Greyhound Scenicruiser: Maybe the coolest 'Streets vehicle I have

I saw a bus for sale with New Orleans in the destination window. I did not buy it. I have been looking for one ever since. If anybody finds one please tell me!!!

Lee super job.. GO GREYHOUND AND LEAVING THE DRIVING TO US!!!

That is truly amazing Lee. You are taking Super Streets to an all new level. I can see future layouts of Super Streets only, based on your innovations. Really impressive!

Emile

I was a member of Motor Bus Society for over 30 years and my Scenicruiser glasses are not so rose colored.

 

I’m not so sure Greyhound was so thrilled with the Scenicruiser once they got it on the road. Since WWII or earlier Greyhound had a desire to have a marquee 40 foot, 96 inch wide coach. A 40 foot coach was only legal in some states. The existing Silversides were 33 or 35 feet long and the newer PD-4104s were 35 feet long.  GX-2, the second of two test buses set out touring to state capitals lobbying for dropping restrictions against 40 foot highway buses.

 

Production began in the spring of 1954 with an order to General Motors for 500 buses.  Engineering and start-up costs were so high Greyhound had to place another order for 500 buses to hold the unit price down. The 40 foot long, 96 inch wide Scenicruiser had two 4V-71 diesel engines in a complicated arrangement that resulted in high maintenance costs and mechanical difficulties.   I remember limping along from Niagara Falls to Buffalo at about 20 mph after failure on a late 50s family vacation and seeing drivers having difficulty starting in terminals.  After only seven years, Greyhound decided to re-power the whole fleet of then 979 buses with 8V-71 Detroit Diesel engines coupled to Spicer four-speed transmissions at a cost of $10 million plus $3 million in body work. GM declined to participate in the engine work and Greyhound contracted it out to Marmon Herrington.

 

The Scenicruiser was a symbol of Greyhound and bus travel in general for many years. The Scenicruiser was the first parlor coach to offer air conditioning and lavatories as standard equipment. At that time air suspension was a recent innovation, but not a Scenicruiser innovation.

 

But in this case getting there wasn’t half the fun for Greyhound.

 

A restored 1954 Greyhound Scenicruiser which has many details close to what I remember.

 

For more detail here are a couple of articles:

 

Motor Coach Age's May 1974 Scenicruiser history.

 

Greyhound Buses Through the Years Part II

 

Thanks for that info Bill. Good info. Your first link gets a 404 error BTW

Lee,  Absolutely Stunning!

Thanks for the heads up. It worked before and now the site says down for maintenance. I'll check later before I delete the link.

Nice conversion Lee. I wonder on the real one if the passengers behind the bathroom smelled the chemicals ad they do now if you sit across in today's busses.

Nice to see this thread brought back.  the Scenicruiser is still among my two or three favorites.  I run it most every day.  It just looks soooooooo good on my country road.

 

And Bill Robb, I completely agree, I don't think GM felt the Scenicruiser represented its work in the best way except as to styling - that was superb.  But they had structural problems, I hear, and nothing particularly special about the driver trains other than more [everything costly] than usual.  Still, I love mine.  

 

thanks for all the great comments.  

 

BTW - my second 'Streets book is making progress - in the middle of line editing now, and should be available in a month of so.  The Scenicruiser is one of the projects I go over in detail - how I made it, step by step.