and Previous Exclusive Coaches
plus Assorted Pieces of the Historical Puzzle

Dr. D.B. “Doc” Rushing
Copyright, 2010, 2022, Duncan Bryant Rushing

Preface

The Scenicruiser is a specific type of motor coaches
built exclusively for The Greyhound Corporation
for use in its intercity highway service throughout the USA during 1954-75.

Contents

Introduction
Background
Super Coach
Silversides
GX-1
GX-2
PDX-41 and EXP-304
GM PD-4104
Seating Capacities of the PD-4103 and -4104
EXP-331
GM PD-4501
Problems with the Cruiser
GM PD-4901
Midstream Revision of the PD-4501
Shifting the Gearbox
How Many of Them?
More of the PD-4104
Troubles between Greyhound and GM
Governmental Intervention
Mack MV-620-D
Repowering (x3) by Mack
GM PD-4106
Repowering the Cruisers
A Different Source
GM PD-4107
More Paint Schemes
Final Years of the Cruisers
Motor Coach Industries
Extending (and Diluting) the Name
Conclusion
Very Special Articles
Related Articles
Bibliography

Introduction

          Scenicruiser is the name and the registered trademark which The Greyhound Corporation applied to a specific type of highway coaches used in its intercity service throughout the USA.  The first Scenicruiser entered the Greyhound fleet in 1954, and the last one retired from Greyhound about 1975.  It’s a prod­uct of the GMC Truck and Coach (T&C) Division of the General Motors (GM) Corporation.  GM held the patent for the general design of the Scenicruiser.  The builder designated it as the model PD-4501.  [The P means “parlor” (a term, borrowed from the railway industry, which implies “intercity”), the D means “diesel,” the 45 indicates the nominal seating capacity (but the standard washroom reduces the actual seating capacity to 43), and the numeral 1 represents the first model in the new PD-4500 series (which never grew be­yond 4501).]  The Scenicruiser was an exclusive design for the Greyhound Lines (GL) alone, although two other builders in the US (Beck and Flxible) unsuccessfully imitated or emulated it for other customers, as did several builders in other nations.  It quickly became the most popular and most recognizable coach in the US, and it still remains as a significant cultural icon.

          After Greyhound replaced and sold the Scenicruisers, they continued in service for a host of schools, churches, private owners, tour and charter companies, and other scheduled carriers.  Eventually most have since become scrapped or otherwise destroyed, but about 230 have survived, many of them have kept on running, some have become converted into motor homes, and a few have be­come beautifully restored, both cosmetically and mechanically.  About 30-80 Scenicruisers are now in reasonably roadworthy condition.

          The first Scenicruiser to have come off the prod­uction line, serial 001, originally numbered as P-5446 and assigned to the Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, has become fully restored.  Now bearing the side number of 1954 (the year of its manufacture), it’s in the historical fleet of the present (second) Greyhound Lines, Inc., the (second) GLI.

          The Scenicruiser soon became widely known also by the nickname Cruiser.  [Although Greyhound for a short while used the name Cruiser for the Super Coach (Yellow Coach models 719 and 743), in the context of a discussion of the Scenicruiser, the nickname Cruiser clearly refers to the Scenicruiser.]

          The brand name of the Scenicruiser is GM or GM Coach, not GMC or GMC Coach, even though it’s a prod­uct of the GMC T&C Division of the GM Corporation.  [Before 1943 the brand name of such coaches was Yellow or Yellow Coach; between  1943 and -68 the brand name was GM or GM Coach; for coaches built in or after 1968, the brand name was GMC or GMC Coach.  Again:  While the Scenicruiser was in prod­uction, 1954-56, the brand name was GM or GM Coach, so those brand names (not GMC or GMC Coach) remain as the correct ones for Scenicruisers.]

Background

          In 1930 the Yellow Truck and Coach (T&C) Manufacturing Company, of Pontiac, Michigan, a subsidiary (not a division) of the GM Corporation, began to supply coaches to the Greyhound Lines – that is, to the regional operating subsidiaries of the Greyhound parent firm, which was then a holding company (rather than an operating company), named as The Greyhound Corporation (with an uppercase T, because the word the was an integral part of the official name of the corporation).  [If you wish, please read my article about divisions and subsidiaries of corporations and the differences between them.]

          The first Yellow Coach (YC) delivered to Greyhound was the model Z-250-376 (type Z, using a 250-inch wheelbase, sequential model 376).  It included some of the better features of the Will coaches (which were prod­ucts of the C.H. Will Motors Corporation, of Minneapolis, Minnesota), especially after an extensive examination of a Will coach in Pontiac, possibly one of the model GN, in connection with the sale of the Will firm by the MTC to the Yellow company. 

          Likewise the Will coaches included a number of the better features of the Fageol (pronounced as “fad-jull,” rhyming with “fragile” or “satchel”) Safety Coaches.  [During the 1920s the two Fageol brothers, Frank and William, were the chief innovators and pacesetters for the entire coach-building industry in the US.  More about the Fageol Motors Company will be available in my forthcoming article about that firm.]

          The T&C Company then designed and built a large number of Yellow Coaches of various models for Greyhound (and for other carriers as well).  While doing so it incorporated many features and design elements in response to requests and suggestions from Greyhound.

         {Carl Will, an employee, officer, and part owner of the Wilcox Trux, Inc., the successor to the H.E. Wilcox Motor Car Company, both also of Minneapolis, acquired the entire ownership of the Wilcox Trux in 1926 [apparently with financial help from the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC), which in -30 became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation].  That financial help from the MTC likely took the form of the purchase of stock representing a noncontrolling interest in the Will company. Next Carl renamed his firm as the C.H. Will Motors Corporation, then he started prod­ucing motor coaches, branded first as WMC and soon as Will, mostly for the MTC and for a few other carriers.  The MTC in 1927 bought control of the Will firm, then in -29 sold it to the Yellow T&C Manufacturing Company.  Yellow in January 1931 closed the Will operation but turned over the facilities in Minneapolis to Carl – as one result of a complex deal which led to the development of the Yellow Coach concern as a long-term nearly exclusive supplier of coaches to Greyhound.  Carl Will then founded another company, which continued to build automotive heaters and related hardware under the trade name of TropicAir.  Those heaters had already become the first automotive heaters anywhere in the US to use hot water and electric blowers, which were first, in October 1926, installed aboard the coaches of the MTC.}

          In the early years – through the era of the long-nose “conventional” coaches (with their engines in the front below prominent outside hoods) – none of those designs was exclusive for any one buyer, not even the Greyhound Lines.

          In 1931 T&C introduced its model 700, its first flat-front “integral” Yellow Coach, a 33-foot 40-seat city-transit bus of the “streetcar type,” with a gasoline engine mounted straight-in longitudinally (lengthwise) in the tail.  Other similar models, including trolley coaches, followed.

          Then in 1933 T&C introduced its model 709, its first small (18-seat) flat-front Yellow, using the forward-control or cab-over-engine (CoE) concept, with the driver’s seat in a cramped spot beside the engine, under a hood inside the shell of the coach.  Several other similar models followed.

          Until that point the YC flat-front prod­ucts had been almost entirely city-transit cars rather than intercity parlor cars.  [The only exceptions were 137 small (21-seat) CoE parlor buses and four medium (30-seat) CoE parlor buses.]

          In 1934, in an important step forward, the Yellow T&C Manufacturing Company hired Dwight Austin, an engineer, formerly the manager of the bus-manufacturing plant of the Pickwick Corporation, in El Segundo, California, after Pickwick, in 1932, failed in business.  Austin (for a consideration, of course) assigned to T&C the right to use his patent for his angle drive, a major engineering development, which allowed the transverse (crosswise) installation of the engine and the transmission across the tail of a coach, with a short diagonal driveline to the differential in the drive axle, thus allowing relatively easy access for maintenance from the outside of the coach, rather than from the inside or the underside.

          Afterward most Yellow and GM Coaches – parlor, suburban, and city-transit – used the Austin angle drive – until the Scenicruiser – and then again afterward.  [The Cruiserettes (1939-49) and the Victory coaches (1939-45) used longitudinally mounted engines and transmissions.]

          In 1934 Yellow introduced the model 718, a transit car, its first bus using the Austin angle drive.  A large number of other models followed until -87, when GM ceased to build city-transit and suburban coaches.  [GM had already, in -80, ceased to build parlor coaches.]

          [On 31 March 1943 Austin left T&C (by his resignation), and he moved to Kent, Ohio.  Austin had resolved not to work again on the payroll of any coach builder but rather to work as a self-employed consulting engineer.  Frank and William Fageol persuaded him to open his office in Kent, where the Fageol brothers had established their Twin Coach Company.  Austin took part in the design (both styling and engineering) of the line of postwar Twin prod­ucts.  (In 1924 the brothers had organized the Fageol Motors Company of Ohio in Kent, then in -25 they sold it – but not the original Fageol Motors Company, which continued to operate for a while (until 1938) in California – to the parent ACF Company, which created the ACF Motors Company and then used its new Fageol acquisition as its entry into the coach-building industry.  In 1927 the Fageol brothers, after their short and frustrating vice-presidencies at the ACF Motors Company, resigned from ACF, incorporated the Twin Coach Company, bought their old plant in Kent back from ACF, and soon started building their innovative and revolutionary flat-front coaches with twin engines.)]

Super Coach

          In 1934 and -35, as a result of a joint project involving Greyhound and Yellow Coach, three hand-built prototype samples emerged from the Engineering Department in Pontiac.  The first, known simply as model 719, serial 001, rolled out in August -34.  The second, known as X-1, serial 002, followed in February -35; the third, X-2, serial 003, in September -35.  Each of them had 37 seats for passengers.  They had transversely mounted GMC gasoline engines and Spicer transmissions, using Austin angle drives.  Each, for the first time at YC, provided enclosed luggage compartments below a raised floor, rather than an open baggage bin at the rear of the roof.  Only minor superficial details distinguished the three variations among one another.  Serial 001 survived as the selected version, and the X-1 and X-2 later became disassembled.  YC built also a fourth prototype, a second 719, serial 004, which used a larger GMC gasoline engine.

          On 11 June 1935 Greyhound placed two of the prototypes, serials 001 and 002, into trial revenue service between Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois, in the operating company which was then known as the Central GL of Michigan (the CGL of Michigan).  [Previously (1930-35) the CGL of Michigan had been known as the Eastern GL of Michigan (the EGL of Michigan); in -36 the CGL of Michigan became merged into the undenominated main Central GL; in -48 the Michigan routes of the Central GL became transferred to the Great Lakes GL as a large part of it.]

          Then Greyhound placed an order for a prod­uction run of 325 more of the model 719, built in 1936, which became known as the Super Coach, as did the 743, the next model.

          After gaining operational experience with the 719, Greyhound requested a number of refinements, which resulted in a slightly changed, but nearly identical, version of the Super Coach, the model 743.  The three recognition features of the 743 were two windows (rather than three, as on the 719) on the tail, a slightly revised grille design for the tail, and horizontal fins at each end of the destination sign on the nose of the coach (rather than vertical ones, as on the 719).  A fourth feature was the inclusion of turn signals as a standard item, which became backfitted onto most or all of the 719s.  A fifth detail, a less prominent one, was the presence of slots in the bottom rail of each passenger window aboard the 743 (but not on the 719).  The prod­uction of the 743 began in 1937.

          Thus Greyhound bought from Yellow Coach not only its first King of the Road but also its first exclusive or nearly exclusive coach – the Super Coach, models 719 and 743.  [Only a few other carriers bought the 743, in small numbers and with the consent of the Dog, mostly for use in connecting service or pooled interline operations (through-coaches on through-routes).]

