That seems a reasonable question, as Tulsa is digging one up in less than two weeks.

The brand-new, two-door Belvedere hardtop buried at the Tulsa County Courthouse 50 years ago come June 15 was, one local official said then, "a true representative of automobiles of this century."

He said the car had "the kind of lasting appeal that should still be in style 50 years from now."

Safe to say, the prediction didn't entirely hold up. Nothing like the '57 Belvedere has come out of Detroit -- or anywhere else -- in decades.

But the Belvedere, along with the entire 1957 model line of Plymouth's parent, Chrysler, did have a significant impact on the automobile industry. In design, the '57s were ahead of their time -- about three years ahead, to be precise.

Jim Benjaminson, a lifelong Plymouth enthusiast and author of three books on the subject, says Chrysler claimed that it originally intended to release the '57 models in 1960. But chief designer Virgil Exner's "Flight-Sweep" concept -- with eye-browed headlights, futuristic lines and big tailfins and lights that evoked the glowing exhaust of a rocket -- were so striking that a decision was made to rush the model into production.

The impact on the industry was immediate.

"For years, General Motors had been the styling leader," Benjaminson said recently from his home in North Dakota. "This was huge. In fact, General Motors' 1958s were all new cars, and they scrapped them and came out with a whole new line in 1959."

The cars were enormously popular, and Plymouth jumped to third in U.S. sales, behind Ford and Chevrolet and ahead of Buick.

In retrospect, Chrysler might have been better off had it held its new design for a year or two. Exner's concept might have been revolutionary, but its execution on the assembly line left a lot to be desired.

Benjaminson writes in one of his books that despite their "killer good looks," the '57 Plymouths "leaked dust and rain water like a sieve, paint faded and flaked off in chunks and upholstery materials disintegrated in the sunlight."

He said in the recent interview: "They were kind of rushed into production and there wasn't much quality control. They rusted away within two or three years, and that was something that came back to haunt Chrysler for years after."

Benjaminson's book quoted another person as saying the '57 Plymouths "were the worst car Chrysler ever made. . . . (E)very car they sold made an enemy instead of a friend."

By some accounts, the Belvederes were among the most rust-prone cars ever built -- which does not bode well for Tulsa's buried car.

Benjaminson said he did not know why the cars had so much trouble with rust.

"There's a story, and I've never been able to verify it, that the U.S. was importing some steel that was not of the quality the automobile industry had been using," he said, noting that Fords of the same period "had a problem rusting out over the front fenders."

Benjaminson said he learned of Tulsa's buried Belvedere in the 1980s. He included it in his 1994 book, "Plymouth, 1946-59," and has written about it regularly over the past decade.

He is among the 200 journalists credentialed for the excavation of the buried Belvedere. Recent revelations of the steps taken to protect the car have raised his hopes.

"Basically, we're looking at a car that should be the best-preserved (example) of what was built in 1957," he said. "I think it will not be pristine, but I think it could be better than a lot of us thought it would be."

World news researchers Hilary Pittman and Rachele Vaughan contributed to this story.

Randy Krehbiel 581-8365
randy.krehbiel@tulsaworld.com