Mentioned before on this blog, the Futurliner was produced by General Motors products in its Parade of Progress. They would focus on their new car lineup, some of the product used in them, televisions, probably washing machines, etc. What I have noticed as I looked up the history of these vehicles is that they all seem to have different production years which I think is not likely. Because they were so hard to see out of they had a lot of accidents over the years. GM ran from 1936 to 1941 before World War II and then picked up again in 1953 through 1956. They made 12 to begin with and almost all ended up in junk yards or some other form of storage. Along come the restorers. One ended up as a motor home, one was bought by Oral Roberts to use as a traveling stage. The Roberts bus is thought to be in Central or South America. Some were restored to original condition or are in the process of it. One is in Sweden under restoration. Two have disappeared, one of those might be the Roberts bus. So if you see one out in a field somewhere you should check it out. One that was restored was sold a few years ago for $4 million and is currently on display in Flint, Michigan.
The one that is coming up for sale started out as nothing. Mostly a rusted-out hulk. This one is considered Number 5 of the lot with 1941 as the year. Because nothing was left but the cab in the hands of the new owner it was given 20,000-pound air-sprung axles front and
rear and gets its power from a Cummins NTC-230 855-cu.in.
straight-six diesel engine running through an Allison 600-series
five-speed transmission. The Cummins is substantially
larger than the GMC straight-six gasoline engine that previously
powered Futurliner No. 5, so to make it easy to work on the engine
once installed, he converted the Futurliner front section into a tilt
cab. At the same time, he fabricated a new body section to house the
radiator for the Cummins behind the cab, and he made sure to include
seating for four and air conditioning inside the cab. While the GM
lettering on the nose of the cab is original, they had to source a
windshield from somebody in Canada.
It now lives again as a car/truck carrier. And it isn't cheap........ 1-818-419-9989
top photo credit: © 2013 Google
bottom photo credit: Brad Boyajian