          The prod­uction of the 743 ended about the end of 1939, after 1,256 copies, and after the prod­uction of the Silversides had already begun.  The last few 743s got GM 6-71 diesel engines, rather than GMC gasoline engines, all for Greyhound and the Burlington Transportation Company (the first Burlington Trailways).  [Greyhound first introduced diesel power, then Burlington also did so.]  A few of the diesel-powered ones also got factory-installed Carrier air-conditioners.

          In June 1937, with the end of the prod­uction of the Z-250-843 long-nose streamliners, the last of the Z-250 coaches, the Yellow T&C Manufacturing Company quit building “conventional” buses with separate bodies mounted on chassis.  [By that time Greyhound had bought 990 of the 1,838 of the type Z, 53.8 percent of them, in five models (376, 649, 670, 834, and 843).]

          Then T&C continued building “integral” buses, with model numbers in the 700 series, as described above, in the section about “Background.”  Those consisted of bodies and chassis built together, but which still included the use of both transverse sill members and heavy longitudinal frame rails, which bore the weight of the body and its contents.  The Super Coaches, models 719 and 743, were integral buses.

Silversides

          However, Yellow Coach engineers in 1938 began working on the next concept, which had begun in the aircraft-building industry – monocoque (literally, “single-shell” or “one-skin”) construction, in which the body shell itself serves as a load-bearing structural member without longitudinal frame rails.  YC extended that technique to new models, both transit and parlor, numbered in the 1200 series.

          Also in 1938 T&C started working on the next coach for Greyhound, an exclusive design, in coöperation with the Hound, using the monocoque system.  In September -38 workers either finished the hand-built prototype of that next model, labeled as the model 1206, or maybe stopped working on it while it was still incomplete on the inside.  That design, with coachwork built entirely of aluminum, later, in 1939, became known officially as the PGG- and PDG-3701, using a new scheme of nomenclature, and became known also, unofficially but widely and popularly, as the Silversides, due to the outward appearance.  Greyhound placed the 1206 on display in May 1940 at the World’s Fair in New York City.

          Yellow in 1938 introduced also the model 1210, which was mechanically and dimensionally similar to the 1206, the Silversides prototype, but without the brightwork siding and the other distinctive styling features.  The 1210 had a standard GMC gasoline engine or, later, an optional GM 6-71 diesel engine.  [The number 6-71 means six cylinders in line with a displacement of 71 (strictly speaking, 70.93) cubic inches in each cylinder (426 cubes altogether); at various times the 71 series has included in-line engines with 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 cylinders and V-type engines with 6, 8, 12, and 24 cylinders.]

          The 1210 soon became redesignated as the PG- and PD-3701 (different from the PGG– and PDG-3701).  [The Tennessee Coach Company late in 1939 became the third intercity highway carrier in the USA to operate diesel-powered equipment, using six copies of the 1210 (the only diesel-powered 1210s), and the Tri-state Transit Company (the Tri-state Trailways), about the end of 1939, became the fourth to do so, using the PD-3701, after Greyhound and the Burlington Transportation Company (the first Burlington Trailways) had become the first and the second, respectively, using the 743.]

          About the first of 1940 the Yellow Coach PGG-3701 (the first prod­uction version of the Silversides) made its début and quickly began to attract much positive attention; the PGG-4101 soon followed, after an increase in the legal length limit from 33 feet to 35.  [The designations PGG-3701 and -4101 mean parlor-gasoline-Greyhound, an exclusive design for the Dog, with a seating capacity of either 37 or 41 as indicated, the first in each of two new series.]

          The Silversides had a stunning new design – with distinctive Art Deco styling, which included fluted aluminum brightwork siding – to suggest or imitate the fluted stainless-steel siding on the contemporary streamlined railway passenger cars – plus a lighted round drumhead sign on the tail (similar to those which typically appeared on the tails of railway observation cars).

          The fluted aluminum brightwork siding, introduced in 1939 on the 1206, quickly became the nearly universal standard for intercity coaches in the US until 1987, when the C series of the models from the Motor Coach Industries (MCI) returned to the concept of smooth painted sides.

          Even now, however, many carriers still (or again or anew) specify fluted brightwork siding, in either aluminum or stainless steel – all because the Silversides in 1939 began to imitate or emulate the appearance of the streamlined Art Deco railway passenger cars.

          The Silversides quickly became a big hit among drivers, passengers, fans, and Greyhound executives and accountants.  It soon became and long remained as the new King of the Road – until the GM Highway Traveler PD-4104 arrived in 1953, and until the GM Scenicruiser PD-4501 arrived in -54.

          The Silversides featured standard Carrier air-conditioning, although a few of the Greyhound companies ordered several of them without cooling for use on routes in the far North.

          Almost immediately the PGG-3701 and -4101 morphed into the PDG-3701 and -4101 (parlor-diesel-Greyhound), due to the availability and installation of the new GM 6-71 diesel engine – largely a result of the work and influence of Charles Franklin “Boss” Kettering – the new prod­uct from the new Detroit Diesel Engine Division.  [Later, in 1958, the GM Corporation changed the brand name of the prod­ucts of that division from GM Diesel to Detroit Diesel.] 

          [Kettering was a co-founder of the Dayton (Ohio) Engineering Laboratories Company, known later as Delco, and a longtime (1920-47) vice president for research of the GM Corporation, after GM in 1918 bought Delco and made it a GM division – as well as the brilliant and legendary inventor who created self-starters, generators, and automotive electric systems and other components, along with a dazzling variety of other developments in many fields, including Freon refrigerant and Duco paints and lacquers.]

          For a short while, about the end of 1939 or the first of -40, in an unusual situation at the T&C plant in Pontiac, two different designs for Greyhound were in prod­uction concurrently – the Super Coach and the Silversides – before the last of the Super Coaches came off the line, and after the first of the Silversides had already come off the line – when the GM 6-71 diesel engine became available.

          For that reason the first few Silversides coaches (127 of them) had gotten GMC gasoline engines, and the last few Super Coaches (82 of them) got GM diesel engines – although all the preceding Super Coaches (1,664 of them) had gotten gasoline engines, and all the following Silversides coaches (2,459 of them) got diesel engines.

          Eventually the surviving gasoline-powered Silversides PGG-3701 (92 of them) and -4101 (35 of them) became refit with GM 6-71 diesel engines.

          The intervention of World War II (WW2) caused motor-coach construction to drop sharply (along with the manufacture of most other civilian prod­ucts), due to the scarcity of the required materials and the production facilities, each of which became diverted to war-related goods.  The building and allocation of new coaches came under the control and supervision of two agencies of the federal government – the War Prod­uction Board (WPB) and the Office of Defense Transportation (ODT).  The assembly of the Silversides models stopped temporarily in 1942, although several other types (basic and unadorned models), trickled into service in strictly controlled numbers.  [For example, during 1944 and -45 the Pontiac Motor Division (of the GM Corporation) built 1,200 copies of the Victory liners (PDA- and PGA-3702) in one of its own car plants in Pontiac, while the T&C plant was engaged in the prod­uction of DUKW (“Duck”) amphibious vehicles for the war.]

          The General Motors (GM) Corporation in 1943 merged its Yellow Coach (YC) subsidiary, named as the Yellow Truck and Coach (T&C) Manufacturing Company, with the GMC truck operation and then named the combined unit as the GMC Truck and Coach (T&C) Division.  Thus Yellow Coach, as a bus brand, became GM Coach.  [In 1968 the GM Corporation slightly changed the brand name from GM Coach to GMC Coach.]

          After WW2 800 of the gasoline-powered Super Coaches (the better remaining ones, in four groups of 200 apiece) became repowered with GM 6-71 diesel engines under a contract with the General American Aerocoach Company at its plant in East Chicago, Indiana, near Hammond.  Those refit coaches also became spruced up by the renovation of the interiors and by the addition of partial brightwork (fluted aluminum siding), just below the belt line.

          In 1946, when the GM and Greyhound executives finally reached an agreement for the specifications for the postwar Silversides, the managers at T&C had tentatively intended to designate the new models as the PDG-3702 and -4102; however, before prod­uction began, those models became known instead as the PD-3751 and -4151.

          The 2,000 postwar Silversides coaches, PD-3751 and -4151, became built and delivered between March 1947 and December -48.

          [The PGG- and PDG-3701 (pre-WW2 models) were 33 feet long; the PGG- and PDG-4101 (also pre-WW2) and the PD-3751 and -4151 (post-WW2) were all 35 feet long, due to an increase in the legal length limit, about the same time as the introduction of the -3701.  There was no structural or dimensional difference in the coachwork among a -4101, a -3751, and a -4151.  The -4101 and the -4151 used slightly slimmer seats spaced on shorter intervals than on the -3751, thus seating 41 passengers rather than 37.]

          According to the best data now available, it appears that Greyhound first assigned the PGG- and PDG-4101, the 41-seat versions of the pre-WW2 Silversides, to only seven regional operating companies – the Atlantic GL, Central GL, Great Lakes GL, Pacific GL, Pennsylvania GL, Richmond GL, and Teche GL – although in later years some of the -4101s became redistributed to other divisions.  Of those seven companies only the Great Lakes GL did not receive also any copy of the PGG- or PDG-3701, the two 37-seat prewar versions.

          Greyhound first assigned the PD-4151, the 41-seat version of the post-WW2 Silversides, to only three divisions – the Teche GL, Great Lakes GL, and Pacific GL – although in later years some of the -4151s likewise became redistributed to other divisions.  Each of those three operating companies received also a number of the PD-3751, the 37-seat postwar version.

GX-1

          During 1946 and -47, in a shop in or near Chicago, Greyhound workers, under the supervision of Carl Will, built an experimental prototype sample, the GX-1, named as the Highway Traveler, moving in the direction of developing the next signature Greyhound coach.  Visibly and obviously, the GX-1 included many parts and components obtained from the GMC T&C Division, which in 1943 had replaced the Yellow T&C subsidiary.  

          [Will in 1927 had sold his C.H. Will Motors Corporation to the Motor Transit Corporation, which in -30 became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation, and which in -29 sold the Will firm to the Yellow T&C Manufacturing Company.]

          The GX-1 followed a design which Raymond Loewy and Associates had created for the Hound.  It was a true double-decker, with one deck stacked on top of the other.  Although it was only 35 feet long, with a single rear axle, it seated 50 passengers, 37 on the upper deck and 13 on the lower deck.  The driver’s seat was on the upper deck, high above the pavement.

          The features of the GX-1 included power steering, a washroom, and a primitive (but complex) form of air suspension (rather than conventional steel springs).  Despite the typical advertising fluff, the luggage space was nearly nonexistent.  It used two air-cooled V-6 gasoline engines (from the Aircooled Motors Company, of Syracuse, New York, the successor of the Franklin Engine Company, which had begun in 1902 as the builder of the engines for the famous Franklin air-cooled automobiles).

          [In 1947 the Tucker Corporation bought the Aircooled Motors Company, to provide the engines for Preston Tucker’s controversial Tucker Torpedo cars; after the failure of the Tucker empire, the Tucker family continued to hold the Aircooled firm until 1961, when the Aero Industries bought it and renamed it as the Franklin Engine Company; in 1975 the national government of Poland bought it and moved it to the city of Rzeszów.]

          [The former site of the Tucker Corporation, at 7401 South Cicero Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 60629, is now the headquarters of the Tootsie Roll Industries.]

          Greyhound named the GX-1 as the Highway Traveler, which was also the title of its promotional magazine, distributed to passengers and the public.  [Later, in 1953, Greyhound assigned the name Highway Traveler to its copies of the first version of the GM PD-4104.]

