Miss Belvedere On The Move

Thursday, November 29th 2007, 5:20 pm

By: News On 6

After sitting for 50 years in the same spot, Miss Belvedere will be covering a lot of ground in the next few days. Her new owners came to Tulsa on Thursday to take her to New Jersey. The News On 6â€™s Steve Berg reports the Humbertson family, from Maryland, promises to bring her back and in better shape.

Ninety-three-year-old Catherine Humbertson Johnson and 88-year-old Levada Humbertson are the surviving sisters of Raymond Humbertson, who won the Belvedere by guessing Tulsa's population.

"Just hope and pray that he could have been here to see all this because I know he would have enjoyed it," said Johnson. "I think they're just wonderful to go through all this at my age."

Humbertson's nephew, Robert Carney, after some initial doubt is now a Belvedere believer.

"My sister called me and said Raymond won a car, and I said, nah, there must be a con artist out there," said Carney.

What might be hard to believe is that they can clean the car up; that's where longtime Belvedere fan Dwight Foster comes in.

"I've been a car guy all my life and Old Cars Weekly has done periodical stories on Miss Belvedere for the past 30 years," said Dwight Foster of Ultra One Manufacturing.

Foster's company makes an array of cleaning and rust removal products, and he says they can save a lot of the car, but as cautiously as they're moving here, they're in a race against time. The car began deteriorating rapidly as soon as it was exposed to the air in June.

"The sooner we get her back to New Jersey, the faster we can stabilize her," said Foster.

Rather than a complete restoration, they're going for preservation, which they feel is more in keeping with the spirit of the car.

"To restore the car would take all the historical value away from it. Ya know anybody can take a car and a frame and restore it back to look like a new car," said Carney.

"If they can clean it up, I think it would be one of the most wonderful things in the world, if they just get it cleaned up, so I can see what it really looked like," said Johnson.

"I think it's awesome..!" said Humbertson.

The family will provide updates on the cleaning progress on the Miss Belvedere website.

Watch the video: Miss Belvedere On The Move

Related Stories:

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4/17/2007 Unearthing Tulsaâ€™s History

06/01/2007 Tulsa's Population Holds The Key To A Piece Of Tulsa History

6/7/2007 The Story Behind A Famous Photograph

6/9/2007 Crews Practice Lifting The Buried Belvedere

6/12/2007 Crews Prepare For The Unearthing Of The Buried Belvedere

6/13/2007 Water Seeps Into Vault Holding Buried Car

6/15/2007 Hundreds Gather To Catch A Glimpse Of Tulsa's Belvedere

6/15/2007 Belvedere Lifted From The Vault

06/15/2007 Meet Ms. Belvedere

6/16/2007 Ms. Belvedere, Belle Of The Car Show

6/17/2007 Search Begins For Winner Of Unearthed Belvedere

11/1/2007 Tulsaâ€™s Buried Car Getting A Face Lift Of Sorts

For more information about the Belvedere, click here.