Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 4/24/08 Section: News

This 1970 illustration of the car burial that took place during the Survival Faire at San Jose State College was drawn by Jeff McKiney. Environmentally friendly ink was used.

In 1970, about 50 students from Humanities 160 organized San Jose State College's ecology Survival Faire - to protest smog and environmental pollution. The weeklong fair, held in February, culminated with the burial of a car to draw attention to "man's survival in a deteriorating environment," as quoted in the Spartan Daily that week.

The car, a 1970 yellow Ford Maverick, was buried next to the Student Union and was bought by student donations for $2,500, the Spartan Daily reported Feb. 16, 1970.

Members of the Kappa Sigma fraternity pushed the car from Paul Swanson Ford in Los Gatos to the university. The car was never started.

The Daily's Tara Duffy sat down with Gary Hobbs, a witness of the Survival Faire and the car funeral on Feb. 20, 1970. Hobbs graduated from San Jose State College with a degree in biology and teaches high school in San Jose.



Q: How did the idea of burying a car come about?

A: A humanities class. They wanted to get involved with Earth Day, trying to do something a little on the outrageous side. And (they) came up with the idea of getting a car - a brand new car, pushing it down here to San Jose State and then burying it in the ground. They made a poster to that effect and spread that poster around. And I think that's what really got people going, because the question was, 'Are they really going to bury the car?'



Q: Can you explain how the correlation between burying a car and Earth Week came about? How do they relate?

A: Burying a car was a symbol. They made that clear the whole Earth Week. It symbolized the internal combustion engine - they wanted to declare death to the internal combustion engine and find some new way of propelling people around. Particularly mass transit ideas.



Q: What was the atmosphere like at this time when the car was being buried? What was really going on at San Jose State?

A: Well, I think there was a lot of hype in the weeks leading up, and I think the car brought a lot of attention to that. I was part of another group, called the Environmental Information Center … When we heard about them burying the car we decided we would really jump in and get involved.

So there was that, there were a lot of other committees that came up. I was involved with a couple of those guest speakers on campus. We had the whole Student Union involved. Students were talking about the environment in their classes.

I think overall - I can't be sure because I think we had 27,000 students at the time - that it seemed like a lot of people were talking about the environment and particularly about burying that car, like, 'Is it real?' Then we got talking about air pollution and water pollution. I know talking to some of the professors there were students saying, "Is there a class where I could sign up and learn more?" It brought a lot of awareness.



Q: Where did the money come from to buy the car? Who actually bought the car?

A: I don't know. I don't think I ever found out. I don't know if they raised the money because cars weren't very expensive in those days, and in fact that car was a Maverick, and I don't remember what the cost of the Maverick was, somewhere in between $2,000 and $3,000 brand new, so I may be wrong about that, but it wouldn't be much more than that back in 1970 I don't know if the car company donated it or if they purchased part of it or if they purchased the whole thing.



Q: What did the Survival Faire consist of? Was there anything besides burying the car? Or were there other festivities?

A: The Student Union had lots of booths inside there, people came from all over with their environmental information - there was anything that had to do with the environment. There was a lot of ideas about teacher forums going. We had elementary school teachers, we had middle school teachers, high school teachers, all coming here to learn something. There were events about food. I recall one event when they served a typical meal that you might find in some places in the world where maybe they only got a little bit of rice to eat. They would do that to show you how much some people ate versus maybe what we do, just to bring awareness.



Q: I was reading that the Black Student Union and other minority groups were opposed to the burying of the car. Do you remember why that was? What's the correlation?

A: I think that where the group that buried the car saw it as a symbol of death to the internal combustion engine, other groups saw it as a waste of money.

It was money that could be used for social issues, bringing awareness to other things versus spending a few thousand dollars on that on something that didn't appear as a waste.

I mean, you really think about it, you buy a brand-new car and shove it in a hole and you just buried thousands of dollars and I think the thought was: "Why are you throwing this money away - when poverty and all of these other issues (could) use that money?"



Q: When did this Survival Faire start? Was this something that was new in 1970, or was this a tradition that was being carried on?

A: No, that was the first time that it had ever happened. (Wisconsin) Sen. Gaylord Nelson (an SJSU alumnus) came up with the idea and talked with people and, started as a thought and started gaining momentum, snowballed in the United States.

Other countries, everyone wanted, and it just blossomed into this huge thing … It wasn't just San Jose State. The surrounding schools and businesses, they just wanted more, the Environmental Information Center itself.

And that's one of the things I was doing besides about this car. Myself and others were being invited out to talk at schools or other colleges and high schools. You name it. I went to a Rotary Club meeting. Everyone wanted to know about the environment. It was that big. It was on the news every night leading up to it; it was big news all week long.



Q: Do you think the burial of the car had a lasting environmental impact, or was it just something for the time?

Q: That is a two-prong question because my students … they can't believe it. I brought it up with other people older than my students; they never heard of that car being buried.

So I think it was something that gained national worldwide attention - I know it gained national attention that at San Jose State a bunch of crazies were going to bury a brand-new car in the ground - and I think that lasted for quite a few years. Now we are 38 years later, and a lot of people never heard of it. … It occurred so I think it did bring awareness at the time.

But lasting effect? No. Because of the awareness, all the books that came out like "Population Bomb" and so on that allowed us to pass the Clean Air Act - and by us I mean the United States - the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species (Act). All those kinds of things that we now kind of take for granted … the air in San Jose is pretty clean now, relatively. Thirty-eight years ago it was a different story.



Q: Do you feel that young people cared more about environmental issues than compared with now? Five-thousand people voted to bury that car, and do you feel you would get the same response today?

A: Knowing high school kids the way I do, I think it would be really similar. You would get a lot of people who would say it was a waste. There is a lot of things you can do with that money, and I think that some people like the shock value that as long as you put in perspective and it's more for purpose, why are you going to bury that car? I think you can get a lot of people on board my group. The Environmental Information Center had a booth in the Student Union, and we were against the burial of the car, and we collected signatures. We collected 5,000 signatures that were against the burying that car, and the day that they were going to bury it, I had to stand on top of that car and deliver a short speech saying I don't think because we brought awareness, and then we put our papers of petition in the glove box buried along with the car.



Q: Do you feel that San Jose State supported the burying of the car?

A: They must have because it was buried on the other side of this building on the lawn, and they got a big backhoe and dug the hole, and they allowed them to do it.

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