          Not surprisingly, the GX-1 encountered many mechanical problems — due to the unproved and undeveloped nature of so many of its concepts, systems, and components.  It demonstrated not so much the practical as the impractical, not so much the realistic as the unrealistic, not so much the successful as the unsuccessful, not so much a right way as a combination of wrong ways.  It appeared never to run in regular revenue service.

          After the GX-1 made its introductory splash, Greyhound parked it at the main shop in Chicago, then for the most part left it under a tarpaulin until disassembling it about 1956 or -57.

          Sometime, however, Greyhound added a second rear axle, a non-powered idle one, behind the single drive axle, to experiment with a pair of tandem rear axles, in preparation for the Scenicruiser.

GX-2

          After the completion and the subsequent long-term parking of the GX-1, Greyhound workers in Chicago began to build the second postwar experimental prototype sample, the GX-2, using a number of good and desirable features from the GX-1.  That process started with an unfinished PD-4151, obtained from the GMC T&C Division (of the GM Corporation), and it continued with a large number of parts and components likewise obtained from T&C.

          Again the overall design came from Raymond Loewy and Associates.

          GM stylists and engineers took a significant part in providing the details involved in the execution of the design, both cosmetically and mechanically.

          Greyhound named the GX-2 as the Scenicruiser, which name it soon attached also to the PD-4501, the prod­uction model.

          The GX-2 established the general layout of the PD-4501.  It was 40 feet long, and it used a pair of tandem rear axles.  [The rearmost axle of the GX-2 was the driving one, and the intermediate axle was an idle non-powered one with single wheels rather than dual ones.]  It was not a true double-deck coach but rather a split-level or deck-and-a-half coach.  That is, it did not consist of two full stacked decks, as aboard the GX-1; instead it consisted of two adjacent decks, the upper of which was raised about 27 inches above the lower.  The upper deck, the rear one, seated 32 passengers, and the lower deck, the forward one, seated 10 plus the driver.  The washroom was in the rear corner of the curb side of the lower deck.  The upper deck provided two huge luggage bins underneath.

          Greyhound completed the GX-2 in June 1949.

          Because Greyhound used the GX-2 as a promotional sample, traveling to many state capitals, in a successful attempt to persuade legislators to increase their legal length limits from 35 feet to 40, the GX-2 used reliable time-tested conventional mechanical systems and components – to avoid breakdowns and other problems.  It used steel springs (rather than air suspension) and a single GM 6-71 diesel engine with a standard manual four-speed gearbox.

          After the promotional legislative tours, the GX-2, based in Chicago, went into part-time revenue service along mainline routes extending from Chicago.  Numbered as G-7483, it became assigned to the Great Lakes GL.  It also served part-time as a testbed for experimentation by GM with various combinations and modifications in the drivetrain (engine, transmission, and drive axle).

PDX-41 and EXP-304

          During the wait for the legislative action in many state capitals (to increase the length limits), two major sequences of events took place:

                    First, Greyhound received 35 of the PDA-4101 in 1949 and 756 of the PD-4103 in 1951 and -52.  The PDA-4101 was the first 35-foot parlor car which GM offered to buyers other than Greyhound (or the friends of Greyhound whom the Dog allowed to buy the Silversides, for use in pooled interline operations with the Hound); it used a 6-71 diesel engine and a manual four-speed gearbox, mounted transversely in the tail, and it combined the nose of a Victory liner with the tail of a city-transit car.  The PDA-4101 went to only two Greyhound companies (10 copies to the Dixie GL and 25 to the Southwestern GL).  [Other carriers bought a total of 300.]  GM then, in 1950 and -51, built another model, the PD-4102, which continued the mechanical arrangement of the PDA-4101 but used a new nose cap and a new tail cap, each freshly designed.  GM built only 115 copies of the -4102 before incorporating a number of internal improvements in response to recommendations from Greyhound, which resulted in a new model number, the PD-4103.  [Other carriers also bought a total of 745 of the latter.]  The nose of the -4102 and -03 closely resembled and imitated the nose of an ACF-Brill IC-41.  [An intermediate model, the PD-3704, a 33-foot car (100 copies, all built and delivered in 1950), used the tail and the drivetrain of a Victory liner, with a 4-71 engine, along with the nose of a PD-4102 or -03; Greyhound did not buy any of the -3704.]

                    Second, the GMC T&C Division built two more experimental prototype samples – the PDX-41 and the EXP-304.  Each of them was a 35-foot car with 41 chairs.  The first, completed in 1949, appeared to have begun with the body shell of a standard city-transit car, with, of course, only a front passenger door, without a rear exit door.  Each side had only six elongated rectangular windows with rounded corners, although the required emergency door interrupted one of the long windows on the street side.  The PDX-41 evolved into the EXP-304.  The latter, completed in 1952, established the styling concept or styling theme for both the PD-4104 and the -4501, along with the ill-fated -4901.  One obvious recognition feature was the large picture windows in the sides (four in each side of the -304 and the -4104).  The EXP-304 led directly to the -4104 and, with modifications, to the -4501 and the -4901.

GM PD-4104

          In 1953, after the end of the Korean War and after the end of the resultant scarcity of aluminum (which had caused many of the PD-4103s to emerge from the plant without fluted brightwork siding and with only a bare minimum of other bright trim), the GMC T&C Division introduced another stunning model, an innovative one, the PD-4104.

          Greyhound named and trademarked it as the Highway Traveler (the name previously given to the GX-1, the first experimental prototype used in the development of the concept of the Scenicruiser) – the GM Highway Traveler PD-4104, the new King of the Road, the pre-Scenicruiser.

          The PD-4104 had full-height fluted aluminum brightwork siding, along with a number of major and significant improvements, including air suspension, power steering, and picture windows (in the shape of an elongated forward-leaning parallelogram with gracefully rounded corners) – introducing the styling theme which the GM Scenicruiser PD-4501, after only one more year, continued and made even more famous and recognizable.  It used a GM 6-71 engine and a manual four-speed gearbox, mounted transversely.  [Power steering was optional, but Greyhound and most other buyers specified that feature.]

          [In the interest of intellectual honesty, it’s appropriate to recognize and acknowledge that the picture windows of the PD-4104 are not original but rather a development of the forward-leaning parallelogram windows which had previously appeared, starting in 1940, aboard the Flxible Clipper, just as the oversize convex six-piece windscreen of the GM Fishbowl series is not original but rather a development of the six-piece windscreen which had previously appeared, starting in 1947, aboard the postwar Twin Coach suburban and city-transit cars.]

          It was a model which no other builder matched in its numbers – until, some years later, The Greyhound Corporation itself did so [through two subsidiaries, the Motor Coach Industries (MCI) and the Transportation Manufacturing Corporation (TMC) – by building its own coaches again – as it first had done during 1927-29 (through a short-time subsidiary, the C.H. Will Motors Corporation, based in Minneapolis) – before the Dog turned to Yellow Coach and its prod­ucts.

          The Greyhound companies bought a total of 753 of the first version of the PD-4104, all delivered in 1953 and the first half of -54.

          Greyhound received preferential treatment on its deliveries of the PD-4104.  Serial 001 went to Mexico as a demonstrator, and serial 002 went to Cuba as a demonstrator, then all the next 381 copies went only to Greyhound companies, before any other carrier received any of its coaches.  Afterward the distribution to the various buyers continued in a normal pattern.  Late in 1953 the Dog received  143 more, then, early in -54, got 229 more, before the building of the Scenicruiser.

          As soon as the -4104 arrived in any fleet, suddenly everything else looked old and outdated.

          However, one unfortunate feature of the new cars was the unattractive interior color scheme – brown upholstery with brown on the dash and the floor and beige and brown on the inside of the shell.  That brown color scheme was the standard one for all the coaches of the first version of the PD-4104 for the entire fleet throughout The Greyhound Corporation.

          The T&C Division had persisted and succeeded in developing air suspension to an acceptable level of reliability.  In 1952 it installed that feature on five city-transit cars, then in -53 made it standard on all future coaches – parlor, suburban, and transit – except on the small TGH-3102 and the succeeding models, the TDH-3501 and -3502 (with Toroflow diesel engines), which continued to use conventional steel leaf springs.

Seating Capacities of the PD-4103 and -04

          Whereas 41 was the nominal seating capacity of the PD-4103 and -04, some of those coaches went to the Greyhound companies with 41 chairs apiece, but many, likely most, of the cars of those two models were delivered with fewer seats, spaced on slightly longer intervals.  Many or most of the PD-4103 and the first version of the -04 (without washrooms) arrived with either 37 or 39 chairs.  Most or all of the second version of the -4104 (with washrooms) arrived with either 38 or 39 chairs.  For example, the Southeastern GL bought the -4103 and the first version of the -04 only with 37 seats, and the second version of the -04 only with 38 seats.  [Likewise, the Southeastern GL had bought the Silversides and the ACF-Brill IC-41 only with 37 seats.]

EXP-331

          In 1952 and -53, while preparing to start building the PD-4104, the GMC T&C Division also created another hand-built prototype sample, known as the EXP-331, which led directly to the PD-4501, the prod­uction Scenicruiser, which began to emerge from the assembly line in 1954.  T&C later, in -56, rebuilt the EXP-331 somewhat (to conform it to the same standards as the production Scenicruisers), designated it as a PD-4501, serial 1001, and sold it too to Greyhound, which assigned it to the Atlantic GL, with the side number of A-2267.  That coach is now a property of Tom McNally, of Peoria, Illinois, who has announced his intent to renovate it.  [McNally owns also a preserved PD-4104 and another Cruiser, serial 771, which he has thoroughly and faithfully restored to the gold-stripe Super Scenicruiser livery, along with PD-3751-686, not yet restored, which was the first Silversides of the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, numbered as 3000 (later as M-3000).]

GM PD-4501

          On 14 July 1954 The Greyhound Corporation and the GMC Truck and Coach (T&C) Division of the GM Corporation presented the result of their latest and final joint project, another new King of the Road, the fantabulous new GM Scenicruiser PD-4501, a result of years of planning, styling, designing, and engineering through collaboration between GM and Greyhound.

          During a ceremony at the T&C facilities in Pontiac, Michigan, Orville Swan “Sven” Caesar (one of the original busmen from northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, who was then the president of The Greyhound Corporation), along with various senior officials of both GM and Greyhound and other dignitaries, including the Honorable G. Mennen Williams, the Governor of Michigan, took part in the festivities accompanying the formal delivery of the first group of the new coaches.  A parade of the new cars emerged from building 34.  The first one burst through a huge paper poster, appropriately decorated, which completely covered the doorway.  The first coach in the line, the one which burst through the paper, was C-675 (serial 006) – which GM later used (with NEW YORK EXPRESS on the destination sign) for a large number of posed factory photographs shot in several locations around Pontiac and elsewhere near Detroit.  Mrs. America (Wanda Jennings, of Saint Louis, Missouri) broke a traditional bottle of champagne on the front bumper of F-701 (serial 002).  During the excitement of that busy day, P-5446 (serial 001) somehow became ignored and lost in the shuffle despite its special status as the first Cruiser to have rolled off the end of the prod­uction line, although it eventually became restored (with the side number of 1954, the year of its manufacture) in the Greyhound historic fleet.  [Fred Dunikoski, as the president and the CEO of the second Greyhound Lines, Inc. (the second GLI), while it was still a subsidiary of The Greyhound Corporation, based in Phoenix, Arizona, caused the retention and restoration of 001 and caused the establishment of the Greyhound corporate historic fleet (before the Greyhound parent firm sold GLI to the GLI Holding Company, based in Dallas, Texas).]

