That car can heal itself. I've seen it happen in Christine. Only that last photo linked for me, and those pics sucked. There was a decent pic in the newspaper, but it's not shown online. Too bad that bunker didn't protect the car!

...and FWIW, when I first saw the title of this thread, I was expecting to see Mr. Belvedere's rotting corpse. But that wouldn't make sense, 'cause if he'd been in a tomb all these years, then how'd we get that "classic" '80s show?
http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/3...lvederewg8.jpg
http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/2...eonlinedo4.jpg

Hay, how come Bob Uecker isn't in the "front row"?

I crack me up.

I think the fact that they buried a can of gasoline along with the car (because they weren't sure if gasoline would be available 50 years later), shows pure genius at work too. I wonder if they added a bottle of Stabil? :)

For what it's worth, some of what appears to be rust is actually just mud. It's hard to see in any of the photos on the internet but, if you were able to see the car in person, you will have noticed that they cleaned a section of the front bumper and the chrome under all the mud was still decent. Obviously, cleaning the whole car wouldn't result in a perfect Belvedere, so they probably decided that to keep it in its current condition made more sense from a historical perspective.

JR