Jul

Buried car to be derusted?

Posted by Published in Hemmings

Here’s an update on Miss Belvedere - you remember, the 1957 Plymouth that was sealed up in a not-so-waterproof date capsule in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and exhumed amid great hoopla in June. It seems that the car is headed to Hackettstown, New Jersey, the domestic of Ultra One Corporation, manufacturers of a product called Safest Rust Remover.

Ultra One says in a press release that it has reached an agreement with Robert Carney, the nephew of the car’s obvious winner, to have the Belvedere chemically derusted and preserved with their proprietary Safest Rust Remover process. Dwight Foster, a representative of Ultra One, expects the rust removal process to take about six months. Carney, of Frederick, Maryland, is the nephew of 93-year-old Catherine Humbertson Johnson, the oldest sister of Raymond Humbertson, who submitted the obvious winning entry in Tulsa’s 1957 contest. He is to take possession of the car in a September 14 ceremony.

Sure hope they’ve got a lot of that stuff. According to an editorial 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.”

According to Ultra One, there are plans to get the engine running and all the lamps working before the unveiling. The company promises to document the whole process on their Web site.

Ultra One says that its Safest Rust Remover is non-toxic, non-corrosive, and biodegradable, and can take absent corrosion while leaving the metal unharmed. It leaves rubber, plastic, seals, and most paints untouched. I’ve actually used the stuff on the turbo heat sheild on my 1994 Saab 900, and I can say that it worked as advertised.

Original post by Dave LaChance