GM Futurliner #10 'Walks' Quarter Mile in Streamlined Style

General Motors built a number of these fantastic-looking Futurliners back in the late 40s and early 50s as part of their traveling show called "GM Parade of Progress". Right now, they are as very rare, so you would exactly expect them to be used for something as radical as say a quarter mile run.

But that’s exactly what happened, as GM Futurliner #10, which was restored in 2007, recently made a trip out to the Pontiac Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, where it took on a strip of asphalt at the snail's pace. This monster only has a top speed of 40 miles per hour, so it surprises us that somebody had the curiosity and audacity to see what it can do against the clock.

Since it’s packing around all the latest automotive developments from that era, plus a huge show area in the middle, it’s not exactly built for tarmac shredding, yet we thought all that streamlining would help it somewhat.

It’s a cool old leviathan from the past, and we don’t really know why people would care about the speed of an antique. Things that are faster include unicycles, bicycles, people, electric cars, cats and probably the breeze on that particular day.

At the end of the video that made us want to go to the bathroom, a time of 45.574 seconds was announced, at 29.60 miles per hour. Don’t adjust the speed of your computers, the video is not running in slow motion.

We’ll remind you that the Futurliner is powered by a 302 cubic inch GMC gasoline overhead-valve truck straight-six. That’s one slow blast from the past!