We’re all familiar with GM’s Futurama showcases, but how about Powerama? In 1955, GM spent a tidy $7 million to create showcase for its rapidly expanding range of diesel powered transport of all kind, as well as a few other related items of interest, including a model of a solar-powered car. It ran for 26 days near Soldier Field in Chicago, and it looks like I missed quite a show.
GM’s new Aerotrain styled by Chuck Jordan was a major attraction. That didn’t pan out, as the bus-based coaches didn’t ride well. But it was an interesting attempt to make a more cost-efficient train.
That pool is the bed of a 50 ton Euclid twin engine earth hauler/mining truck.
The Regulus was the Navy’s first nuclear deterrent. Essentially a small turbojet aircraft, 42 feet long, with a wingspan of 21 feet, and weighing in at just under seven tons, its Allison J33-A-14 engine could propel the missile to Mach 0.91 (about 550 knots). Either a 40-50 kiloton nuclear warhead or a 1-2 megaton thermonuclear device could be carried.
Called the Pogo, this Convair concept plane was conceived for vertical take-off (VTO) and then move into level flight. To land, it had to stall and hang by its propeller. Despite its unconventional appearance and layout, J.F. Coleman, the test pilot, reported that the Convair XFY-1 Pogo was one of the best handling aircraft he had ever flown (in conventional flight mode). By the time Convair XFY-1 Pogo had been developed enough to be a feasible design the US Navy had lost interest in the aircraft, and the project was canceled.
And the solar-powered car? Here it is, just 65 years ahead of the real thing.
Holy Compression Ignition Smoke, Paul. I thought I was aware of every significant Mid-century auto industry expo. This thing was “uge!”; it must have been a bear to assemble all the pieces–for reasons of weight, alone., No wonder it was relegated to just one city. If it had been in the east, I would have begged Dad to take my 5-year old self to it daily for the whole run just to see the Pogo (there would have been no convincing necessary). The crane shot looking down on ferrous bigtop attractions evokes memory of a 35mm Kodachrome slide he took at an amusement park while escorting my trembling older brother on his first Ferris wheel ride in that same year of 1955.
Another wonderfully arcane Niedermeyer find!
It looks like the Pogo at Powerama was a mockup. At the time, the flyable one was going through flight tests at Brown Field, at the San Diego/Tijuana border. At the conclusion of the flight tests in 1956, it appears to have been moved down the road to Ream Field, where I stumbled upon it at a government car auction held at the site, in the 1980’s. There is was, next to a hangar, outdoors, sitting on its tail and abandoned, looking very much a “running when parked” sort of thing, complete and in good shape, but at the same time a bit forlorn looking. If we had pocket phones with cameras in the ‘80s, I’d have taken a bunch of pictures of it.
Wiki says it is in the National Air and Space Museum now.
Reading these articles is a constant reminder of how GM, back then, wasn’t just the biggest car company in the world, but was one of a very few corporations that completely overwhelmed it’s competition. Which is why, for about a decade and a half, there was serious worry that the Federal Government was going to have to step in and break up the company.
Because their existence alone was a threat to any competing corporation.
Whoulda thunk that GM would have saved the feds all the effort and would do themselves in over a 15-20 year period. And now, they’re just another damn car company.
It doesn’t help that Mary is turning GM into an electric truck company. Time for some real car people to run that company.
Don’t they pay her 22 million a year to shut down US production plants?
They paid her to improve GM’s profits, which she’s done spectacularly well. GM just had a blowout quarter, and the stock has been climbing strongly for some time. GM is healthier than it has been since the ’70s. That’s what they pay her for.
Time for some real car people to run that company.
That’s quite the sexist dig at Mary Barra, who has turned around GM, and quite spectacularly. Profits are at record levels, as is the stock. And that’s without EV trucks as of yet.
Reality check: It was “the real car people” that destroyed GM.
Yeah people like to hate Barra, but from a business aspect she is pretty damn good actually. I mean there have been some serious missteps like the 2019 silverado redesign, but really she does knows what she’s doing.
Also on the electric thing, that’s what the shareholders are demanding really and unlike Ford who is making an electric 150 GM is hedging it’s bets by keeping their bread and butter silverado on it’s own for now and experimenting where the margins can absorb mistakes better.
It’s like one of those nobodies happy things. Electric car people think GM isn’t moving fast enough, and traditional car people think their crazy for going that direction at all. Which kind of points to a somewhat thoughtful middle of the road approach.
In the car business, any permanent opinion of leadership’s success often can’t be made until years after the fact, when the lasting movers of the business can be sussed out and evaluated.
In the short run, it’s all sales and profits, which is a necessary thing. But catching and riding the waves of change, to a successful next act, is the real and needed trick, and tough to figure out how well it was done, until much later.
I kind of agree on looking back at CEO’s.
That said she was made VP of product development 20 years ago and has been the CEO for 17. Which does leave a fairly long track record of doing well by the business side. Might something emerge when shes older like Jack Welch’s later years? Possibly but as far as a sitting CEO goes her track record for making money sustainably is pretty good.
