YESTERDAY'S TOMORROW; GM's Firebird show cars fly through Hershey.(NEWS)

Byline: JOHN F. KATZ

We're waiting for the man from General Motors before we can unload, but truck driver Jerry Fulton has opened one of the side doors on his rig. In the shadows inside, we catch a glimpse of yesterday's future.

The future had fins back then, and the object inside looks more like a fighter jet than any sort of automobile.

GM restoration specialist Mike Erdodi (introduced to AW readers in "Ed's Garage, Sept. 15) arrives in a new GMC Envoy, and the future can emerge. All three of GM's experimental, turbine-powered Firebird show cars have touched down at the Antique Auto Museum at Hershey, Pa., for a brief exhibition timed to coincide with the Antique Automobile Club of America's Hershey Region Fall Meet in the second week of October.

In the early 1950s, GM's Allison Aircraft Engine Divi-sion in Indianapolis was one of the world's largest producers of gas turbines, and GM vice presi-dent for research Charles McCuen had been investigating turbine power for ground transportation since 1949. Harley Earl suggested a rolling showcase for the Research Lab's efforts, and in January 1954, at the Motorama at New York's Waldorf-Astoria, the public caught its first glimpse of the XP-21 Firebirda 370-hp, fiberglass-bodied, mid-engine single-seater looking very much like a jet with abbreviated wings.

The Firebird II of 1956 brought the turbine concept closer to family-car ...