1927 Chevrolet AA Capitol 2-door Coupe Found Aboard Lake Huron Shipwreck.

The Manasoo, a 178-foot steamer that sank in Georgian Bay on Lake Huron near Ontario, was discovered by an international dive team earlier this year. The Manasoo sank in a heavy storm on September 14, 1928, and 16 people and 116 head of cattle perished in the incident. After some 90 years underwater, the wreck was discovered to be rather well preserved. And it was found to have carried a car onboard: a still-intact 1927 Chevrolet coupe.

The Detroit Free Press, which reported on the discovery, called the Chevy a muscle car, yet “mussel car” would be more apt after all this time sitting 200 feet deep on the lakebed. The Chevy was originally brought onboard the ship by Donald Wallace, a cattleman, who was the only passenger to survive the sinking (along the the captain and three crewmen). The Series AA car with a 2.8-liter four-cylinder engine probably survived as well as it has thanks to being submerged in cold lake water, not seawater — Great Lakes shipwrecks are typically well-preserved for that reason.

The Chevy is likely to continue its watery slumber for some time, as no plans have been announced to extract it from the vessel that took it to the bottom of the lake.

The story of the Manasoo can be heard on this diving video, with 1982 audio narration by the then-last living survivor of shipwreck, Dr. Arthur Middlebro, who was the ship’s purser.

Imagine finding the shipwreck of a steamer that last set sail back in 1928. Granted, it’s been said time and again that the world’s ocean floor is littered with as many as 3,000,000 shipwrecks and that maybe 2% of these have been found and investigated, so finding one isn’t a miracle. What’s more interesting is when the ship you run into is in amazing shape and, moreover, hides a Chevrolet in its cargo that somehow remained intact after all these years.

Donald Wallace, the owner of the car that was found below deck, was the only passenger to survive the incident along with three sailors and the Manasoo’s captain. His car, a 1927 Chevrolet AA Capitol 2-door Coupe is an unusual find when it comes to items discovered on shipwrecks.

The Capitol debuted in 1927, the year when Ford switched from the Model T to the Model A which is why Chevy outsold Ford. At the time, the AA Capitol – which was based on the A platform – was touted as being “The Most Beautiful Chevrolet Ever” although it looked similar to the Series V and Series K models of previous years. A total of eight body styles were available for the Capitol in 1927 which helped Chevy sell over 650,000 of them. A popular engine choice was the 2.8-liter straight-4 engine although all engines were fitted for the first time with oil and air filters. A 3-speed transmission was the standard option.

As for the Manasoo, maritime historian of the Great Lakes area, Chris Kohl, talks about the bad luck that hides behind changing a boat’s name.
The Manasoo, built back in 1888 in Scotland, was originally known as S.S. Macassa and was used to take tourists between Toronto and Hamilton on Lake Ontario for almost four decades. Then, in 1928, it was bought by Owen Sound Transportation Company and put to work on the Manitoulin Island – Sault Ste. Marie route. However, it never made it through its first year in the hands of the new owner.

“There’s a superstition among sailors that you don’t rename a ship because it will bring bad luck and sure enough it brought bad luck,” said Kohl quoted by MSN. Whether bad luck was involved or not, it’s been determined that the 178-foot-long ship sank after it started filling up with water at the stern.

The question that’s rising now centers around that mussle-covered Chevy. Should it be brought back to the surface and put in a museum? Or should it be left alone as an integral part of the Manasoo which it has been for the past 90 years?