By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS, Associated Press Writer
from YAHOO! NEWS

TULSA, Okla. - Thousands watched Friday as a crane lifted a muddy package from a hole in the courthouse lawn: a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere buried a half-century ago to celebrate Oklahoma’s 50 years of statehood.

The wrapped car was covered in red mud as it came out of the hole. Its trademark fins were exposed, caked with either rust or mud, and a bit of shiny chrome was visible on the bumper.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Miss Belvedere,” said event organizer Sharon King Davis, a fourth-generation Tulsan whose grandfather helped bury the Plymouth.

The gold and white two-door hardtop spent the last half-century covered in three layers of protective material and encased in a 12-by-20-foot concrete vault, supposedly tough enough to withstand a nuclear attack.

But event officials already had to pump out several feet of water from its crypt.

Some in the crowd had arrived downtown at dawn and endured torrential rain just to glimpse the car. By the time of the midday ceremony, people were standing on rooftops and looking out office buildings as news helicopters buzzed overhead.

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