Too short to be useful. What a shame was a pleasing to look at vehicle. Not as nice as L’Univeral from GM.
I had to look it up… Certainly looks more practically designed, but I don’t think it’s as clean or modern…
The Unitron almost has the same lines as the later GM Motorhomes. Maybe the GM spies took a liking to what they saw and adapted it to their build.
kinda reminds me of this custom corvair that was built 30 ish years ago by a guy about 5 miles from me... check out the center steering
That's bad-ass looking. I bet someone could build one for less than what those new outfitted Mercedes campers go for.
Just when you think there is nothing new to see. Way ahead of its time. Probably even now, way ahead of its time. Lol!
That may be true for 1960s thinking. But for 1955 it was advanced and GM almost had it production ready. All the engineering had been done all that was left to do is order the tooling.
I wish the quads were a little cleaner... Like '58 Lincoln headligh pods mounted vertically and frenched in just a tad... But who am I to argue? Thing is pretty cool.
Yes, Wayne bought it somewhere and did a restoration (well, it got repainted but I don't know how much mechanical work was done.) He ended up selling it to the Lane Motor Museum. https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/futura-waimea-1961/ Turns out he based his car on a concept drawing by Kaiser Aluminum: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/07/prototype-kaisers-that-never-made-it.html I didn't realize it had been originally built by a Minnesota man, I never saw it when it was here. Back to the Unitron - the one drawing of the pickup version from the rear does remind me of the production Econoline pickup, so maybe there was some influence on that van's design.
remember when the all GM show was held on the racetrack at the fairgrounds?, It was there several years in a row parked with the corvairs in the show probably early 90's? I remember the car sitting in an old factory building in Watertown, there was no business there at the time but that car was sitting in the front window, maybe late 90's then all of a sudden it was gone... It was really cool but some of the modifications were fairly crude and some of the parts seemed to not fit very well. But it sure looked like a car that could have been on the Jetsons....
there is a door on both sides. The drivers seat is a single bucket in the middle, plenty of room to get to it from either side. The corvair had a swivel seat in front to help with driver entry
I was thinking more about how to enter the Unitron I don’t see doors, the GM I see doors cool interior by the way Dan
With that much window space it would need 2 air conditioners running full tilt boogie on a sunny day.
Looks like the boys at Dodge got some general styling ideas for the Diora from the Unitron Ute. https://kustomrama.com/wiki/Dodge_Deora
I reeeeallllly like this and am surprised I haven't seen it before. Hard to see it as a camper rather than just a station wagon to sleep in the back of at the height it was, but even still, very cool wagon, Ranchero, panel.....I'd like one of each please.
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