Post by ferrari512s on Feb 9, 2014 18:31:18 GMT -5
Turbine-powered oddities, No. 657: GM’s Bison
Re-posted from blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2011/07/12/turbine-powered-oddities-no-657-gms-bison/
GM Bison Concept Truck
While the Ford Mustang made its debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair and changed the face of American motoring almost overnight, another vehicle debuted at the same time at the same venue and with the same revolutionary goal, but almost immediately slipped into utter obscurity.
General Motors by that time had been messing around with gas turbines for more than a decade, ever since the Firebird concept car of 1953 – allegedly the first gas turbine-powered automobile in the United States. Like other manufacturers, GM inevitably hit upon the idea of using a gas turbine to power over-the-road trucks, resulting in the Bison concept that GM debuted in April 1964 at the New York World’s Fair. Though there’s little mention of it in the reference books, the Bison concept (which has the appearance of a Tom Semple or Syd Mead rendering) seemed designed more to show off GM’s ideas of a worldwide system of standardized cargo containers “which can be automatically loaded, unloaded, sorted and stored by electronically-controlled equipment… at new peaks of efficiency on tomorrow’s express highways.” Not much seems to have been said about the turbine powering the truck, though GM’s display at the World’s Fair did note a number of interesting features of the Bison, including four-wheel steering, a flip-forward canopy and combination jack-sanders between the wheels.
Whether the Bison ever ran is a matter of speculation, but GM’s Turbo Titan III, a prototype gas-turbine over-the-road truck that made its debut a couple of years later, did indeed run. Nor was GM’s idea of a globally standardized shipping container without merit, though work had already begun on the intermodal shipping container in the mid-1950s (global dimensional standards didn’t come about until January 1968, however). Oh, and the Bison name – starting in 1977, GM gave that to its Class 8 Chevrolet truck, counterparts to the GMC General.
Information from:
www.carstyling.ru/en/car/1964_gm_bison/
myautoworld.com/gm/history/corvette/corvette1/corvette1-54dream/corvette1-54dream.html
Re-posted from blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2011/07/12/turbine-powered-oddities-no-657-gms-bison/
GM Bison Concept Truck
While the Ford Mustang made its debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair and changed the face of American motoring almost overnight, another vehicle debuted at the same time at the same venue and with the same revolutionary goal, but almost immediately slipped into utter obscurity.
General Motors by that time had been messing around with gas turbines for more than a decade, ever since the Firebird concept car of 1953 – allegedly the first gas turbine-powered automobile in the United States. Like other manufacturers, GM inevitably hit upon the idea of using a gas turbine to power over-the-road trucks, resulting in the Bison concept that GM debuted in April 1964 at the New York World’s Fair. Though there’s little mention of it in the reference books, the Bison concept (which has the appearance of a Tom Semple or Syd Mead rendering) seemed designed more to show off GM’s ideas of a worldwide system of standardized cargo containers “which can be automatically loaded, unloaded, sorted and stored by electronically-controlled equipment… at new peaks of efficiency on tomorrow’s express highways.” Not much seems to have been said about the turbine powering the truck, though GM’s display at the World’s Fair did note a number of interesting features of the Bison, including four-wheel steering, a flip-forward canopy and combination jack-sanders between the wheels.
Whether the Bison ever ran is a matter of speculation, but GM’s Turbo Titan III, a prototype gas-turbine over-the-road truck that made its debut a couple of years later, did indeed run. Nor was GM’s idea of a globally standardized shipping container without merit, though work had already begun on the intermodal shipping container in the mid-1950s (global dimensional standards didn’t come about until January 1968, however). Oh, and the Bison name – starting in 1977, GM gave that to its Class 8 Chevrolet truck, counterparts to the GMC General.
Information from:
www.carstyling.ru/en/car/1964_gm_bison/
myautoworld.com/gm/history/corvette/corvette1/corvette1-54dream/corvette1-54dream.html