          The appearance of the Scenicruiser was impressive and distinctive. The styling was stunning and superb, continuing the styling theme introduced in the previous year, 1953, on the GM Highway Traveler PD-4104.  It included full fluted aluminum brightwork siding below the belt line and between adjacent side windows.  It too featured large picture windows (in the shape of an elongated forward-leaning parallelogram with gracefully rounded corners, as on the -4104).  The split-level or deck-and-a-half design gave it the characteristic stepped silhouette.

          The outside paint scheme was consistent with that on the Highway Traveler PD-4104 – except that the name Greyhound alone (no longer Greyhound Lines, just plain Greyhound) appeared in the characteristic style of italic lettering on the sides near the tail and across the tail.  One unusual touch was a blue (or sometimes red) ® (circle-R) symbol in the upper-forward corner of each side of the upper deck, to denote the distinctive design as a registered one (registered in the US Patent Office).

          The Cruiser was 40 feet long, and it had a standard washroom (on the street side at the foot of the steps to the upper deck), two huge baggage bins below the upper deck, a pair of tandem rear axles (although the rearmost axle was an idle non-powered one), with dual wheels on each rear axle, and a pair of GM 4-71 diesel engines (mounted longitudinally straight-in side-by-side in the tail), acting through a fluid coupling, and a Spicer three-speed manual mechanical gearbox with a two-speed clutch (providing six forward speeds altogether).

          Air-conditioning was, of course, a standard feature, with the Freon compressor driven by the engine on the curb side, one of the two main engines (the only engines).  [Previous models of GM and Yellow Coaches with air-conditioning had used a small Continental four-cylinder gasoline engine, mounted amidships on the street side, to drive the Freon compressor.]

          Incidentally, the Scenicruiser PD-4501 was the first model, from any builder for any carrier, to have both air-conditioning and a washroom as standard features aboard every coach without exception.

          Fortunately, the interior décor of the Cruiser greatly improved on the depressing and unimaginative brown and beige (earth tones) of the Highway Traveler.  The inside of the shell, on each deck, was yellow (in an attractive soft shade) with white on the ceiling.  The upholstery on the driver’s seat was the same shade of yellow.

Problems with the Cruiser

          Regrettably, the build quality of the new coaches was deficient – characteristic of that era throughout not only GM but also the other automotive manufacturers in the US – in part because of the difficulties with the relations between the employer builder and the unionized employees (that is, due to sloppy or careless workmanship on the part of displeased, disgruntled, or malcontent factory workers) – to the extent that Greyhound found it necessary to run each new Scenicruiser directly from the plant in Pontiac to the regular Greyhound shop in Toledo, Ohio, about 80 miles to the south, for adjustments and corrections of the discrepancies – final assembly, the wags called it – before sending it onward to its destination division and its first assignment.

          Although the Cruiser was a beautiful machine, and although it gave an extremely comfortable ride (a distinctive and recognizable ride due to the full-tandem rear axles), it presented a new set of mechanical problems.

          When the Scenicruisers ran well, they did so incredibly well, and most of the time they did; however, sometimes (too often, more often than did less unusual coaches) they broke down, largely because of the twin-engine drivetrain.

          Unfortunately, from the engineering viewpoint the Scenicruiser was ahead of its time.  Many of the concepts used in the engineering design – and many of the tricks required of the vehicle – were ahead of the state of the art of the components available at the time (mechanical, electric, and electromechanical).   [That era was about one eon before the days of computers, chips, semiconductor devices, and other fancy electronic gadgets, all of which we now accept and expect as routine.]  To say it another way, the design of the Cruiser demanded a level of technology which in 1954 was not yet available, or not yet developed well enough, or not yet at an acceptable level of reliability.

          The largest and most basic problem was that no single appropriate engine (either diesel or gasoline) was then feasible – not large enough, not rated for enough horsepower or torque, to provide adequate acceleration, speed, and hill-climbing capability.  [Although several hotter engines were available, they were not suitable or readily adaptable to an application in highway coaches, or the dimensions were too large, or the fuel-consumption rates (an extremely important factor) were too high.]

          That’s why the Cruiser first used a pair of four-cylinder engines rather than a single eight-cylinder engine.

          That problem became solved in 1960, when the Detroit Diesel Engine Division (of the GM Corporation) introduced its long-awaited 8V-71 (V-8) machine (based on the original 6-71), shortly after the introd­uction of the smaller 6V-71 (V-6), first used in 1959 in the GM Fishbowl suburban and city-transit coaches).

          [In 1960 the 4-71 engine, with 284 cubic inches, was rated for about 150 horsepower and 375 pound-feet of torque; the 6-71, with 426 cubes, for about 212 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque; and the 8V-71, with 568 cubes, for about 315 horsepower and 900 pound-feet of torque.  A pair of 4-71s produced about 300 horsepower and 750 pound-feet of torque, so a single 8V-71 produced about 5 percent more horsepower and about 20 percent more torque than did a pair of 4-71s.] 

          [Both power (expressed in horsepower) and torque (expressed in pound-feet) are important measures of the capacity or capability of an engine, but they measure and indicate two different facets of its performance.  Power and torque are related to each other; the higher the power, the higher the torque, and vice-versa.  Still, though, power and torque measure two different capabilities.  Simply and generally speaking, power indicates the ability of an engine to reach a certain speed (that is, to accelerate) and to maintain speed, and torque indicates its capacity to turn its output shaft (that is, to turn the drive wheels of a vehicle).  More specifically, in the context of self-propelled vehicles, power tells the ability of a vehicle (its engine or engines) to accelerate and to maintain speed, and torque tells its ability to propel a load and to climb upgrades.  One significant pair of points is that not all engines of a particular rated horsepower are rated for the same torque, and not all engines of a particular rated torque are rated for the same horsepower.  For example, an early version of the Detroit 8V-71, with 568 cubic inches, one rated for 315 horsepower, produces 900 pound-feet of torque, but a Mack ENDT-673, with 673 cubes in six inline cylinders, rated for about 250 horsepower, produces 900 pound-feet of torque.  The Mack Truck Company in 1957 and -58 used ENDT-673 engines for its experimental or demonstration repowering of two Scenicruisers, as described below, in the section about “Repowering (x3) by Mack.”]

          Maintenance on the Scenicruiser – with the original powerplant – was a constant headache – partly because of the complicated nature of some of the new systems (in the manner of Rube Goldberg, some of the critics suggested), partly because some of the components were too new and unimproved (using new, unproved, and unimproved technology), partly because the diagnostic tools and techniques were inadequate, partly because the training and availability of mechanics (and maintenance supervisors and managers) for the new model were less than optimum, partly because the technical support and repair-parts support were less than optimum, and largely because of a combination of several of those factors – along with a few other explanations – including, sadly, occasional incidents of careless or intentional abuse of the new coaches by disgusted drivers or mechanics. 

          This story will continue below, after the next section (about the PD-4901), in the section about the midstream revision.

GM PD-4901

          About the time of the construction of the EXP-331, the T&C Division built also a second experimental prototype, known as the EXP-321, 10 numbers lower than the -331, named as the Golden Chariot, later redesignated as the model PD-4901.  The Chariot is a 40-foot coach with 47 seats on a single high deck, with the same height as the upper deck of the PD-4501, the Scenicruiser.  It is in effect both, visually speaking, a high-level elongated PD-4104, the Highway Traveler, with tandem rear axles and an additional short (or less long) window on each side, and, mechanically speaking, a single-deck high-level PD-4501.  It originally had a drivetrain identical to that aboard the Scenicruiser.  Its distinctive feature was a gold-tone anodized finish on all the aluminum brightwork (rather than a natural untinted finish, anodized but untinted, as on the Cruiser and other GM models) – thus called the “Golden” Chariot.  Due to the single full-length high deck, it has a third forward large luggage compartment underneath, although not quite as huge as either of the two rearward ones, as aboard a Cruiser.  It’s an attractive coach, despite the pretentious gold tint, which, presumably, could eventually become deselected by the use of a delete option.  It appeared to hold much potential for many mainline carriers along high-density routes – provided that one major disadvantage could be corrected.  Regrettably, the PD-4901 never went into prod­uction, so the one sample continued to stand alone.  Several carriers, including the Continental Trailways, had shown interest, but nobody ever placed a firm definite order.  The prospects felt wary of the questionable two-engine mechanical arrangement, and the bad experience of Greyhound with the Scenicruiser, from the beginning, finished frightening away everyone else.

          The Pennsylvania GL leased the Chariot for several months and ran it, numbered as P-5599, between New York City and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, without markings other than the side number and the required legal lettering.

          Next the Golden Chariot returned to Pontiac, Michigan, where the T&C Division (of the GM Corporation) replaced the gold-tinted aluminum exterior – skin, bumpers, trim, everything – with untinted anodized parts – not golden – matching the -4104s and the -4501s.  The original drivetrain became replaced with one similar or identical to the arrangement installed in the Scenicruisers during 1961 and -62.  [There is a suspicion that the repowering of the PD-4901 may have taken place in part as a demonstration or experimental project in connection with the creation of the engineering design for the repowering of the -4501s.]

          T&C then sold the Chariot to the North Star Lines, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which ran several routes in the region between Grand Rapids and Traverse City, also in Michigan.

          Afterward several relatively small carriers owned and used it in New Jersey, New England, and elsewhere in the Northeast.

          The Chariot still continues to exist, parked in East Templeton, Massachusetts, as a property of the Wilson Bus Lines, which has announced the intent to restore it.

Midstream Revision of the PD-4501

          Late in the fall of 1955 the GMC T&C Division introduced a midstream revision (of the PD-4501), which consisted mainly of a new clutch arrangement, along with a few miscellaneous minor improvements (including pantograph wiper arms, which allow the blades to remain in a vertical position throughout the entire arc of the sweep).  After that point all new Scenicruisers left the plant with the new features, and all the older (that is, less new) Cruisers became retrofitted with the new items.

          The clutch was not changed or replaced, but the manner of controlling it was changed.  [The clutch was a two-speed one connected to the engines by a fluid coupling (a “slush box” but not a torque converter).]

          In the original design the driver engaged and disengaged the clutch by using a treadle-type pedal (similar to the brake and accelerator pedals) mounted in the usual spot at the driver’s left foot; in turn the treadle, connected to an electric switch, actuated an electric solenoid which engaged and disengaged the clutch.  That concept allowed the driver to select between only two positions of the clutch – on or off, out or in, 1 or 0, engaged or disengaged – without a capability to engage or disengage the clutch smoothly or gradually.  Thus it was physically or mechanically impossible for the driver to avoid a lurch while engaging the clutch at a standstill with the transmission in gear, and it was extremely difficult to avoid another lurch while engaging the clutch again after shifting gears while in motion.

          The revised arrangement, introduced late in 1955, continued to use the same clutch, fluid coupling, and transmission; it changed only the manner of actuating the clutch.  It returned to the old notion of engaging and disengaging the clutch by using a direct mechanical linkage connected to a standard relief-type pedal – similar to the familiar clutch pedals on the PD-4103 and -04 and other GM models with manual gearboxes.  Thus the driver could engage or disengage the clutch smoothly and gradually, while either at a standstill or in motion, and thereby could achieve a high degree of comfort and expertise (without jerking or lurching, in contrast with the original design).  That saved much embarrassment and humiliation for the drivers. 

Shifting the Gearbox

          Because of the fluid coupling, when the driver prepared to set into motion from a standstill, he applied the service (foot) brakes, released the parking brake, depressed the clutch pedal, made sure that the splitter switch was in the L position (L for low rather than H for high), briefly nudged the gearstick toward (or partly into) the 2 position – to use the synchronizer feature (as though starting to shift into 2), because the second and third gears used synchronizer cones, although 1 and R did not) – then shifted into 1 (or R as needed), released the clutch pedal, released the brake pedal, and accelerated in the usual manner.  That technique, thus far, was much the same as that used while setting into motion a 1940s or -50s Chrysler prod­uct equipped with Fluid Drive (an early semiautomatic transmission), because the mechanical arrangement was similar.  [Although Fluid Drive did not use a splitter or a two-speed clutch, it did use an automatic overdrive.]

