#gmleanmachine

That Time Forgot: GM Lean Machine

When we think about GM concepts, what do you think of? We have the GM LeSabre, the GM UltraLite... GM Lean Machine... hang on, GM Lean Machine? If you’ve never heard of it, that’s okay, because today we’re going to talk about it, in today’s installment of That Time Forgot.

Imagine being in a packed highway with a massive traffic jam. You look around you and discover that most of the cars have only one occupant in them and are much bigger than they need to be, considering that they only have one occupant in them: the driver. You’re also wasting a bit of fuel as well while waiting in this jam. You want a car that consumes less fuel and is big enough to seat a driver.

Enter the GM Lean Machine. The solution to personal mobility thirty years before the competition, the vehicle was described as “it may be the first new road vehicle invented this century”. Developed by a man named Frank Winchell, the design process of the Lean Machine took about seven years, with work beginning after the gas shortage of the early 1970s.

Powered by a 185cc Honda 2-cylinder engine through a Peerless tractor differential producing 15 horsepower driving the rear wheels, the single-seat Lean Machine was able to tilt through the use of pedals. These pedals were located in a similar place as a car’s pedals were; these were attached to cables which wrapped around the spine of the rear chassis. Pushing one of the pedals unwraps the cable and rotates the cabin away from the pedal, leaning the body away from the direction of the pressed pedal. Additionally, a Y-shaped tube held a steering head of a fork with a vertical extension holding a spherical bearing rod end, which was bolted to the end of the spine of the rear chassis; the chassis was also connected to the spine via a sleeve bearing at the rear of the seat. Those two bearings work in tandem as well for the tilting action to occur. The engine was started through a pull-start cable accessed through a hatch in the mobile motor cover.

As you can see from the photo above, the Lean Machine was small. The vehicle had a wheelbase of just 71 inches (180 cm) and featured a front tire from a bike and rear tires from a boat trailer; Showa forks were used to support the front bike tire. Other specifications are detailed below. To stop the vehicle, the passenger pod was to be put back upright and held there with the legs and then a lever engaged to keep the body upright. The car was supposed to be a single-seat car, although a second tandem seat could be easily added.

A total of three Lean Machines were built. The car was first showcased in 1982, a few months after Winchell’s retirement from GM, although he did appear in multiple interviews talking about his creation. One of the Lean Machines ended up at the now-closed Epcot attraction World Of Motion; it could theoretically hit 200 mpg, which would be an impressive number... if it could actually run. This non-running prototype can be identified by its unique bullet-like appearance with a narrow Kamm tail and dual contoured protruding side pods covering the rear wheels. The Epcot Lean Machine had a drag coefficient of 0.15.

The Lean Machine got its big break in 1993 when it appeared in the film Demolition Man, alongside some seventeen other GM concept vehicles. One of the two Lean Machines was used in this film, where it was briefly driven by Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes).

The third Lean Machine was presumably stored away after development was done. A small scale orange model of the Lean Machine was also built, although this time it was engineered as a flying car, but... really?

Unsurprisingly the idea never took off (pun intended) and the cars were subsequently stored. The Lean Machine was apparently recently seen at the Petersen Automotive Museum’s recently finished exhibition titled Hollywood Dream Machines: Vehicles Of Science Fiction And Fantasy, however I have been unable to find any pictures of the Lean Machine at that exhibition. The car has since returned to the GM Heritage Center, where I believe all the Lean Machines currently are.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about the reason why you’re here: the history of the casting.

This casting was introduced in 1993 in the Demolition Man series, alongside eight other cars that appeared in the movie: these were the Oldsmobile Aurora, Olds 442 W-30, GM Ultralite, Corvette Stingray III, Pontiac Salsa, Pontiac Banshee, Buick Wildcat and the Chevrolet ACC Camaro (’93 Camaro), intended to represent the Chevrolet California IROC Camaro Concept. The designer of this casting is not known with any certainty, although I suspect it was done by Larry Wood.

This casting has a metal base and body, giving it some substantial weight. It has a rather interesting two-piece body, where the “top portion” of the body is riveted onto the bottom portion with the fenders.

Early versions will say "WARNER ‘93” instead of “MATTEL INC 1993”; I presume the license with Warner Bros. had expired, so they just scrubbed off the Warner licensing information and put their own on.

The canopy of this casting can be removed to reveal a metal seat, as well as the two-piece construction. This canopy was often made of opaque black plastic and could not be seen through, but certain versions had see-through canopies.

The Alien enjoyed the privilege of being released quite often when it was in the lineup, but ultimately this casting was doomed in 2003 for one reason, and one reason only: the Final Run Series. For four years, this casting had not been seen, and then it was thrown into the Final Run series.

The Final Run Series started in 1999 and acted as what I would consider a very glorified funeral for a casting; Hot Wheels would give these cars special tires and paint, in exchange for vowing to never produce them again by cutting their toolings in half. The Lean Machine was unfortunately one of the castings to fall victim to the Final Run Series, and although it might not have been one of the more popular castings to retire that year, it was still retired regardless. As the fourth batch of cars to be Final Run, having been introduced in the 2003 series, the Alien will never be seen again in the Hot Wheels lineup unless a new tool and die is created for it, which I believe is highly unlikely. The Final Run Series itself has been on hiatus since 2006. In total, the Lean Machine had fifteen releases.

Always on the receiving end of very loud decals due to the large amount of space on the sides of the car, perfect for tampos, the Lean Machine will be dearly missed (by me, at least) in the Hot Wheels lineup, and I wouldn’t mind seeing a modern recreation of the Lean Machine return to the Hot Wheels lineup as a premium piece.

I hope this post has given you a better idea on the history of “probably the first new vehicle of the 21st century”, and the history of its small Hot Wheels counterpart. As usual, I’d write something like this any day.