Thinking Out Loud – The Time Capsule That Just Won't Stay Buried!
July 4th will make it a year since we pulled a long-dead ’75 Vega out of the ground in Nebraska. However, the tale doesn’t end there. More capsule stuff follows.
This may be the shortest Blog in history as a couple of videos will make up for missing words.
It has been amazing how the story of burying a zero mileage 1975 Vega and digging it up 50 years later keeps resurfacing in the oddest places. Just last week it showed up on Quora sandwiched between opinions of what German soldiers thought of American combat troops in WWII and an up-lifting explanation of why Joan of Arc didn’t die of her burns while being burned at the stake. What!? A couple times a month I see Vega stuff like that.
Long time Thinking Out Loud readers know about the Vega saga. Others new to the subject can look back at the blog I did on it last year right after the event. Click on “read”. Budd Blog
Also, Nebraska Public TV did a pretty decent 15 minute video on it. Public TV
Go through those and you’re up to date. However, I’m periodically being asked what happened to the Vega and I didn’t have a good answer. Then, just yesterday, I got a video link from my sister, Trish.
Trish is the real hero of the Capsule Adventure as she had to handle the entire disinterment saga including dealing with the physical/emotional aspects of having the largest time capsule in the world in her front yard. It was a gigantic project but it was taken apart, emptied out, put back together and people still want to see the pyramid and the hole in the ground. Her house and its surrounds are nearly public property now. Cars always coming and going. And next month she’s speaking at the Vega’s Cosworth Convention.
The following link answers the most common question about the chances of automotive survival in a hole in the ground for half a century: Does it run? Vega enthusiasts donated some stuff like brake drums, and eBay replaced the rusty water pump. However, resuscitation was mostly the work of local Vega fans, Jack and Jay Hovick, who lathered it with loving sweat and lots of time. There was plenty of cleaning and polishing but no actual restoring done. It wasn’t needed. The video shows the result. Remember, when this video was shot, the car only had a mile or two on it and had spent 50 years under ground. Not bad for a corpse! When you click on this, it’ll open another page and you need to scroll down and click again to proceed. This is definitely not what I expected.
The obvious question is what now? I asked Trish that question and this is her answer.
“It’s going to be spending the summer traveling to car shows. High light will be the Vega Car Club of America convention in Des Moines. They’ll be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Cosworth engine. It’s a four-day event. Past that, we’ve made no long term plans.”
Stay tuned. An unplanned future is always a question mark. Keep watching this space.
See ya. bd