1. KDKA RADIO STATION -- Here is some feedback from the host of the KDKA radio program that aired. This is a link to their website. http://kdkaradio.com/pages/41351.php. "Don, we have a picture of your Futurliner on the “Gearhead Picture Album” link. There is also a link to your website on the “Car Radio Links” link. And lastly the interview is archived in the “Latest Audio” section titled “The Future is Now”. Thanks again. We’ve really gotten a lot of response from this."
2. 2007 SHOW SCHEDULE -- Our 2007 show schedule is posted on our web site.
3. 2008 SHOW SCHEDULE -- We are already working on our 2008 show schedule.
4. SPEED CHANNEL -- About six months ago we were contacted by the Speed Channel as they were putting together a program that covers the Futurliner. We sent them a lot of material. I just received a call that the program will air on Monday, January 15, 2007 at 9:00 PM EST. I have no idea of the program's content. So take a look.
5. FUTURLINER REPAIRS -- Al Scholten has completed the repairs on the gear boxes that open and close the side doors. He discovered on the right gear box, the one that was making the noise, that it had a broken bearing. He replaced all of the bearings in both the right and left gear boxes. We will be having a weeks work session in April to tackle a long list of repairs, none major except the installation of the two side door gear boxes.
6. NATMUS BOARD -- We previously mentioned that Ed DeVries has been elected to the NATMUS Museum Board. He has started attending the scheduled board meetings.
7. FUTURLINER PLANNING MEETING -- Our next Futurliner planning meeting will be Tuesday, January 9, 2007. We will be reviewing all future scheduled shows, the timing of our repair week as well as a specific list of items, forecasting future financial expenses, NATMUS plans of changes to their museum building house the Futurliner, volunteers for each of the coming shows for 07 and 08, and other items.
8. KALAMAZOO SWAP MEET -- The annual Kalamazoo, Michigan antique car swap meet, that is held at the Kalamazoo Fair Ground buildings, is Saturday and Sunday; February 3 & 4, 2007. The Futurliner volunteers will be present representing the Futurliner. We will look forward to seeing you there. It is a jump start on the old car activities for 2007. If you have never been there take the time to drive to Kalamazoo. It is located just 3 hours from either Detroit, Chicago, or Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

In closing out 2006, it has been a wonderful year showing the Futurliner and meeting all of you folks that have supported us during the past years. Although we struggled with the restoration our volunteers never gave up, you kept giving us words of encouragement, and also donations to keep the project rolling. I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting all of you that have come to the shows when we were presenting the Futurliner. We hope to see more of you in 2007 as we again show the Futurliner. God has blessed this project. Now may He bless you this time of year at the celebration of Christ's birthday. May you and your family have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Don Mayton and all the volunteers.

NEW INFORMATION - FUTURLINERS IN 1940

COMMERCIAL CAR JOURNAL
    No matter what show we have attended we always get new information from those that come to see the Futurliner. We received from Robert L. Smith of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania two items of interest. The first item was a copy of an article written in March, 1941 from the "Commercial Car Journal". The article was titled "The Body of the Month". The article was referring to a car body and not a human body. Although much of the information we had already discovered there was some new information contained in this article. Quoting from a paragraph on the first page of the article; "The Technical Exhibits and Styling sections of the corporation have designed in the Futur-liners many unusual, if not unique, features for this "worlds fair on wheels." Radical in streamlining, each Futur-liner, from the front end resembles a Flying Fortress. And the cab interior is finished like the pilot's compartment of a swank private airliner." Then on the next page, and again quoting; "The airline interior of the driver's compartment is done entirely in royal blue Bedford cord, gray leather, chromium, and satin-finished aluminum, with heat-insulated floor, covered with gray linoleum. The compartment, with a curved-domed turret, is heated and ventilated by forced draft. Leather-covered crash pads encircle the compartment directly below the turret."
    Note the hyphen used in the word Futurliner in the above article. As we know GM removed the turret and changed the upholstery to a vinyl green and yellow when they updated the Futurliners in 1952.
    The article continues to describe the technical aspects of the Futurliners. The last portion of the article describes the engines and again I will quote the article; "Eleven of the Futur-liners are powered by GM 4-71 two-cycle diesel engines. These engines are four-cylinder units developing 110-hp at 2,000 r.p.m.. The other Futur-liner has a GM truck gasoline engine of 451 cubic in. piston displacement."
    The new information here is that one Futurliner in 1941 had a different engine than the other 11 Futurliners.