          The driver then manually shifted through the three forward gears, arranged in the customary H pattern, by using a stick mounted in the floor and by using the clutch in the usual way – but not using the double-clutch technique (because of the synchronizer feature on the second and third gears).

          An oversize electric switch with two positions (L and H, for low and high) controlled the two-speed clutch (which gave six forward speeds with only three gearstick positions); that switch also served as the knob at the top of the gearstick in the first version (with the original clutch arrangement), but which later became attached to the stick just below a standard knob in the second version (with the improved clutch arrangement). 

          Aboard a Scenicruiser with the original clutch arrangement, the prescribed protocol required the driver to shift through the gears in only five steps: 1L, 2L, 2H, 3L, and 3H, thus skipping directly from 1L to 2L without using 1H.

          However, on a Cruiser with the improved clutch arrangement, the new protocol required the driver to shift in all six steps: 1L, 1H, 2L, 2H, 3L, and 3H.

          With the new clutch arrangement, the driver operated the clutch pedal in the normal manner, engaging and disengaging gradually and smoothly, except that he fully engaged the clutch before setting into motion, and except that some drivers while in motion used a form of “float” shifting, without using the clutch or by using it only minimally.

          After the 8V-71 engines became available, the engineers at GM and Greyhound began making plans to improve the entire fleet of Scenicruisers, by replacing the original dual-engine power plants with single V-8 machines.

          This part of the Scenicruiser story continues below, in the section about repowering the Cruiser.

How Many of Them?

          How many Scenicruisers ever existed?  That depends; that depends on how one counts.  There are three different answers to that question, and each one is correct, at least in part, in its own sense.

          First, the regular prod­uction run of the PD-4501 consisted of exactly 1,000 coaches, bearing serial numbers from 001 through 1000.

          Second, in 1956, when that prod­uction run ended, the GMC T&C Division pulled out the EXP–331, its hand–built prototype of the PD-4501, rebuilt it somewhat, completed it in the standard seating configuration, revised the exterior trim to conform with that on the prod­uction coaches (including the removal of the round drumhead sign from the tail), then gave it the serial number of PD-4501-1001, then sold it too to Greyhound as A-2267 (in the fleet of the Atlantic GL), which later became renumbered as A-6464, then as M-6464 (in the fleet of the newly created Southern GL) and soon as 6464 (still in the fleet of the Southern GL), and eventually as 5399 (in the fleet of the Greyhound Lines East).  [That was the only Scenicruiser which originally got a spotlight, a drumhead sign, or an emergency door (which became sealed during the rebuilding).]

          [The Atlantic GL received also the last 12 copies of the Cruiser from the prod­uction run, serials 989-1000, numbered as A-2255 through -2266.  One of those, serial 992, originally A-2258, has become restored and is now on display at the Greyhound Bus Museum, in Hibbing, Minnesota.]

          [During the production of the first version of the Highway Traveler PD-4104 – and after the beginning of the construction of the hand-built prototype of the Scenicruiser PD-4501 – but before the production run of the -4501 – the federal regulations became changed in such a way that an emergency door became no longer required on a coach with large picture windows equipped with hinges and simple latches (operable by passengers as well as drivers) along with adequate instruction plates.  Thus no -4501 in the production run had an emergency door – although every -4104, even in the second version of it (beginning in 1956) – did have an emergency door.]

          [Shortly before the beginning of the prod­uction run of the Scenicruiser, the managers at the T&C Division (with the consent of their counterparts at Greyhound) took the hand-built prototype to a Tootsietoy plant, then allowed the officials and workers at Tootsietoy to examine their new coach, photograph it, and measure it, in preparation for Tootsietoy to begin prod­ucing die-cast metal models of the Scenicruiser.  The prototype at that time bore a round drumhead sign on the tail, as aboard a Silversides (and a number of other previous models) – that is, as though on the tail of a railway passenger observation car.  Thus the Tootsietoy models of the Scenicruiser have evermore bore drumhead signs on their tails, although no other Scenicruiser ever left the plant with a drumhead sign, and although the prototype lost its drumhead sign before it went into regular revenue service.]

          Third, the GX-2 – the second hand-built experimental prototype involved in developing the Scenicruiser concept and leading to it – eventually got a bogus “builder’s plate” identifying it as PD-4501-1002, then (with the side number of G-7483) became assigned to the Great Lakes GL.

          How many Scenicruisers?  If one regards or defines a Scenicruiser as a GM PD-4501 – not some other model with the name Scenicruiser attached to its sides, as in the cases of several other models during several years – then there were exactly 1,001.  The GX-2 was a special coach, but it never was a PD-4501, although it bore the name Scenicruiser in script on each side, and it never was a GM prod­uct at all, except that Greyhound had built it (in a shop in or near Chicago) from parts and components obtained from the GMC T&C Division – despite the contrived serial number on the artificial “builder’s plate.”

          [PD-4501-1001, the one which went into revenue service as A-2267, was a hand-built prod­uct of the GM Corporation, built in the T&C facilities in Pontiac (and finished in 1953) – whereas the GX-2 (named as a Scenicruiser, the only “Scenicruiser” at that time) was a hand-built prod­uct of The Greyhound Corporation, built in a Greyhound facility in or near Chicago (and finished in 1949), largely using parts and components obtained from GM (starting with an unfinished PD-4151) – and whereas the GX-1 (named as a Highway Traveler, the only “Highway Traveler” at that time) was a hand-built coach, nominally (at least) also a Greyhound prod­uct (and finished in -47), also largely using parts and components obtained from GM.]

          [Ironically, due to the involvement of Carl Will in the construction of the GX-1, it appears that the very last “Will” coach was also, in a special and limited sense, the first “Scenicruiser” – or at least the first tangible step in the development of the Scenicruiser concept – on the way toward the first post-WW2 split-level or deck-and-a-half Greyhound coach.]

          Because of the severe problems with the drivetrain in the Scenicruiser, which remained unresolved until 1961, Greyhound did not place an order for any more of the Cruiser (or any of the PD-4901 at all).

More of the PD-4104

          In the spring of 1957 the second version of the PD-4104 began to appear throughout the Greyhound Lines, with toilets (although the first version, in 1953-54, did not include that option except on a few coaches for premium extra-fare limited-stop service on several routes) and with several other improvements, including pantograph wiper arms (as in the second version of the Scenicruiser), arms which allow the blades to remain vertical at any point during the arc of the sweep, along with left-side rear-view mirrors mounted at the belt line (as on the Scenicruiser) rather than near the top of the side window (as in the first version of the -04).  They were no longer named as Highway Travelers, as were the cars of the first version of the -04, starting in 1953; instead they bore the legend “Scenicruiser Service.”  Otherwise the livery continued as on the first version.  The inside décor used a medium shade of metallic green, which greatly improved on the brown (as on the first version).

          In the fall of 1957 another group of the second version of the -4104, also with toilets, began to appear.  They too bore lettering for Scenicruiser Service (rather than Highway Traveler).  [That last group of new cars introduced a clever twist on the destination sign – the silhouette of the Greyhound dog trademark in white on black (as an alternate to a blank reading) for use when the correct destination was not available on the curtain for a particular trip.]

          Of the 5,065 copies of both versions (combined) of the PD-4104, the Greyhound companies altogether bought a total of 1,985, about 39.2 percent of them, delivered in the years 1953-54 and -57-58.  [The number 5,065 made the -4104 the most numerous coach in North America – until the MC-9, from the Motor Coach Industries (MCI) – and its sister firm, the Transportation Manufacturing Corporation (TMC) – exceeded it and, in 1994, reached a total of about 9,513 when prod­uction ended.

Troubles between Greyhound and GM

          Sadly, although the Scenicruiser program marked the high point, the crown jewel, of the long relationship between Greyhound and the GM Corporation, the Scenicruiser program also marked the beginning of the end of that liaison.  The mechanical problems with the Cruiser led to large disagreements between those two parties, then to a lawsuit by Greyhound against GM, then to a settlement, all of which resulted in a thoroughly ruptured and intolerably unhappy relationship.  [More about that is available below, in the section about “A Different Source.”]

Governmental Intervention

          Meanwhile in 1956 the US Department of Justice filed a civil suit against the GM Corporation, The Greyhound Corporation, and other parties, under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, in a successful attempt to depose the GMC T&C Division from its clear position of leadership and dominance in the coach-building industry in the US (for city-transit, suburban, and intercity cars).  [That legal action did not apply to GMC truck-based chassis for school buses, in which segment GM held only a minority market share.]

          Correctly seeing that GM had a share of 84 percent of the domestic market for parlor, transit, and suburban cars, the lawyers on the payroll of the Antitrust Division, long on vigilance but short of common sense, long on aggressiveness but short on analytic skills, long on zeal but short on knowledge and understanding of the realistic practicalities of the business in question, incorrectly assumed that GM’s dominant position must necessarily be bad and wrong merely because GM had become large and successful.

          The complaint alleged, among other points, that GM had acquired the exclusive rights (that is, patents and registered designs) to various technologies, that GM had refused to give or sell the fruits of its efforts to its competitors (mainly, that is, the diesel engines, the automatic transmissions, and the angle drives), that GM (through its financing subsidiary, the GM Acceptance Corporation, the GMAC) had made it easy for its customers to finance their purchases, and that Boss Kettering, a vice president of the GM Corporation, had sat on the board of directors of The Flxible Company, which was a nominal competitor of the T&C Division.  [Flxible is pronounced as “flexible.”]

          Apparently it never occurred to the watchdogs in the Antitrust Division that T&C had reached its preëminent position because of the superior quality of its products, its service, and its financing.  GM coaches with GM diesel engines accounted for the majority of the sales in the US because they were the most desirable, most durable, most serviceable, most prod­uctive, most efficient, and most reliable (except, of course, for the initial mechanical problems with the original drivetrain of the Scenicruiser).

          If those myopic hall monitors from Washington had taken the trouble to try to get themselves straight on the facts before they pulled on their jackboots and started marching in lockstep against GM, they might somehow have stumbled across the hugely significant fact that the presence of Kettering on the Flxible board had worked not to the detriment or disadvantage of Flxible but rather to its enhancement or advantage.  Kettering, a native of Loudonville, Ohio, also the home of The Flxible Company, was on the board because Hugo Young, the founder of Flxible, had placed the Boss on the board – partly to show honor to him, partly to take advantage of his brilliance as an inventor and original thinker, and partly to enable Flxible to get special terms and deals from GM (including, from the early days of Flxible, those related to both chassis and engines from both Buick and Chevrolet).  It’s undeniably documented that the Boss rarely took part in the decisionmaking processes of Flxible, and that he seldom even attended the meetings of the board, although he occasionally served in an advisory capacity.  Flxible and T&C were nominal rivals, but they were only partial rivals, only in small part.  [Flxible was then a niche builder, concentrating on the market segment for small medium-duty 21-29-seat coaches, whereas T&C concentrated on the segment for larger heavy-duty 37-43-seat coaches.  T&C never directly competed against Flxible, except that for a short time, 1939-49, T&C offered a small line of 25-29-seat Cruiserette coaches for its customers who wanted GM products in the manner of a Flxible Clipper (without ever seeking to invade the customer base of Flxible).]

