What is the real story?

One morning I witnessed a student being dropped off at the front gate at my high school by some guy driving a Chrysler Turbine car. I couldn’t believe it. The sound it made! A year or so later I saw another one, parked by the side of the road at a beach city in Southern California. The future had arrived.

I don’t have any of the back story for the car, other than what I’ve found online, but I’m sure there are readers of Dean’s Garage who were there and could supply the details. How the car came to be? How was the decision made to put a number of them in the hands of the public as a test and a PR stunt? Did Elwood Engel design the car, and was he indeed influenced by the La Galaxie, a Ford concept car? It does seem to have a passing resemblance to Fords of the era.

In this post there are a number of images of the car including scans from a brochure, photos of Jay Leno’s Chrysler Turbine Car, and descriptions of the car found online.

The 1963 Chrysler Turbine Car

The Chrysler turbine car was the largest gas turbine passenger car test program. 55 cars were distributed to 203 volunteers in 48 states free of charge for 3 months between 1963-1966. Designed by Elwood Engel and engineered by George Huebner the cars were hand built by Ghia in Italy.

The CR2A turbine engine produced 130 BHP @ 3,600 RPM to the output shaft and a torque rating of 425 lb-ft. Although Chrysler recommended using diesel or non leaded gasoline. The engine could run on just about any free flowing liquid that burns when combined with air. Mexican tequila and Chanel #5 perfume were some of odd fuels people poured into the tank of these cars. The transmission used was a modified TorqueFlite 3-speed automatic.

Test results were mixed. Volunteers liked the vibration free and quiet operation of the turbine engine. They also liked the low maintenance, ease of starting, and fast warm up of the turbine even in the coldest weather. Poor fuel economy was a minor complaint because the cars run on lower cost fuel. Mileage was 13-14 miles per gallon. The biggest complaint about the car was poor acceleration. 0-60 miles per hour was achieved at a slow 12 seconds. However, if the car was “brake torqued” by holding the brakes and revving the turbine up to 50,000 rpm the 0-60 time was cut to 5 seconds.

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Jay Leno’s Chrysler Turbine Car. There are many interesting detail photos of the car in this gallery.

Design

The bodies and interiors were crafted by Ghia in Italy. Outsourcing this step saved money for Chrysler. A total of 50 “production” Turbine Cars were built between October 1963 and October 1964, plus five prototypes (three of which differed in roof/paint schemes). As each body was finished and shipped to Detroit, Chrysler employees installed gas turbine engines, transmissions, and electrical components to prepare the cars for use by the 203 motorists—20 of them women—who were chosen to test them.

There does seem to be a resemblance with Ford’s 1958 La Galaxie.

The Turbine Car was a two-door hardtop coupe with four individual bucket seats, power steering, power brakes, and power windows. Its most prominent design features were two large horizontal taillights and nozzles (back-up lights) mounted inside a very heavy chrome sculptured bumper. Up front, the single headlamps were mounted in chrome nacelles with a turbine styling theme, creating a striking appearance. This theme was carried through to the center console and the hubcaps. Even the tires were specially made with small turbine vanes molded into the white sidewalls. It was finished in reddish-brown “Frostfire Metallic” paint, later renamed “Turbine Bronze” and made available on production automobiles. The roof was covered in black vinyl, and the interior featured bronze-colored “English calfskin” leather upholstery with plush-cut pile bronze-colored carpet.

The instrument panel was lighted with electroluminescent panels in the gauge pods and on a call-out strip across the dash. This system did not use bulbs; instead, an inverter and transformer raised the battery voltage to over 100 volts AC and passed that high voltage through special plastic layers, causing the gauges to glow with a blue-green light.

The car itself was designed in the Chrysler studios under the direction of Elwood Engel, who had worked for the Ford Motor Company before his move to Chrysler. The designer credited with the actual look of the car was Charles Mashigan, who designed a two-seat show car called the Typhoon, which was displayed at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City. Engel used many older Ford styling themes. The rear taillight/bumper assembly was copied directly (with revisions) from a 1958 Ford styling study called the “La Galaxie.” He used none of the themes associated with his 1964 Imperial. As Engel incorporated many of the design themes in the Turbine Car, that were used in the new for 1961 Thunderbird, many enthusiasts call this car the “Englebird.”