YELLOW TRUCK AND COACH DOCUMENT
    The second piece of information is from the Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing Company dateed June 1941. This document lists all the GMC vehicles built at Yellow Coach in the year 1940. This lists the 12 Futurliners that were built with the type of engine installed. Here is listed 10 Futurliners built with the 4-71 engine. Another Futurliner is listed under "Ethyl Gasoline Corp. Parade of Progress" and its listed engine is the 451 cubic engine as contained in the above article. The 12th Futurliner is listed as built with a 6-71 engine, which would be another two cycle diesel but with 6 cylinders.
    Now we know that as the 1940 original Futurliners were built they had three types of engines; 10 Futurliners had the diesel two cycle 4-71 engines, one had a gasoline 451 engine and one had a diesel two cycle 6-71 engine. Does anyone know what type of engine was the 451? Our other information indicates that all these engines and transmissions were changed in 1952 by General Motors to the 302 inline OHV 6 cylinder gasoline engine coupled to the military Hydramatic transmission.
    We thank Robert Smith for this latest date. We would also like to obtain an original Commercial Car Journal magazine dated March, 1941.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2006
    Wednesday, October 11, 2006 we had a mini work session to put the Futurliner in show condition for a local GM Plant show. The GM plant here in Grand Rapids, Michigan is celebrating their 70th anniversary on October 20, 2006. They have asked some of our local AACA club members to bring over their 1936 GM cars, the year the plant was opened for
production. This plant was built as a Fisher Body Metal Fabrication plant in 1936 producing the new turret roof that GM started putting on their vehicles. Although the division name has changed many times in those years the plant continues to stamp and assemble metal for GM cars and trucks.
    Cleanup was the number one job followed by some minor maintenance. Over the past two years we have what we thought were carburetor problems. At Dean's suggestion, Del removed the carburetor from our display engine which runs very well and took it to Hershey. At Hershey Del and Dean removed the Futurliner carburetor and installed the display engine carburetor. Driving the Futurliner from the Hershey field to the AACA museum we experienced the same problems. We concluded that the fuel pump was not delivering sufficient volume of fuel. On our work session Del changed the fuel pump and it appears we have now corrected the problem.

2006 SHOWS
Tentatively the Futurliner will be featured at the following shows for 2006:
Amelia Island, March
Iola, Wisconsin - July
Labor Day Parade in Auburn, Indiana - September
Glenmoor Gathering near Akron, Ohio - September
AACA Hershey, Pennsylvania - October
    Status reports for these shows were presented by each person in charge. More shows could be added as we move forward.
FUTURLINER DISPLAY
    Fred has been working at home and with a friend that has volunteered his services to construct the turn table. This person is a professional carpenter and has done an outstanding job on the turn table. Fred has pulled together most of the display items. He is assembling most of the items in his house. Ryan is also helping with the mechanism to turn the table. The first time that this display will be shown will probably be at the Iola show. It will be an outstanding addition to the Futurliner when it is at a show as it will recreate in miniature form some of the displays featured in the Futurliners of the 1950's. In addition we will have a larger TV screen to view a portion of our video; "MIRACLE AT BEAVERDAM".
DISPLAY TRAILER
    Our next newsletter will feature a few photos of our progress on the display trailer. In spite of the holidays Del and his crew have worked about 6 different full days with our electrician volunteers. Last Friday they fired up the system and managed to produce real electricity at the 240 volts running the Futurliner engine at the proper RPM. There is still a lot of work and today after our meeting his crew of Ron, Al S., and Al B. (photos) and Paul worked on more details. One of the big jobs was cleaning 1930-1940's vintage copper contacts on these old electrical controllers.
1957 BUICK
    Also some additional work was done on the 1957 Buick. Del replaced the broken window over the Holidays and it is almost ready to sell (sold). This car would make a neat 1950's California Patrol Car as it is a stick shift (rare for a Buick), four door special. We are starting to take offers.
MEDIA
    Douglas Keister will be releasing his latest book shortly; "MOBILE MANSIONS". Quoting the introduction to his book: "MOBILE MANSIONS takes you on a captivating exploration of homes on wheels -- everything from early diminutive camp cars to modern-day diesel-belching, lumbering leviathans complete with saunas, balconies, and gourmet kitchens." The book will have a page devoted to our restored Futurliner. The book itself without the Futurliner is worth the purchase. (Note: We do not get a royalty. It will be simply a great purchase to add to your library.)
    "Overdrive" December 2006 magazine on the front page is the picture taken from our poster of a Parade of Progress event. This magazine is the voice of the American Trucker. The acticle starts on page 27 and is called "Back to the Future" and shows and discusses a lot of past futuristic trucks. Then on page 31 through 33 it talks about the Parade of Progress, the Futurliners with interviews taken of some of our volunteers and Paraders when we were at the truck show this past summer. A great and accurate article.
    "Car Collector" January 2006 magazine issue has an article on the up and coming Barrett- Jackson auction. It has photos of the Futurliner that will be auctioned in January. THIS IS NOT OUR FUTURLINER. I keep getting e-mails asking that question.