          The suit by the federal government dragged on but never went to trial, while the respective lawyers for the various parties prolonged their arguments, motions, countermotions, and other sparring and tap dancing with one another.  In 1965 the parties here, the USA and the GM Corporation, eventually reached a distinctly one-sided agreement, which, with the approval of the court (that is, the judge), emerged as a document known in the law business as a consent decree (a decree of the court by the consent of the parties through their ostensibly mutual but forced agreement).

          The remedy (the consent decree) imposed four main requirements on GM; it required two behaviors, and it enjoined (forbade) two other behaviors:

          It required GM:

                   to sell any coach to any carrier (thus ruling out any possibility of another exclusive design for Greyhound or any other carrier) and to sell engines, transmissions, angle drives, and other parts or components to any other coach manufacturer (that is, to any competitor);

                   and to grant licenses to any rival coach manufacturer (without the payment of royalties or other fees or charges) for the use of the present intellectual property (on the date of the decree) covered by GM patents and registered designs and to grant such licenses for reasonable fees or royalties for the use of any future such right acquired or developed during the following 10 years.

          It also forbade GM:

                   to enter into exclusive-supply contracts with any carrier or any other coach manufacturer for coaches or parts or components for them (thus ruling out any possibility of not only another exclusive design for Greyhound or any other carrier but also an exclusive-supply relationship with any carrier even for non-exclusive designs – and thus depriving Greyhound or any another carrier of any contractually assured benefit resulting from the economies of scale associated with multi-year commitments for future coaches in future years);

                   or to allow any person to serve as an officer or director of the GM Corporation if that one serves also as an officer or director of any coach-operating company or any other coach-building company, or if that one owns a “material share” of any such firm.

          The alleged or ostensible “consent” decree further required the GMAC to provide the financing of a certain number of purchases from the rivals of the T&C Division.

          According to one authority, Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo, a scholar and a professor of economics at the Loyola University in Maryland, the history of antitrust enforcement in the US has consisted of a history of politically inspired witch hunts launched against some of this nation’s most innovative and most entrepreneurial business firms, including the GM Corporation.

          Many other authorities, such as both Robert Bork and Alan Greenspan, also have expressed much similar criticism of the disturbing record of the US Department of Justice in that area.

          In this instance the persecution of the GM Corporation by the US appears to illustrate the validity and credibility of those views.

          What’s bad or wrong about GM’s having gained dominance in its markets through its inventiveness and innovativeness or through its own excellence or the superiority of its prod­ucts and the availability of them?

          Where is it written that GM did not have a lawful right to protect its intellectual property by obtaining patents and registrations for its inventions and developments?  Or to exercise its lawfully exclusive rights to them without sharing its own assets with its less successful competitors?  What in law, logic, or ethics had previously required GM to hand over a large and significant portion of its own proprietary technology to its less inventive rivals?

          In the view of many observers, a large part of antitrust enforcement in general and this case in particular illustrates a strongly socialistic tendency – to require and force the redistribution of the rewards of free enterprise from the achievers to the nonachievers (or to those who have achieved less).

          Such behavior on the part of the federal government of the USA causes many of us to express the thoughts that we love our country, but we fear and distrust our government and many of those who run it.

          Because of the practical consequences of the consent decree, Greyhound found it all the easier to turn away from the GM Corporation and its T&C Division and to continue developing its own subsidiary coach builder.  In 1958 The Greyhound Corporation bought a controlling (majority) interest in the Motor Coach Industries (MCI), Limited, and in -61 acquired the entire ownership of it.

          [The MCI, then based in Canada, was less subject to the meddling, harassment, and interference by the federal government of the US.]

Mack MV-620-D

          In 1957 the Mack Truck Company, of Allentown, Pennsylvania, built a sample or prototype of a 40-foot intercity parlor coach in response to an invitation – that is, a request for proposals – from The Greyhound Corporation.  [Greyhound had issued an open invitation to all bus and truck builders in the US market, but only Mack accepted the challenge.]

          Two problems had prompted Greyhound to request a proposal.  The first problem was the displeasure of the Greyhound executives with GM and its T&C Division about the initial troubles with the Scenicruiser.  The second problem was the antitrust suit by the US government against GM and Greyhound. 

          The first of those problems made it desirable for Greyhound to seek and find a different source (a source other than GM) of its future new coaches, and the second problem made it necessary for Greyhound to do so.  [Above I discuss those two problems – in the two sections immediately preceding this one – the two entitled “Troubles between Greyhound and GM” and “Governmental Intervention” respectively.] 

          Mack arose to the invitation and challenge.  The resulting prototype and demonstrator, which Mack designated first as the model MV-39, later as the MV-620-D, was and still is a high-level single-deck coach with 39 seats, a washroom, three full axles, and, originally, a Mack ENDLT-674 inline six-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine with 673 cubic inches and a Mack five-speed manual gearbox with a two-speed auxiliary gearbox (thus providing 10 forward gears with only five holes or positions of the gearstick).  [However, Mack twice replaced components in the drivetrain:  First, near the end of 1959, during the evaluation of the 620 by Greyhound (described below in this section), Mack replaced the original engine, using a Mack END-864 V-8 naturally aspirated (non-turbocharged) diesel engine with 864 cubic inches.  Second, about 1973 or -74, after Mack bought back the 620 (as described below in this same section), Mack replaced both the engine and the transmission, using a Mack ENDT-865 (different from the END-864) V-8 turbocharged diesel engine and a Mack five-speed straight manual gearbox without an auxiliary gearbox, thus providing just five forward gears.  [An ENDT-865 engine (with 864 cubes) appears to be in essence an END-864 engine plus an exhaust-driven turbocharger.]

          [The initialism ENDLT here means engine-diesel-lightweight-turbocharged, where “lightweight” refers to an aluminum (rather than steel) bell housing or flywheel housing.]

          During 1956 Mack had made two significant purchases – first, the Brockway Motor Company, of Cortland, New York, a small but profitable builder of heavy-duty trucks; second, the C.D. Beck and Company, of Sidney, Ohio, a builder of intercity coaches and firefighting apparatus.  [In that same year Mack bought also some or all of the tooling (but not the other assets) of the Ahrens-Fox Fire-engine Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio.] 

          All that took place in the upheaval of that same year, 1956, during which it had become not only desirable but also mandatory for Greyhound to turn to a source of its future new coaches other than the GM Corporation – because of Greyhound’s displeasure with GM over the disputes about the initial problems with the Scenicruiser – and because of the antitrust suit by the US government against GM, Greyhound, and other parties. 

          During 1956 several meetings took place among officials from both Mack and Greyhound (who, in following months, exchanged and circulated a large number of notes, memos, letters, sketches, drawings, and photographs), after which Greyhound invited Mack, on speculation and at Mack’s expense, to design and build a sample or prototype of a new coach to supplant or supplement the Greyhound Scenicruisers and other coaches. 

          Mack accepted the invitation.  On 24 January 1957 Mack officially made its decision to design and build such a coach.  On 24 July 1957, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, exactly six months later, Mack first showed to Greyhound officials full-size mockups of the nose and the tail of the proposed new coach.  On 12 August 1957, just 19 days later, the assembly of the new coach began, in the Mack test shed in Allentown – although, if the 620 had eventually gone into production, then the construction of subsequent coaches would have taken place in the former-Beck plant, in Sidney, Ohio.  On 04 December 1957 in Sidney, only 114 days after construction started (in Allentown), Mack made its first official showing of the 620 to Greyhound, the press, and the rest of the world.  That presentation included also a full-size unpowered mockup of the nose, the tail, and the street side of the 620 (without the curb side and without a finished interior).  [Mack later disassembled and scrapped the mockup.]

          Greyhound did not buy the sample of the 620, as it’s often called, but rather leased it for evaluation under a contract for no compensation (except for certain expenses incurred). 

          Greyhound gave the new coach the whimsical side number of C-620 (in the fleet of the fifth Central Greyhound Lines), and, starting on 11 March 1958, Greyhound put her to work in regular service, based in Chicago, Illinois, running exclusively through Salt Lake City, Utah, to California, sometimes to Los Angeles and sometimes to San Francisco.  A Mack engineer, to carry out Mack’s own evaluation from the builder’s viewpoint, consistently rode C-620 during all her line operations for the Greyhound Lines (until the end of the evaluation period). 

          At some point the evaluations (by both Mack and Greyhound) ended (apparently sometime late in 1959, perhaps in November).  Afterward, though, Greyhound again leased the 620 and made payments for continued operation until September 1960.

          [Seemingly at least one of Mack’s motives for buying the Beck firm and the Ahrens-Fox tooling was to strengthen Mack’s position and capabilities as a builder of firefighting apparatus as well as trucks and buses, in all three segments of which Mack had already taken part (buses since 1902 and fire engines since 1911).  Still, though, the purchase of Beck provided Mack also a plant, its staff, its contacts, and its lists of suppliers, customers, and prospects, along with a portfolio of designs and patents for the building of coaches.] 

          The 620 somewhat resembles the GM PD-4901, and it clearly represents an attempt to compete against both the GM Scenicruiser (PD-4501) and the GM Golden Chariot (PD-4901).

          The styling of the nose and the sides is generally similar to that of the contemporary GM models (the PD-4104, -4501, -4901, and, later, the -4106 and the -4107.)

          However, the styling of the tail is a prod­uct of the space age of the 1950s.  Containing small but distinct tail fins, it resembles that of a DeSoto Fireflite or other Chrysler prod­uct of the same era.  It almost invites an addition of a Continental kit (for a spare tire). 

          The tail of the 620 evidently inspired the tail of the MC-1 and the MC-2, and its nose influenced the noses of the MC-1 through the MC-7, all from the Motor Coach Industries (MCI).

          Partly because of the lost or wasted space inside at the tail, the 620 accommodates only 39 passengers, whereas in the same length, 40 feet, a Scenicruiser seats 43, and the Golden Chariot seats 47, as do 40-foot MCI coaches, and whereas the second version of the PD-4104 seats 38 or 39, even with a washroom, within a length of only 35 feet.

          Greyhound operated the 620 until 12 September 1960, when it returned the coach to Mack in Allentown.

          For a combination of reasons Greyhound did not place an order for 620s, and no other carrier ever did so. 

          Mack offered also to build a 35-foot two-axle version, to become known as the MV-420, using a Mack END-864 V-8 diesel engine; after some discussion, though, Greyhound did not show any further interest in that idea. 

          [In 1948 the Western Canadian Greyhound Lines, Limited, had bought the Motor Coach Industries (MCI), Limited, a Canadian builder, as the supplier of its coaches for its operations (in Canada).  Then in -58 The Greyhound Corporation (the parent umbrella firm in the US) bought a controlling interest in the MCI (thus taking an important step toward again developing its own source for its future equipment – as it had first done in 1927, when it, as the Motor Transit Corporation (the original name of the Greyhound parent firm), bought the C.H. Will Motors Company, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, which in -29 the GM Corporation bought for its Yellow T&C Manufacturing Company).  In -61 The Greyhound Corporation acquired the entire ownership of the MCI.  In -63 the MC-5 (equipped with power steering, air suspension, air-conditioning, a Detroit 8V-71 engine, a manual four-speed gearbox, and a toilet) appeared, and it compared well with the GM PD-4106.  Greyhound long continued buying from the MCI (a subsidiary of its own until 1993) – more of the MC-5 and -5A, 100 copies of the MC-6 (85 for the US and 15 for Canada), then large numbers of the MC-7, -8, -9, and -12, the 96A3, 102A3, -D3, and -DL, then the G45 and later models.]

          In 1964 the Schenectady Transportation Corporation, the local transit carrier in its namesake city in New York, bought the 620 from Mack for service in its charter subsidiary, known as the Nationwide Tours, Inc.  Painted in green and cream, the coach then ran in charter service throughout the US and Canada. 

