Tulsa World

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Fabled rusty car might go east

by: RANDY KREHBIEL World Staff Writer
Thursday, July 19, 2007
7/19/2007 8:51:52 AM

Complete coverage of Tulsa’s famous buried car, including a story archive, slide shows and videos.

A New Jersey firm has agreed to try to clean up the formerly buried 1957 Belvedere.

The once-buried Belvedere may be going on a road trip.

A nephew of the car's apparent winner said Wednesday that an agreement has been worked out with a New Jersey firm to stabilize the 50-year-old automobile once ownership has been confirmed.

"Once we get it derusted, we think it'll run," said Bob Carney of Fredericksburg, Md. "We really think it will."

Carney's aunt, 93-year-old Catherine Humbertson Johnson of Bowling Green, Md., is the oldest sister of Raymond Humbertson, who submitted the apparent winning entry in a 1957 contest shortly before the Plymouth Belvedere was buried at the Tulsa County Courthouse.

Oddly, Humbertson doesn't seem to have ever lived in Tulsa or even Oklahoma. His family speculates he was passing through on his way from the West Coast to Maryland.

Humbertson died in 1979. He and his wife, Margaret, who died in 1988, had no children.

Carney said Ultra One Corp. of Hackettstown, N.J., has agreed to take the car to its headquarters for treatment with its rust-removing products.

The company says it "developed and formulated the first non-acid Hi Performance tunnel cleaners" for use in tunnels linking New Jersey and Manhattan. Its rust remover, Ultra One says on its Web site, "is a breakthrough product that has changed the age-old problem of rust removal forever."

Ultra One recently launched a Web site, www.missbelvedere.com, that Carney said will document the Belvedere's cleaning process.

"People will be able to keep up with the Belvedere on the Web site," Carney said.

Carney said the rust needs to be neutralized to preserve the Belvedere, which apparently spent a good portion of the past half-century as much underwater as underground.

"We're not going to take it apart and try to restore it," he said.

"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," Carney said.

Catherine Johnson, however, has not yet been verified as the winner.

Margaret Kobos of the Bank of Oklahoma trust department, which is handling the documentation, said Wednesday that most of the requested information has been received, but a few questions remain.

Arvest Bank President Don Walker, who is in charge of the transfer, said a holographic will left by Margaret Humbertson could complicate the process.

Raymond Humbertson apparently died without a will, and his effects passed to his widow. Margaret Humbertson left the bulk of her modest estate to two siblings, a nephew and her church.

Walker said that raises the question of whether her heirs have a claim to the car. He said, though, that none has come forward, and Carney said there is no disagreement in the family about the Belvedere going to his aunt.

"I'm pretty comfortable with turning the car over to them," Walker said. "The weird part is that he was not a Tulsa resident. I'd feel a little better if we knew for sure how he came to be in Tulsa."

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