"Every day, thousands of cars go by and don't realize what they're looking at," retired Air Force Lt. Col. Nick Van Valkenburgh said in Huntsville Friday. "They're looking at one of the most classified programs the CIA ever had."

Van Valkenburgh was talking about the long, stiletto-shaped airplane behind him on a pad in front of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. The plane is an A-12 Oxcart capable of flying 2,000 miles per hour at 90,000 feet to spy on American Cold War enemies like Russia.

Friday's event was a celebration of the A-12's restoration. Now fully repainted and preserved thanks to donations by S(3) and PPG, the A-12 will be mounted on pedestals in front of the rocket center on Interstate 565.

There were 12 single-seat Oxcarts and one two-seat trainer built in the CIA's code-named "Archangel" program. Hence, the designation A-12. The rocket center's was the seventh off the assembly line, and the entire A-12 program was the predecessor of the Air Force's SR-71 Blackbird.

By chance, Alabama has three of the surviving seven A-12s. One is at the Battleship Alabama Memorial Park in Mobile, and one is at the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham.

"To this day, no other jet has flown faster," Van Valkenburg said. But the Oxcart holds no official records, because it was a secret. "If you don't exist, you can't hold records," he said.

The A-12's last flight was over North Korea looking for the captured U.S. Navy ship Pueblo, Van Valkenburgh said. "You might want to Google that," he added.

Rocket center curator Ed Stewart explained a painstaking restoration process that starts with "doing as little as possible." He meant, "Do as much as we can that can be reversed in case there's a better way in the future."

Stewart explained the challenges of painting an airplane made "almost entirely out of titanium" and the care taken down to the plugs inserted into the exhaust outlet. They are made of inert material and will not rot or stick to the frame. The labels and numbers painted on the A-12 are "as accurate as we can possibly make them," Stewart said.

Visitors to the Space & Rocket Center's parking lot can see the A-12 for free. Admission is charged to the museum and its rocket and space shuttle parks.