          However, in 1968 George Kistler Jr., a dealer in firefighting apparatus in Allentown, bought the 620 (from a broker in Providence, Rhode Island) and began to use it in the service of his company, including the entertainment and transport of clients, prospects, and other VIPs.

          Then in 1972 Mack bought the 620 back from Kistler, and Mack began a renovation and repowering of the coach, including the replacement of all the seats; afterward Mack used its signature coach in its own service for corporate transport, public visibility, and charitable support.  In 1975, to prepare for the national bicentennial celebration, in 1976, Mack applied a sparkling patriotic red-white-and-blue livery.

          Eventually in 1985 Mack, under the ownership of the Renault empire in France (Renault Véhicules Industriels), tried (unsuccessfully) to reenter the market for intercity coaches in the US – by using the Renault-Mack FR-1 – so Mack relegated the 620 to limited use and visibility. 

          By 1988 the 620 had deteriorated so much that those in charge of Mack regarded her as unpresentable for corporate travel.  From April 1988 until August 1990, languishing in outdoor and uncovered storage, she continued to decay.   

          However, late in 1990 Charles Wotring, a motor-coach hobbyist and enthusiast, of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, bought the lone sample and then faithfully and beautifully restored her, both outside and inside, to her original condition, configuration, and appearance (as she was in 1958).

          The 620 still exists, now as a property of a private collector in Southern California.

Repowering (x3) by Mack

          Even before the prod­uction run of the Scenicruiser ended, in 1956, those in charge at Greyhound began seeking a better alternative to the twin-engine concept.  One early attempt took place in the Mack coach plant, in Sidney, Ohio.  [In 1956 the Mack Truck Company bought the C.D. Beck and Company, of Sidney, then transferred its own existing coach building to the plant in Sidney – except for the 620, which Mack built in its test shed in Allentown, Pennsylvania.] 

          In the Sidney plant and at the invitation of Greyhound, Mack repowered two Scenicruisers and one GM PD-4104 (C-1056, later redesignated as E-1056, with the serial number of PD-4104-065, in the fleet of the Central Greyhound Lines of New York (CGL of New York), which later became merged into the second Eastern Greyhound Lines).  There is no longer any known documentation of the details of the conversion of the -4104.

          The Mack design for the Scenicruisers also used two engines – one for propulsion and one for air-conditioning.  The one for propulsion, the larger one, was a Mack six-cylinder ENDT-673 diesel engine (turbocharged, with 673 cubic inches, rated for about 250 horsepower and 900 pound-feet of torque), driving through a Mack manual transmission (with an unknown number of forward gears); the one for the air-conditioning (to drive the Freon compressor) was a small four-cylinder Continental diesel engine.  The Mack engine sat longitudinally to the left of the centerline, and the Continental sat to the right.

          That modification became installed aboard two Cruisers – E-5620 (originally P-5620), late in 1957, and C-1781, late in -58.  The results or the evaluation of the experiment, either official documents or unofficial anecdotes, are no longer known. 

          GM power later became restored to all three coaches.

          [The Mack engineer in charge of that program was Don Manning, who had previously served as the chief engineer (and, for the most part, the only draftsman or engineer) for the C.D. Beck and Company.  He was a native of Sidney; he graduated from high school in 1933, then he spent two years in training as a mechanical draftsman.  In -35 he joined the payroll of the Beck firm (after, in -34, Clayton Dale Beck took over the Anderson Body Company and renamed it as the C.D. Beck and Company).  Manning then stayed with Beck through the purchase of Beck by Mack.  However, in 1960, when Mack withdrew from coach building, Manning went to work for the GMC T&C Division of the GM Corporation as the assistant chief engineer in the coach section, in Pontiac, and he later became the chief engineer.  Even later he created the RTX and RTS designs (for transit and suburban models), and his name appears on the patent documents for those two series.  In 1975 he retired from the GM Corporation.]

GM PD-4106

          In March 1961 the GMC T&C Division introduced the PD-4106, a 35-foot parlor car, which took the next logical step be­yond the -4104 (skipping the number -4105, which never appeared for a prod­uction model), and which featured the new Detroit Diesel 8V-71 (V-8) engine [after the début of the 6V-71 (V-6) in 1959 in the GM Fishbowl suburban and city-transit models].

          Both the 6V-71 and the 8V-71 were based on the durable and dependable, although leaky, in-line 6-71. 

          {Engines of the 71 series (along with the 53 and 92 series) were and are often called “green screamers” [because of the color of the factory paint and because of their characteristic and distinctive whining sound, due to the presence of a gear-driven Roots blower in the air-intake system – because those engines use the two-stroke concept, and because natural (unblown) aspiration cannot provide enough air to the combustion chambers in a two-stroke high-compression diesel engine].}

          The styling of the -4106 was similar to that of the -4104 but more creased or angular, or less soft or rounded, than on the -04.  [For example, the rounded corners of the picture windows on the sides used shorter radii – that’s the plural of radius – shorter than on the -4104 (Highway Traveler), -4501 (Scenicruiser), -4901 (Golden Chariot), and Fishbowls.]  It included the first quad headlamps (round ones) on a GM parlor car.  [The Fishbowls in 1959 had introduced quad headlamps aboard suburban and city-transit cars.]

          The mechanical layout was similar to that on the PD-4103 and -04.  It used a manual unsynchronized four-speed gearbox.  However, the main engine, the only engine, drove the air-conditioning Freon compressor.  [Again there was no auxiliary engine, just as there was none aboard the Scenicruiser.]

          The new car introduced slightly revised markings, with the name of GREYHOUND (again, not Greyhound Lines, just plain Greyhound) in slightly larger and bolder vertical uppercase letters (rather than italic upper-and-lowercase letters) on each side, and, for the first time, across the nose.  They too bore lettering for Scenicruiser Service (as on the -4104s with washrooms).

          Of the 3,226 copies of the -4106 built, Greyhound bought 1,105 of them, 34.3 percent of them, delivered in the years 1961-64.

          After the PD-4106s began to arrive, in 1961, with their new markings, as the Scenicruisers became repainted in due course, their livery became changed slightly.  The name Scenicruiser, on the sides near the nose, became Scenicruiser Service, in line with the -4104s with washrooms and the -4106s (all of which had washrooms at Greyhound, although not all other carriers specified them).  Further, on a few of those cars the name of GREYHOUND appeared in even larger and bolder vertical uppercase letters (replacing the italic upper-and-lowercase letters), on each side near the tail and across the tail (as before), and, for the first time aboard the Scenicruiser, across the nose (as on the -4106 as delivered).  [Relatively few Scenicruisers ever acquired those markings, because a new livery late in 1961 began to appear on the renovated Scenicruisers.]

          By that time a decreasing number of PD-4103s and other coaches of older models still remained on the equipment roster at Greyhound; a few of them got the name of GREYHOUND on the sides in vertical uppercase letters in a style slightly bolder than before.

Repowering the Cruisers

          After the Detroit 8V-71 engines became available, the engineers at GM and Greyhound began making plans to improve the entire fleet of Scenicruisers, by replacing the original dual-engine power plants with single V-8 machines.

          Before the final decision to use the 8V-71 engines, Greyhound had given serious consideration also to several other makes (not only Mack but also Cummins and two German brands, MAN and Mercedes-Benz), even to the extent of temporarily installing some or all of those other alternatives aboard Cruisers for evaluation.  [Incidentally, MAN is the abbreviation (initialism) of Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg (Machine Factory Augsburg-Nuremberg).]

          Although the managers of the GMC T&C Division provided the engineering support to design the replacement installation, they declined to carry out the remove-and-replace project.

          Therefore Greyhound hired the Marmon-Herrington (MH) Corporation, then of Indianapolis, Indiana, to repower most or all of the remaining Scenicruisers (979 of them, because 22 had become destroyed in fires and wrecks) for a contract price of about 10 million dollars.  [MH is the company best known perhaps for its trackless trolley coaches (which have long run in San Francisco, California, and 15 other cities in the US), along with its Marmon heavy-duty tractor trucks and its short-lived (1950-55) line of small gasoline-powered city-transit buses (after MH bought the right to use the design of the defunct Ford Transit buses, after the Checker Motors Corporation, the famous taxicab manufacturer, gave up on its attempt in the bus-building industry).  MH still continues in business in 2022, now based in Louisville, Kentucky, as a property of Berkshire Hathaway (since 2008) and as a builder and converter of drivetrain components and all-wheel-drive (AWD) vehicles for a variety of commercial and military applications.]

          Between October 1961 and September -62, Marmon-Herrington (and perhaps Greyhound in part) replaced the pairs of GM 4-71 engines, the fluid couplings, the clutches, and the three-speed gearboxes with new drivetrains, consisting of single Detroit 8V-71 (V-8) engines, standard clutches (without fluid couplings), and Spicer manual four-speed unsynchronized gearboxes – mounted longitudinally (straight-in) – that is, without using the Austin angle-drive arrangement [as did most other flat-nose GM coaches, which used engines mounted transversely (crosswise) in the tail]. [In 1958 the GM Corporation had changed the brand name of the GM diesel engines to Detroit diesel engines.]

          Aboard a repowered Scenicruiser the new Detroit V-8 main engine, the only engine, drove the Freon compressor (for the air-conditioning), as hadpreviously the right (curb-side) four-cylinder main engine.

          As each Scenicruiser emerged from its mechanical transformation, Greyhound then refurbished the interior and made several changes on the exterior, at a total cost of about three more million dollars.

          Regrettably, the inside work included an inartful repainting of the previous yellow metalwork on the dash and other surfaces (only on the lower deck) into a medium shade of metallic green, which matched the inside décor of the PD-4106, which had begun to arrive early in 1961, and that of the second version of the -4104, which had begun to arrive in the spring of -57.  Sadly, the new green paint completely covered the handsome builder’s plate, attached to the dash near the door, and obliterated the lettering on it.

          The outside work included the replacement of the pair of doors on the tail (hinged at the sides) with a single overhead door hinged at the top, a pair of full-length horizontal gold Scotchlite stripes, and new lettering, announcing the new name Super Scenicruiser (on each side near the nose, as before) – no longer just Scenicruiser or evenScenicruiser Service – but rather Super Scenicruiser – along with the name of GREYHOUND in larger and bolder vertical uppercase letters, on each side near the tail, across the tail, and across the nose (as on the PD-4106 as they came from Pontiac).

          Every remaining Scenicruiser, 979 of them, became repainted and changed into the Super Scenicruiser livery, with the gold Scotchlite stripes, during the process of repowering and renovating.

A Different Source

          Late in 1963 a few of the new MC-5 coaches began to appear in service at the Greyhound Lines in the US, then in -64 Greyhound received 200 copies of the MC-5, the first model which Greyhound ordered (for service in the US) from the Motor Coach Industries (MCI), Limited, which then was a Canadian coach builder. [The New England GL had previously, in 1953, acquired five MCI Courier 95-D coaches when it took over the International Coach Lines.  More about that is available in my article about the New England GL.]

          [In 1948 the Western Canadian Greyhound Lines, Limited, had bought the MCI as the supplier of its coaches for its operations (in Canada).  In -58 The Greyhound Corporation (the parent umbrella firm in the US) bought a controlling interest in the MCI (thus taking an important step toward again developing its own source for its future equipment – as it had first done in 1927, when it, as the Motor Transit Corporation, bought the C.H. Will Motors Company, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, which in -29 the GM Corporation bought for its Yellow T&C Manufacturing Company).  In 1961 The Greyhound Corporation acquired the entire ownership of the MCI.  In -63 the MC-5 (equipped with power steering, air suspension, air-conditioning, a Detroit 8V-71 engine, a manual four-speed gearbox, and a toilet) compared well with the GM PD-4106.]

