SPRINGFIELD – A Depression-era bus that promised a journey into a streamlined art-deco future of jet engines, televisions and microwave ovens can be yours for $2 million through the modern magic of eBay.
Peter Pan Bus Lines is auctioning its 1939 General Motors Futurliner bus, one of only nine Futurliners still in existence.
"We want to try and get it into the hands of a museum or someone who is going to use it more," said William V. Sinico, general manager of Peter Pan CoachBuilders, the company's bus fabrication and restoration arm here in Springfield. "We just don't have the means of getting it out in front of the public."
The auction, http://cc.ebay.com/collector-car-appreciation/, lasts until Monday night. The reserve price is $2 million. One sold for $4.1 million in 2006. As of Friday, the top bid was $500,000.
According to the auction materials, GM Research Director Charles Kettering was touched by the outpouring of public interest in GM's science and technology exhibit at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. He commissioned legendary GM designer Harley Earl to build 12 Futurliners to showcase new technologies across the country. Three have since been lost. They are dramatic streamlined vehicles each 11-feet-7-inches tall, 33-feet-long with a 20-foot wheelbase.
Related links
It cost GM $2 million each in today's money to build, according to background information posted by Auction Cause, an auction management agency.
Instead of seats, the Futurliners had a stage inside and a futuristic light tower that rose from the roof.
"Each had a theme," Sinico said. "One might teach about jet engines or the kitchen of the future."
The buses debuted at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Then the buses fanned out across the country in a program called the Parade of Progress.
GM modernized the fleet after World War II. By the time the Parade of Progress ended in 1956 it had visited 251 cities throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Cuba, and played before more than 12.5 million people.
The late Peter L. Picknelly bought the bus in 1998 after a New York collector brought it to Peter Pan CoachBuilders to get it restored, Sinico said. It took the company two years to rebuild the bus.
"It was a bucket of bolts," Sinico said.
The engine, drivetrain and brakes are all modern. The stage has been restored.
Sinico said he'll miss the Futurliner, where the driver sits high in the front.
"Up there in this cockpit it is like driving a railroad locomotive," Sinico said. "It can go 50 mph. It'll go anywhere."
In recent years, Peter Pan has used the Futurliner at the Eastern States Exhibition and for area parades.