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Volvo: Safety Beyond the Star RatingsThe GM Futurliner and the Parade of Progress
Gigantic and striking in appearance, the GM Futurliner was built to promote technological innovations and engineering advancements.
What is the GM Futurliner?
Even the biggest innovations can go unheralded or unnoticed if they are not presented on an appropriately grand stage. Without one, we can end up taking major advancements for granted. Think Velcro, peanut butter, ethanol, the microwave, stereo sound. New ideas heralding a new age. With this in mind, General Motors built the Futurliners, colossal vehicles as astounding in scale and as awesome in design as the latest R&D developments they were created to promote.
The Futurliners were the centerpiece of General Motor’s Parade of Progress, a traveling showcase of new technology and scientific breakthroughs that hopscotched across the country on multiple tours from 1936 through 1956. The Futurliners were red, white, and chrome Art Deco behemoths looking, for all the world, like a line of freight train engines rolling down the two-lane highways of rural America. A “circus of science” was coming to town and the Futurliners, twelve in total, served as the stage.
From Streamliner to Futurliner
The history of the GM Futurliner goes back to 1933 and the Chicago World’s Fair. Attending the international exposition, Charles Kettering, GM’s head of research, conceived of a similar traveling expo to promote the cutting-edge work of his engineering teams. Starting in February of 1936, GM’s early Parade of Progress tours visited over 250 towns and cities across the US, Mexico, and even included a trip to Cuba. The “Silver-Topped Streamliner” was the first large promotional vehicle created for the Parade of Progress, basically large, modified buses. A “preview” vehicle was specially built in 1938 to transport displays, and functioning as a concept for the eventual Futurliner, which would be built the following year.
The Futurliner, with its massive scale and streamlined, Art Deco styling, was designed by Harley Earl. The dimensions of the Futurliner are colossal at 11-ft, 6-in tall, 7-ft, 10-in wide, 32-ft, 10-inchs long, with a 248-inch wheelbase. From the cockpit’s central driver’s seat, a Futurliner’s pilot would look down to meet the eyes of passing semi drivers.
The Futurliner was powered, initially, by a 4-17 Detroit diesel, a 284 cu-in (4.7L) two-stroke four-cylinder making 160 horsepower and paired with a manual transmission. Given the Futurliner’s 30,000-lbs weight and its modestly sized engine, top speed was leisurely 38 mph. Fuel was kept in two 45-gallon tanks. The Futurliner had sets of double wheels, with specially designed gearing between each pair, functioning like a differential to allow proper cornering.
The Futurliners embarked on their first Parade of Progress in 1940 with a staff of 50-60 recent college graduates serving as road crew and presenters for the traveling exhibits.
“A Circus of Science”
Despite its length, a Futurliner’s cockpit only sat three passengers. The rest of its 33-ft in length was devoted to the vehicle’s specific exhibit, with a clamshell opening from the side, and providing a stage for presenters. These included such exhibits as “Out of the City Muddle” extolling advances in city planning, “Opportunity of Youth” featuring stereo sound, “Miracles of Hot & Cold” with novel solutions (like the microwave) from Frigidaire, “Around the Farmhouse Clock” covering new agricultural innovations, and “Energy of Man” explaining the virtues of ethanol. The “Power for the Air Age” exhibit had an articulating cutaway of a jet engine. An “Aero-dome” tent was also used for presentations, with room for up to 1,500 attendees.
Though initially spurred by the World’s Fair, the push toward industrial innovation embodied by the Parade of Progress increasingly reflected the national imperatives surrounding WWII. As Kettering once pitched the inspirational intent of the Parade: “The permanent defense of America, both in the immediate future and in succeeding years, is going to require greater ingenuity and inventiveness, more dissatisfaction with old and inefficient ways of doing things, and more real hard work to fully utilize our natural resources of men, money and materials than ever before.”
The attack at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 forced a pause in the Parade of Progress. The Futurliners made their own contribution to the war effort as their diesels were donated for use as tank engines. The Futurliners underwent refurbishment that replaced the glass dome cockpit roof, which produced a powerful greenhouse effect for drivers, with a steel roof. New engines were also in order, 302 cu-in inline-sixes with 145 horsepower paired with new four-speed Hydra-Matic automatic transmissions.
The Parade of Progress resumed touring in 1953 and would last through 1956.
Whereabouts Known & Unknown
Long lost to time, the GM Futurliners have today become automotive mythology. Of the original twelve built, nine are known to exist in various states of repair. Some have been fully restored, some are in the process of being restored, and at least one is rotting away to dust in a storage lot in the Catskills of New York state. Because most have lost their identification plates, the exact identity of some of the remaining Futurliners is in question.
It is not a question for ones like the Number Three Futurliner, the “Power of Air Age” is fully restored complete with its jet engine cutaway. The Number Ten Futurliner is part of the National Automotive and Truck Museum in Auburn, Indiana. It was restored over a seven-year period by enthusiast Don Mayton and a crew of knowledgeable and devoted volunteers. In 2015, the Number Ten Futurliner was added to the National Historical Vehicle Registry. Three Futurliners are owned by Chrome Cars, a German restoration company. The Number Eight Futurliner is in Sweden, currently undergoing restoration.
The provenance of Numbers Seven and Eleven Futurliners remains open for debate with the latter either the rotting parts shell in East Meredith, NY or the restored Futurliner that was twice auctioned for $4 million dollars. Though there are nine Futurliners accounted for, including the parts shell, the exact identities and locations of Numbers One, Two, Four, and Twelve are unclear.
Built to inspire and educate, the GM Futurliner was one of the most unique and astounding vehicles Detroit has ever produced. Today, the Futurliner serves as a powerful reminder of an age when innovation and optimism went hand in hand.
