case the automotive time capsule was still in tact, but not in pristine condition.

There are so many facets to this story. A story 67 years in the making, ultimately two cars, a retired NYC English teacher and first time author, a book, a website, and a museum. When things that were not anticipated go wrong, the situation must be rectified to bring about a positive outcome for all involved.

The story goes as follows: The is the original Miss Belvedere, a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere, and a replica 1957 Plymouth Belvedere dubbed Mr. Belvedere. Mr. Belvedere looks as Miss Belvedere did the day she was buried as a time capsule in June of 1957. Author Stephen King would also have a story about a Plymouth Fury, a 1958 to be exact. Dubbed “Christine” which become a book in April of 1983 and John Carpenter’s movie of the same name was released in December of 1983.

Enter Sanford Miles, a retired NYC English teacher and first-time author (The Buried Plymouth-A Story Unearthed In Tulsa), who took interest in Miss Belvedere purely by chance while surfing the internet one day. There was a pronouncement that read: TWO YEARS AND TWO MONTHS UNTIL SHE’S UNEARTHED! “Until who’s unearthed?” Reading the strange pronouncement got his mind racing as to what all of this meant. In the years since reading about Miss Belvedere, he has written a book and he has even purchased a replica 1957 Plymouth which he calls Mr. Belvedere. In September of 2023 Miles would bring Mr. Belvedere to Tulsa. In doing his research he amassed two file cabinets and a closet full of information for him to be able to write his book that would be eighteen years in the making.

Both Stephen King and Sanford Miles both live in Florida in the same vicinity of each other. Two authors who live in the same area would write books about the same style of car. Stories that are a horror of sorts, one being possessed and the other being ruined by the elements. The silver lining is that neither will be forgotten anytime soon.

Much time has passed for Miss Belvedere, who has had a storied past, but she is still relevant to this day. After she was brought up from her home of 50 years, she needed a lot of rust removal and restoration. Neither the city of Tulsa or the Smithsonian wanted her because was not the lovely time piece that everyone wanted her to be, but she found a permanent home at the Historic Auto Attractions Museum in Roscoe, IL. She was placed there in 2017 and made her debut on 9 June 2020 where she remains to this day.

There is something about the story of Miss Belvedere, she was buried in a dark place only to emerge like “Houdini in a cloud of smoke, like an apparition from the Reaper’s cloak”.

Mr. Belvedere gives you a glimpse into an age of the automobile industry when innovation was king. This car is family sized, but it is also very stylish and elegant. You can see why Sanford wanted to own his own piece of history. Can you blame him?

If you would like to see more about Miss Belvedere, you can visit her website: https://buriedplymouth.com/