It was an integral part of GM's Road To Progress roadshows.
Did you know General Motors rolled out a traveling exhibition from the 1930s to the 1950s? The Parade of Progress was a way for the brand to reach out to the public via an educational and entertaining road show. To provide the logistics for these rolling displays, the company developed the GM Futurliner, a 33-foot-long bus sporting an Art Deco design penned by Haley Earl, the father of the Corvette.
These strange buses have been highlighted in the video below, reminding us just what a sight to behold they were. GM had a fleet of them, and every single one came in a bright-red color combined with chrome. It then used a 4.5-liter Detroit Diesel engine during its early years.
Like the oil burners of the Cummins Diesel Specials race cars, this Detroit Diesel was a two-stroke mill that could make up to 155 horsepower and 402 lb-ft of torque. Those figures are about as peppy as the modern diesel-powered Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, but the Futurliners weighed a whopping 33,000 pounds.
Later examples of this bus switched to a 5.0-liter GMC 302 inline-six gasoline motor, which wasn't much better with its 160 horsepower. The Futurliner also featured the HydraMatic, the first mass-produced transmission made by Earl Avery Thompson, the guy who came up with the Synchromesh gearbox.
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In a time when TV wasn't mainstream yet, and the internet was yet to exist, these buses were flocked to by loads of people whenever they entered a town.
Ironically, television, a technology that the Parade Of Progress promoted, slowly killed off the demand for the roadshow. Also, World War II happened, which impeded GM from conducting these mobile shows for some reason. Still, more were made after the war ended for a few years between 1953 and 1956.
The Futurliner was a rare beast and an icon of the era, with surviving examples fetching a fortune. One example sold twice over through Barrett-Jackson, fetching $4.4 million the first time and $4 million the second.
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Keyword: GM's Futurliner Buses Are Million-Dollar Pieces Of Automobile History Never To Be Repeated