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Joined: 21 Jun 2008 Posts: 108 Location: 281 Spring, TX
Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:51 pm Post subject: The 'Early Birds'
Beginning in 1953 and continuing throughout that decade, GM built 3 prototype test vehicles using experimental turbine engines, similar in function to the jet aircraft of the day. They became known as Firebird I, II & III. There was a MotoRama styling exercise known as Firebird IV, but all indications were that it was an unpowered 'roller':
Firebird I
Firebird I was fired up and taken for a few 'hot' parade laps prior to the start of the 2004 Daytona 500 - a full fifty years after it was built and tested!
Firebird II
Firebird II took the Firebird I ideas and improved on the mechanicals while adapting the concept to a 4-place platform.
Firebird III
Firebird III went to a two-place concept but integrated such ideas as joystick control, drive-by-wire technology (impressive for 1959) and intelligent roadwiay - an automotive equivalent to flying's Autopilot, made possible by an asyncronous data/communication wire buried in the pavement.
Firebird IV
Look at some of the rear-end styling and the 'greenhouse' which is strikingly similar to what the early 2nd-Gen F-bodies became. _________________ work in progress...
Joined: 21 Jun 2008 Posts: 108 Location: 281 Spring, TX
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 6:18 am Post subject:
Yeah, fifties 'Dream Cars' were big on bubbletops. Ford did the '55 Futura (which became the Barris TV Batmobile ten years later) and the FX Atmos. Buick did a bubbletop Wildcat and who could forget the Pontiac Bonneville Special?
They were also big on winglets and fins. Anything that resembled jet fighters was fair game in those days. _________________ work in progress...
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