Time Capsules
Or was GE trying to bury one of their blunders?
Fun fact: In 1983 over 700,000 copies of the game cartridge E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial were buried in an Alamogordo, NM, desert. Why? Because the video game market crashed, and no one wanted to play a game where the main character kept saying “Home!” The only game where people regularly want to go home is … baseball. Perhaps their inspiration was the little town of Seward, Nebraska. This past summer Seward residents opened a time capsule from 50 years ago. What was buried inside?
“Beyond the car, the capsule contained over 5,000 objects from 1975, intended to reflect the “everyday American experience.” Items ranged from cassette tapes and Pet Rocks to a Teflon frying pan and a 1975 Barbie doll. The vault, buried under a concrete pyramid behind Davisson’s former furniture store, was meant to be a lasting monument to the era.”
They buried a car? They buried a 1975 Chevrolet Vega! 😱 For those of you unfamiliar with the Chevy Vega, it was perhaps the worst-built car General Motors ever made: a car that deserved to be buried!
What made the Chevy Vega so bad? It was built as a low-cost competitor to foreign imports, but it missed its price and weight goals by 25%. Because it was heavier than planned, the engine strained to power it. Worse, to save weight, they made the engine out of aluminum, but they didn’t provide sufficient cooling for it. Driving it at high speeds or for long distances would warp the engine. They didn’t rust-proof the body, which created an entire industry dominated by Ziebart. A car dealer once offered me a 30 second/30 foot warranty on a Vega engine. I declined.
“Brief footage shared by GM Authority shows the Vega as a two-door notchback with a brown interior and a 4-speed manual transmission. Its base engine in 1975, the 2.3L I4 L13, delivered 78 horsepower.” In Italy, small cars can survive on less than 100 horsepower; in the US, they typically need roads dedicated to the Amish.
When they opened the pyramid time capsule, there was good news and bad news. The car was intact (I’ll allow the gentle reader to decide if that is good or bad news), with just a little rust. Incredibly, the car started and didn’t blow a valve. They even drove it in a Seward 4th of July parade, where people trembled in fear that such an awful car could still drive. Although since the parade was only a few miles and under 20 mph, it wasn’t straining too much … not too much. The bad news is two-fold. First, they didn’t bury a car anyone would want to buy 50 years later; they buried a Vega! 😱 Second, the paperwork got water damaged, while ownership receipts got stolen, so if you’re hoping to reclaim your Gerry Rafferty 8-Track of that era, it’s not gonna be easy to get it back.
The time capsule has been praised for keeping its contents in great shape. A Kawasaki motorcycle also started up, and no one has died from using the Teflon skillet in there, yet. Scientists hope to study it for clues on improving future time capsules. Maybe they can bury old politicians in it, although there’s a risk they’ll run for election 100 years from now. It would explain some of our current elections.
Finally, did you know Rome has a pyramid? Located just south of Trastavere, near Garbatella, it’s roughly 2,000 years old.
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I've been battling a cold the past three days, gonna take some cold medicine and go back to bed awhile.
People down below talked about their first cars. I owned a 1972 Honda 600 coupe, where the prior owner converted it to a convertible. 600 was the engine size, so it was larger than a Fiat 500 (which actually had a smaller engine than that). 36 horsepower. Top speed on level ground at 58 mph, so I grabbed a brick for "Cruise control".10 inch rims. My ZTR today has bigger tires than that! When the engine broke after four years, we toyed with putting a Briggs and Stratton lawn mower engine in it, but didn't. My Dad sold it a few years later to a friend of his who thought he could put an engine in it.
I'd take my grandmother for rides in it. We'd put-put-putter out of the driveway, then down the street out of view of my Mom. I'd then drop the top, and gun it, she'd whisper "wheeeeeeee". She loved fresh air on her face. On our trip home. I'd stop, put up the top, then put-put-putter into the driveway, my Mom never the wiser. Grandmother was a saint, but also wise enough to stay quiet about her adventures!