Whoops some how added 20 years on to her terms there. My mistake.
Because Mark doesn’t like the direction she is taking GM and that Mary is a female, you assume he is sexist? Seems to me you are as prejudiced as you claim he is. I took his comment as anti-electric car, not anti-female.
“real car people” is code for “car guys”. At least in my book. I’ve been hearing the anti-Mary rants for years, invariably from those that would somehow like to turn back the hands of time. What should Mary do? Bring back the cars that long ago died?
Meanwhile, she’s created major success for GM.
As to “anti-electric”, every manufacturer is going down the exact same road.
If I come off as prejudiced, it’s because I’ve heard this same dog-whistle rant for way too long.
I wonder how many of those “real car people” own stock in real car companies?
GM stock was $18.14 in March 20, 2020. Today it’s trading at $53.76.
Ms Barra is doing very well for her shareholders.
Any manufacturer that doesn’t go into EVs now is doomed.
Besides, anyone who doesn’t like to drive EV doesn’t have to. Now, that said, as soon as 1000 hp EV pick up trucks hit the market, much of the anti-EV garbage will fade away.
I didn’t know real car people have to be shareholders with MBA degrees. Guess I’m a fraud.
Seems to me it was real accountant types that did in GM. The real car guys were people like Delorean, Cole ,Earl and Mitchell. And if GM is doing so well they should pay back the $11.2 billion taxpayers lost on its bailout of GM.
> Whoulda thunk that GM would have saved the feds all the effort and would do themselves in over a 15-20 year period.
I’ve noticed this is often true of huge companies that were once considered targets for forced divestiture because they were too big and monopolistic – they eventually lose the plot all on their own. Think IBM, AT&T, Kodak, Sears, and of course GM. (An AT&T divestiture did happen, but note that today’s AT&T is really SBC after they bought the remains of AT&T and took the better-known company’s name).
So many of the biggest companies of the mid-20th century were either automotive companies or companies tied to the car business (oil, tires, steel). Today the biggest companies are mostly tech, retailers, or services.
And now, they’re just another damn car company.
Good, and just as it should be.
Diversification (and conglomerates) was never going to work out. This has been proven in business over and over. It’s a dead end. And frankly, it’s just as well. What’s so good about one company being so dominant in so many areas? Nothing.
The Chicago Film Archives (chicagofilmarchives.org) has a color 20 minute walk-through of Powerama. Have just seen the first few minutes and am looking forward to watching the rest later today.
Thanks for the heads up! Link: http://www.chicagofilmarchives.org/collections/index.php/Detail/Object/Show/object_id/6772
I had never heard of this! Thanks. As for the solar car, YES! I saw it in action because GM had models of these touring the country. I was in Junior High School, J.H.S. 79 in The Bronx in 1955 or 1956 when the tour came to our Assembly. It was fascinating to see a man hold a lit flashlight over the car and IT MOVED! I have been impressed with solar power ever since. After I am long gone, we will have the technology for electrically-powered vehicles with rapid solar energy conversion. Unfortunately, today’s electric vehicles are not unlimited in use. That will change. (Useless data: J.H.S. 79 is located at 181st Street and Creston Avenue – one block west of The Grand Concourse)
I was reading all the car mags in those days but I missed the Powerama!
I did read about the Sunmobile. Strikes a definite memory note.
I learned something new today, I didn’t think PV cells existed as a working technology, even for demonstration purposes, until the ’70s, I should’ve known there was an incubation period before solar roofs started popping up on the cover of Popular Science around the time of the second OPEC crisis.
Selenium way preceded silicon semiconductors. I first saw selenium cells used as self powered photographic light meters.
My handheld Weston Master selenium-cell light meter still carries on. It goes out with my meterless pre-1964 Pentax, and my Rolleiflex twin-lens and Leica M3, whose selenium-cell meters gave up many years ago.
What model Pentax? Is it an H2 (S2)? An H1a (S1a)? An H3v (S3v)?
> I first saw selenium cells used as self powered photographic light meters.
Yep! I had one on my first Kodak Instamatic from the 1960s. These things were *everywhere* well into the next decade.
Yes, my brother and I bought many of those small selenium photo cells from Radio Shack under Archer brand in the late 1970s. They were about one and half inch in length and an inch in width, generating half volt. They were quite expensive for the kid like me with $3 weekly allowance.
What a cool thing. Stuff like this when the General was a world leader in industry is what made me a fan when I was younger. Now, well the General isn’t what it used to be. “Progress” I suppose.
In the 4th photo you will see a Euclid TC12 dozer. Essentially twin 6-71 powered machines pinned in the middle with radiators in the rear. They steered by adjusting the transmission speeds of each track and could even be counter-rotated for in-place rotation. Conventional dozers steered by braking one track. They were 388 hp when the D9 Cat was “only” 287 hp. Unfortunately twice the maintenance and headaches. When right they were exceptional. Listen to one on Youtube.
