What Happened To GM's Futurliners?

From Forgotten Machines · 00:13:58

Show by Forgotten Machines

In January 2006, a General Motors Futurliner sold at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, for $4 million.Narrated with an AI voice. Written with AI help, fact-checked by the channel's editor.Dale Hollis in this story is invented. The machine, the dates, the events and every real person named are documented.GM built 12 of these 33-foot exhibit buses for its Parade of Progress, a traveling show of science and industry that toured from 1936 to 1956. This episode tests three answers to where the twelve went (GM kept them, they were scrapped, or other owners saved them) against the record, from Charles Kettering's idea in 1933 and the 1941 and 1953 tours to the brewery, state police, junkyard and collector years, and says how firm each finding is.How this was madeResearch and script. Written with the help of an AI model (Claude, made by Anthropic), working from the sources listed below. Each factual claim is checked against those sources, and against a second source where one exists, in two separate AI fact-check passes and then by the channel's editor. Where sources disagree, the narration says so and gives each side.Narration. A synthetic voice from ElevenLabs' built-in voice set. It does not imitate anyone in the story.Approval. The channel's editor approves every episode before it is published.This episode is the full narration of the video of the same story. The video, with the archival photographs and their credits, is on YouTube: https://youtu.be/KgIbQifBepoCorrections. If you find an error, please comment with a source on the YouTube video. Corrections are listed in its pinned comment.Chapters0:00 Scottsdale, January 21, 20061:38 Kettering's idea, 1933 to 19403:23 Twelve Futurliners, 1940 to 19415:05 The second Parade, 1953 to 19567:18 Sold and scattered, 1956 to 19929:33 Rescues and prices, 1992 to 201511:42 What GM kept, and the answerWhere sources disagree: the full list is in the pinned comment on the YouTube video.Sources (the first five; all are listed on the YouTube video)1. Savitz, Eric J. "Retro Rides: Driving into the future with the 1940 GM Futurliner." GM News (General Motors), April 2, 2025. https://news.gm.com/home.detail.html/Pages/topic/us/en/2025/apr/0402-1940-gm-futurliner.html2. Savitz, Eric J. "Yesterday's Tomorrow." GM News newsletter archive (General Motors), April 4, 2025. https://news.gm.com/home/newsletter-archive/2025/newsletter-04-04-2025.html3. Williams, Bill. "GM Parade of Progress," Special-Interest Autos, March to April 1977, reprinted by the GM Futurliner Restoration Project (NATMUS), pages account.htm and account1.htm (captions); reprint undated (site copyright 1999 to 2018). https://futurliner.org/account.htm ; https://futurliner.org/account1.htm4. Williams, Bill. "Anatomy of a Futurliner" (owner's report by Vic Hyde), Special-Interest Autos, March to April 1977, reprinted by the GM Futurliner Restoration Project, undated. https://www.futurliner.org/account2.htm5. GM Futurliner Restoration Project. "The Futurliner" (first and second generation Futurliners). futurliner.org, undated (copyright 1999 to 2018). https://futurliner.org/fh.htmThe remaining sources are in the description and the reply under the pinned comment on the YouTube video.

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