var q 1957gmctruckserialnumbersThe Scenicruiser at Bluehounds and Redhounds The Scenicruiser and Previous Exclusive Coaches plus Related Pieces of the Historical Puzzle Dr. D. B. Doc Rushing  Copyright, 2. Duncan Bryant Rushing. To help you with decoding classic car serial numbers, those numbers prior to the modern VIN system, we wanted to feature some sample decoding. Before the VIN. The first FSeries truck known as the Ford BonusBuilt was introduced in 1948, replacing the companys previous carbased pickup line. It was a modernlooking truck. Contents Introduction Scenicruiser is the name and the registered trademark which The Greyhound Corporation applied to a specific type of highway coaches used in intercity service throughout the USA.   The first Scenicruiser entered the Greyhound fleet in 1. Greyhound about 1. The Scenicruiser was 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 4. The P means parlor a term, borrowed from the railway industry, which implies intercity, the D means diesel, the 4. PD 4. 50. 0 series which never grew beyond 4. The Scenicruiser was an exclusive design for Greyhound alone, although several other builders unsuccessfully imitated or emulated it for other customers.   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, many of them continued in service, for a host of schools, churches, individuals, tour and charter companies, and scheduled carriers.   Most have since become scrapped or otherwise destroyed, but about 2. About 5. 0 1. 00 appear to be in reasonably roadworthy condition. The first Scenicruiser from the production line, serial 0. P 5. 44. 6, assigned to the Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines GL, has become fully restored.   Now bearing the side number of 1. Greyhound Lines, Inc., the second GLI. Background In 1. 93. Yellow Truck and Coach T C Manufacturing Company, based in Pontiac, Michigan, a subsidiary not a division of the GM Corporation, began to supply coaches to Greyhound that is, to the regional operating subsidiaries of the 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 corporate entity. The first Yellow Coach YC delivered to Greyhound was the model Z 2. Z, using a 2. 50 inch wheelbase, sequential model 3. 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 Greyhound to Yellow. 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 1. Fageol brothers, Frank and William, were the principal innovators and pacesetters for the entire coach building industry in the US. The T C Company then designed and built a large number of Yellow Coaches of various models for Greyhound and a large number of 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 1. Next he renamed it as the C. H. Will Motors Corporation, then he started producing WMC and, later, Will chassis for coaches, mostly with Eckland bodies also built in Minneapolis, mostly for the Motor Transit Corporation the MTC, which in 1. The Greyhound Corporation, and for a few other carriers.   The MTC in 1. Will firm, then in 2. Yellow T C Manufacturing Company.   Yellow in 1. Will operation but turned over the facilities in Minneapolis to Carl as one result of a complex deal which had led to the development of the Yellow Coach organization 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 Tropicaire.   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 1. 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 for Greyhound. In 1. 93. 1 T C introduced its model 7. Yellow Coach, a full size 3. Other similar models, including trolley coaches, followed. Then in 1. 93. 3 T C introduced its model 7. Yellow, using the forward control or cab over engine Co. E concept, with the drivers 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 1. Co. E parlor buses and four medium 3. Co. E parlor buses. In 1. Yellow T C 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 1. Austin assigned to T C the rights to the use of his patent for his angle drive, a major engineering development, which allowed the transverse crosswise installation of the engine and 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 work 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 1. Camelback Victory liners 1. In 1. 93. 4 Yellow introduced the model 7. Austin angle drive a large number of other models followed until 1. GM ceased to build city transit and suburban coaches.   GM had already, in 1. Super Coach In 1. Greyhound and Yellow Coach, three hand built prototype samples emerged from the Engineering Department in Pontiac.   The first, known simply as model 7. August 3. 4.   The second, known as X 1, serial 0. February 3. 5 the third, X 2, serial 0. September 3. 5.   Each of them had 3. They had transversely mounted engines and transmissions, using Austin angle drives.   For the first time they provided enclosed luggage compartments below a raised floor, rather than an open baggage bin at the rear of the roof.   Only minor superficial differences. Serial 0. 01 survived as the selected version, and the X 1 and X 2 later became disassembled.   YC built also a fourth prototype, which was a second 7. On 1. 1 June 1. 93. Greyhound placed two of the prototypes, serials 0. Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois, in the operating company which was then known as the Central GL of Michigan the CGL of Michigan.   Previously 1. CGL of Michigan had been known as the Eastern GL of Michigan the EGL of Michigan in 1. CGL of Michigan became merged into the undenominated main Central GL in 1. Michigan routes of the Central GL became transferred to the Great Lakes GL which had begun in 1. Then Greyhound placed an order for a production run of 3. Super Coach, as did the 7.