The 4th photo shows the just released Euclid TC12 which was basically twin Detroit Diesel 6-71 powered independent tracks pinned in the middle. They were 400 hp when a D9 Cat was “only” 287 hp. They steered not by braking individual track but rather by changing speeds and rotation direction of those tracks meaning it could rotate on the spot. Each track could also conform to the ground independently. Unfortunately twice the headaches of a single engine machine.
Adjusted for inflation, that “tidy $7,000,000” in 1955 is equal to $68,289,064 in 2021.
Annual inflation over this period was 3.51%
Very Cool–I join the others who’d never heard of this one before. Thanks, Paul!
On eBay, a whole lot of souvenir keychains, 35mm slides, brochures and more–I’ll have to restrain myself:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313&_nkw=powerama&_sacat=0
Chicago Tribune has oodles of ads and articles (says all the GM show cars of the day were there, too); a special 20-page advertising section as it opened. Here’s a fun ad:
The World’s First Technological Circus!
Mechanical Mastodons Wheeling in Miracle Maneuvers! Dance of the Diesels! 10 Girl Rough Rider Troop! Diesel Dopey the Clown! The Crawler Tractor Mambo!
The 1950s; I guess you had to be there…
Exciting Farm Tractor Hoedown! See the Diesel Cotton Gin!
Sorry I missed this one.
I’m confident that in 2080 the tastes, advertising, and entertainments of our present day will be getting plenty of clucking from the “what were they thinking?” crowd; I guess I won’t be around to confirm. Meantime, this might be the tractor maneuvers and square dancing chorus:
I watched the whole 20 minute film at the Chicago Film Archives linked to above; it really does live up to its billing, crawling tractor mambo and all.
The Russians had the same idea as the Regulus – build a small cheap turbojet powered aircraft, substitute a bomb and guidance equipment for the pilot and all his needed equipment and weaponry and send it on it’s way. This AS-1 looks like a repurposed MiG-15 to me.
The Regulus and the AS-1 and their kind were, in effect, early cruise missiles; their antecedent was Nazi Germany’s pulse-jet powered V-1.
You could also call them drones.
If I could travel back in time, this would be my first stop.
I love this time period of can do and will do spirit that was prevalent here in the US. Makes me sad to see how the future generations have abandoned that spirit in favor of sitting back and letting someone else do it. ….. Great article.
I’ve always loved the GM Aerotrain. Both units were eventually leased out to several railroads including the Pennsylvania, NYC, UP and the ATSF. One unit was purchased by the Rock Island and ran commuter service out of Chicago until the late 60’s. Very cool stuff.
One of the Aerotrains is on display at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay Wisconsin. https://nationalrrmuseum.org/exhibits-aerotrain/
Soldier field was so beautiful back then, what a hideous monstrosity that stadium turned into
I hadn’t heard of the Powerama until twenty years ago. I was lucky to attend the last Motorama in SF in the early ’60s. It was a vast unbelievable show, with souvenirs, pamphlets, and demonstrations and entertainment shows of all kinds. And all for free! There’s a book about the Motorama and the showcars out there. It explains the fleet of big rigs and dedicated crew that transported the show around the country. Hard to imagine that GM would do this, but prior to the widespread availability of television, this was seen as a good way to reach the public.
Knew a little of this but not to this depth – very enjoyable…
All that diesel technology and when the time came to put it in a a car they manufactured the Oldsmobile lemon. It killed off the diesel market in the US. I wonder if that was deliberate.
I’ve read about Powerama in my two books on the Motoramas, but that tractor stand-off is new to me. What brand would those be? I assume they’re powered by GM (diesel?) engines, but they don’t look familiar.
Mr. Niedermeyer,
You did “miss quite a show”.
I was 11-years old and hopelessly infatuated with diesel-powered buses and trucks. My father took me to the show as a reward for not being a hopeless child.
Between the quantity of diesel fumes that I inhaled and the bevy of fabulous vehicles on display, I was like the proverbial porcine in feces. What an adventure. My absolute highlight was touring a Scenicruiser. What a bus!
Ten-years later, I was a summer-replacement driver for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) piloting GMC Fishbowls. Inhaled a lot more diesel fumes and grooved on the roar of the screaming greenies. Life was great!
The next summer, I applied to drive for Greyhound, hoping to drive an elderly Scenicruiser, but the training program before the summer would have killed my GPA, so I went back to the CTA.
As I hunt-and-peck, I am looking at my Corgi Fishbowl and Scenicruiser models. Sigh…
Wow, I didn’t think I’d find this again. I can attest that it was a blast. Had a great time at four years old. It is engraved in my memory. A very very silly event indeeeeeed! I got to operate the crane.
My dad, the late Walden B. “Bud” Thiede, a GM Tech alumnus was put in charge of the 1955 Powerama at the ripe old age of 25. He was a crackerjack diesel student and spent a morning on the NBC Today Show with Dave Garroway promoting The Powerama. This made him quite the hit in his home town of New Ulm, Minn.