Fascinating Graveyward/YouTube Add Jalopnik on Google: Google Discover The C4 Chevrolet Corvette — in production from 1984 to 1992 — has a bit of a mixed reputation among enthusiasts. For instance, when we ranked every Corvette generation in 2022, the C4 got votes for being both the best and the worst of the family. Of course, we know what camp George Swanson was in: When he passed away in 1994, he was buried, per his request, in his white 1984 Chevrolet Corvette. According to a statement from his lawyer, originally for the Associated Press, "George wanted to go out in style, and, indeed, now he will." Now, Swanson had originally hoped he and his car could be laid to rest at a cemetery outside of Pittsburgh, only for the cemetery to try to back out of the deal once Swanson had died. In the end, a lawyer had to be called in, as was a crane needed to lower George and his 'Vette into the ground. Speaking of which, Swanson actually had to buy 12 individual burial plots to make enough room for his final parking spot. It must have been quite a scene, too. George's wife, Caroline, took his ashes to the cemetery in another Corvette — her own — and sprinkled them onto the driver's seat of his. Meanwhile, Englebert Humperdink's "Release Me" was popped into the car's cassette player for the proper mood music. Swanson's choice of resting place set off a trend, it seems. Nowadays, some funeral homes recognize that a "final ride into the afterlife may seem unusual, but for some, it is a powerful symbol of status, passion, or personal legacy." Who was the first person buried in a car? Associated Press As Jalopniks are well aware, people can get pretty obsessed over cars, whether they're getting their favorite brands tattooed on their bodies or contemplating what car you'd want to be buried in, if only for the sake of the exercise. So you might think a lot of people have taken the latter idea beyond the conceptual phase. Yet some of the first hard evidence for an example doesn't come until 1977, when Sandra West was buried in her 1964 Ferrari at the Alamo Masonic Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas. There's some dispute about the exact model, but it was likely a rare Ferrari 330 America. Described as a "socialite and heiress," West was settled into the driver's seatwearing an Italian lace nightgow. Then the Ferrari was placed in a large wooden box, lowered by crane into the grave, and then encased in concrete to prevent vandalism. Nor is it always premium machines like Corvettes and Ferrari that get entombed. When Lonnie Holloway died at age 90 in 2009, he was buried behind the wheel of his 1973 Pontiac Catalina, a car he had bought for himself when he retired. Also in the car was his gun collection, which he wanted with him to take the weapons out of circulation. Oh, and Stevie Ray Vaughan fans may recall the story of Willie the Wimp, although this may deserve an asterisk as a car burial. Yes, he was a real person — the son of a Chicago gangster — and, yes, they "sent him off in the finest style, complete with a casket-mobile that really drove 'em wild." But his Cadillac coffin was an actual casket modified to look like a Caddy.
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