          The early successes with the MC-5 paved the way for Greyhound to continue developing the MCI as the exclusive source of its coaches (for the US as well as for Canada) and to continue to turn away from the GM Corporation and its T&C Division.  [More about the MCI appears below, in the section about the Motor Coach Industries and in my separate article aout MCI.]

GM PD-4107

          However, the MCI could not yet reach the level of prod­uction necessary to fully satisfy the needs of Greyhound in the US, so the executives of the Dog, in a stopgap measure, bought a modest number of the next model from GM, the PD-4107, which quickly became nicknamed as the “Buffalo” (because of the distinctive hump in the roofline near the nose) – 162 of them in 1966 and 200 more in -67.

          The Buffalo introduced another minimally changed livery, using a slightly darker shade of blue and a narrow red stripe at the belt line.

More Paint Schemes

          After that, as Scenicruisers became due for repainting in due course, some of them got the same livery as the one on the Buffaloes.  The name Super Scenicruiser continued, but the lettering for the name of GREYHOUND became even larger and bolder.  At the same time the company began to remove the fluted aluminum trim flanking the side picture windows because of increasing oxidation behind the trim.  Unfortunately, that removal harmed the overall appearance of the coaches.  [That livery became applied also to some of the -4104s and -06s during repainting in due course.]

          When the MCI, in 1969, introduced the MC-7, which Greyhound named as the Super 7 Scenicruiser, it arrived in the Buffalo-style livery, then, about -72, it began to appear instead in a new livery, using white, as before, and a much lighter shade of blue, similar to Olympic blue or Pepsi blue, plus a wider red stripe, reaching all the way across the roof near the nose, in a lighter shade of red, similar to tomato red or Pepsi red.  Because of the resemblance of the new livery to the contemporary Pepsi-Cola color scheme, the coaches wearing it became known as the Pepsi buses.

          The Pepsi livery, with minor changes, remained in use through the era of the MC-12 era.  It became applied to many older coaches, including a few of the real Scenicruisers.  Unfortunately, the new livery was not well suited to the Cruisers.  They did not look good in it.

          On the other hand, however, some of the Cruisers never lost their gold-stripe Super Scenicruiser livery.

Final Years of the Cruisers

          About 1970 some 500 of the Scenicruisers (in better condition) became renovated again, with no change in the mechanical arrangement.

          That time about 130 of them became converted into the combination (“combo”) configuration, which provided a cavernous cargo compartment in the rear of the upper deck plus an access door on the curb side near the tail.  The remaining seats, in several patterns, numbered from 10 (those on the lower deck) to about 26 (including as many as 16 on the upper deck).  [The toilet aboard a Scenicruiser was on the lower deck (on the street side), so it remained accessible to all the passengers even in the combo floor plan.]  The side number of a combo included a 0 (zero) as the first digit in the fleet-wide four-digit numbering scheme.

          Some of the Scenicruisers continued operating, in decreasing numbers, but no longer scheduled as first sections on mainline or long-distance routes, until, about 1975, when the MC-8 finished replacing them and sending them out to pasture.  Some of the Cruisers served in their last years in commuter service or airport-shuttle service based in San Francisco.

Motor Coach Industries

          Meanwhile Greyhound continued buying from the MCI (a subsidiary of its own until 1993) – more of the MC-5 and -5A, 100 copies of the MC-6 (85 for the US and 15 for Canada), then large numbers of the MC-7, -8, -9, and -12, the 96A3, 102A3, -D3, and -DL, the G45, and later models.

          The Motor Coach Industries (MCI), Limited, had begun in 1932 as an automotive body shop, named first as the Fort Garry Motor Body and Paint Works, Limited, in a suburb of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, in one of the “prairie provinces” (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba) of western Canada, north of North Dakota and Minnesota.  It soon diversified into bus construction.  In 1933 it built its first bus, a stretched Packard sedan, and in -37 it built its first bus from scratch on its own chassis.  In -38 it filled its first order for new coaches for Greyhound in Canada.

          In 1941 the firm became renamed as the Motor Coach Industries, Limited.

          At first the MCI used under-floor Hall-Scott gasoline engines (as did ACF and ACF-Brill in the US and CCF-Brill in Canada).

          However, the MCI later began to use rear-mounted gasoline engines (Continental in 1950, then International in -51), then rear-mounted Cummins diesel engines in -52, then rear-mounted GM (renamed in 1958 as Detroit) diesel engines – the 4-71 in -53, the 6V-71 in -61, the 8V-71 in -63, the 12V-71 (V-12) in -69 (in the short run of the MC-6), the 6V-92 in -79, the series 60 in -92, and the series 50 in -94.

Extending (and Diluting) the Name

          While the MCI MC-5A was in prod­uction, Greyhound introduced a fresh livery, which included a tall white painted stripe, below the belt line, on the fluted brightwork on the sides and across the tail.  That design seemed to take a cue from the gold-stripe Super Scenicruiser.

          At the same time Greyhound dropped the word Service from Scenicruiser Service on the sides of the coaches, leaving again just Scenicruiser, thus extending the name Scenicruiser to an MCI prod­uct.

          Greyhound applied that livery also to many of the older coaches; when it did so, it applied the name Scenicruiser to them too, thus extending the name Scenicruiser to coaches (with toilets) of three other models of GM coaches (PD-4104, -06, and -07).

          The MC-6 also bore the name Scenicruiser.

          Further, while the MC-7 was in prod­uction, Greyhound applied to its sides the name Super 7 Scenicruiser.

            However, the real Super Scenicruisers continued to be known as Super Scenicruisers; yet, when the Pepsi livery became applied to some of them, that name disappeared from their sides.

          The MC-8 wore the name Americruiser, and the MC-9 wore Americruiser 2; that latter name continued some years also aboard the A series of the MCI coaches, but Greyhound eventually dropped the name Americruiser.

Conclusion

          The GM Scenicruiser PD-4501 is the most popular, remarkable, and recognizable highway coach ever operated in the US.  While it served, “Scenicruiser” meant “Greyhound.”  Despite the early mechanical and other maintenance problems, the Cruiser remains as not only a significant cultural icon but also an admired, coveted, and beloved object.

Very Special Articles

         Please check also my other very special cornerstone articles at this website:

                   “Northland Greyhound Lines” (NGL):  It tells not only the history of the NGL but also the origin and the early years of the overall Greyhound Lines, starting in 1914 in Hibbing, Minnesota.  [The people and the events involved in the early part of the story of the NGL are the same people and events involved also in the origin and the early development of the larger Greyhound empire (including its many divisions and subsidiaries).]
                   “Greyhound Lines after WW2”:  It describes:
                            the major mergers and consolidations (1948-75);
                            the changes in leadership at the top;
                            the move from Chicago to Phoenix (in 1971);
                            the sales of the Greyhound Lines, Inc. (in 1987, 1999, 2007, and 2021);
                            the purchase (in 1987) of the Trailways, Inc. (previously known as the Continental Trailways) and the merger of the TWI into the GLI;
                            the sad and regrettable deterioration in the level of service of the formerly great and formerly respected (but now utterly disgraced and discredited) Greyhound Lines;
                            and the latest development of Greyhound under the ownership of FlixMobility (a German firm) and under the oversight of Flix North America (with a recent Turkish immigrant as the chief executive).
                   “Growing Up at Greyhound”:  It tells about my growing up at Greyhound — as the title says — while my father worked as a longtime (37-year) coach operator for the Greyhound Lines, starting in 1940.

Related Articles

          Please see also my articles about the Atlantic Greyhound Lines, the Capitol Greyhound Lines, the Central Greyhound Lines, the Dixie Greyhound Lines, the Florida Greyhound Lines, the Great Lakes Greyhound Lines, the Illinois Greyhound Lines, the New England Greyhound Lines, the Northland Greyhound Lines, the Northwest Greyhound Lines, the Ohio Greyhound Lines, the Overland Greyhound Lines, the Pacific Greyhound Lines, the Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines, the Richmond Greyhound Lines, the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, the Southwestern Greyhound Lines, the Teche Greyhound Lines, the Valley Greyhound Lines, The Greyhound Corporation, the Greyhound Lines after WW2, and the Tennessee Coach Company.

Bibliography

          Backfire, the corporate newspaper of the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, all issues, from January 1938 through February -56.

          Coffin, Don, personal conversations and correspondence with the author, 2010, in part during Scenicruise 2010.

          Dunikoski, Fred, personal conversations and correspondence with the author, 2010, in part during Scenicruise 2010.

          Ebert, Robert, Flxible: a History of the Bus and the Company.  Yellow Springs: Antique Power, 2001.  ISBN 0-9660-75120-0.

          Eckart, Harvey, Mack Buses: 1900–60 Photo Archive.  Hudson: Iconografix, 2009.  ISBN 1-58388-020-8.

          Eckart, Harvey, personal correspondence with the author, 2021.

          Gabrick, Robert, Going the Greyhound Way.  Hudson: Iconografix, 2009.  ISBN 1-58388-246-4.

            Jon’s Trailways History Corner, a web-based history of the Trailways by Jan Hobijn (known also as Jon Hobein).

          Kirkwood, James, editor, Antitrust Law and Economics.  San Diego: Elsevier, Inc., 2004.  ISBN 0-7623-1115-0.

          Luke, William, Bus Industry Chronicle.  Spokane: William Luke, 2000.  ISBN 0-9703258-0-0.

          Luke, William, Greyhound Buses: 1914–2000 Photo Archive.  Hudson: Iconografix, 2000.  ISBN 1-58388-027-5.

          Luke, William, and Linda Metler, Highway Buses of the 20th Century.  Hudson: Iconografix, 2004.  ISBN 1-58388-121-2.

          Luke, William, Yellow Coach Buses: 1923-43 Photo Archive.  Hudson: Iconografix, 2001.  ISBN 1-58388-054-2.

          McNally, Tom, and Fred Rayman, Greyhound Scenicruiser: Flagship of the Fleet.  Hudson: Iconografix, 2013.  ISBN 1-28388-301-0.

          Meier, Albert, and John Hoschek, Over the Road.  Upper Montclair: Motor Bus Society,  1975.  No ISBN (because of the age of the book).

          Motor Coach Age, ISSN 0739-117X, a publication of the Motor Bus Society, Paramus, New Jersey, various issues, especially these:

                   May-June 1973;
                   May 1974;
                   July-August 1989;
                   September-October 1990;
                   July-August 1991;
                   July-August 1992;
                   July-August 1993.

          Plachno, Larry, Modern Intercity Coaches.  Polo: Transportation Trails, 1997.  ISBN 0-933449-27-5.

          Rushing, Duncan Bryant, Wheels, Water, Words, Wings, and Engines.  New Albany: Fidelity Publishers, forthcoming.

          Wood, Donald, American Buses.  Osceola: Motorbooks International, 1998.  ISBN 0-7603-0432-7.

          Wotring, Charles, personal conversations and correspondence with the author, 2020 and -21.

          Wotring, Charles, “The Mack MV-620-D,” National Bus Trader, ISSN 0194-939X, a publication of the Transportation Trails, Polo, Illinois, February 1992.

          Historical data at www.greyhound.com.

:::

Thank you for visiting Bluehounds and Redhounds.

Please sign my guestbook, and please consider leaving a comment.
Please click here to go to my guestbook.
[There’s only one guestbook for this entire website.]

If you wish to return to the top of this page, please click here.

If you wish to return to the home page, please click here.

Posted at 11:09 EDT, Wednesday, 08 June 2022.

©  Copyright, 2010, 2022, Duncan Bryant Rushing