Suspension did not follow Chrysler’s ubiquitous torsion bar system, but rather featured contemporary designs using independent front suspension with a coil spring at each wheel. Rear suspension consisted of leaf springs and direct-acting shock absorbers.

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Chrysler Turbine Car Brochure. Download a copy in Acrobat format.

Engine

The fourth-generation Chrysler turbine engine ran at up to 44,500 Revolutions per minute (rpm), according to the owner’s manual, and could use diesel fuel, unleaded gasoline, kerosene, JP-4 jet fuel, and even vegetable oil. The engine would run on virtually anything and the president of Mexico tested this theory by running one of the first cars—successfully—on tequila. Air/fuel adjustments were required to switch from one to another, and the only evidence of what fuel was being used was the odor of the exhaust.

The engine had a fifth as many moving parts as a piston unit (60 rather than 300). The turbine was spinning on simple sleeve bearings for vibration-free running. Its simplicity offered the potential for long life, and because no combustion contaminants enter engine oil, no oil changes were considered necessary. The 1963 Turbine’s engine generated 130 brake horsepower (97 kW) and an instant 425 pound-feet (576 N·m) of torque at stall speed, making it good for 0-60 mph in 12 seconds at an ambient temperature of 85 °F (29 °C)—it would sprint quicker if the air was cooler and denser.

Chrysler Turbine Car engine

The absence of a distributor and points, the solitary start-up spark plug and the lack of coolant eased maintenance, while the exhaust did not contain carbon monoxide (CO), unburned carbon, or raw hydrocarbons. Nevertheless, the turbine generated nitrogen oxides (NO) and the challenge of limiting them helped to kill the program.

Its power turbine was connected, without a torque converter, through a gear reduction unit to an otherwise ordinary TorqueFlite automatic transmission. The flow of the combustion gases between the gas generator and free power turbine provided the same functionality as a torque converter but without using a conventional liquid medium. Twin rotating recuperators transferred exhaust heat to the inlet air, greatly improving fuel economy. Varying stator blades prevented excessive top end speeds, and provided engine braking on deceleration. Throttle lag, high fuel consumption—17 miles per US gallon (14 L/100 km; 20 mpg-imp)—and exhaust gas temperatures at idle plagued early models. Chrysler was able to remedy or mitigate most of these drawbacks and deficiencies. The Turbine Car also featured a fully stainless steel exhaust system, the exits of which were flat in cross section. This was intended to spread the exhaust gases thinly and thus cool them further, so that the vehicle could stand in traffic without risking damage to following traffic. The combustor, or burner, was somewhat primitive by the standards of modern turbojet engines. A single reverse-flow canister featuring a more-or-less standard spark plug for ignition was employed. Had the engine been further developed, annular combustion chambers along with a second power turbine might have improved power and economy even more.

The turbine car had some operational drawbacks. The car sounded like a giant vacuum cleaner, which was not satisfying to consumers who were more comfortable with the sound of a large American V8. High altitudes also caused problems for the combined starter-generator. Failing to follow the correct start-up procedure would cause the engine to stall; some consumers thought they could “warm” the engine up similar to the way they did with a gasoline engine. They would press the accelerator pedal to the floor before the engine had reached proper temperature. Instead of warming the engine, the excess fuel slowed the turbine down and resulted in the opposite of the desired effect. Doing this, however, did not do any permanent damage to the engine. In fact, it was possible to apply full throttle immediately after starting the engine without much fear of excessive wear. The engines were remarkably durable considering how fragile turbine engines are when compared to internal combustion piston engines. Troubles were remarkably few for such a bold experiment. More than 1.1 million test miles were accumulated by the 50 cars given to the public, and operational downtime stood at only 4%.

Legacy

After Chrysler finished the user program and other public displays of the cars, 46 of them were destroyed. The story at the time that this was done to avoid an import tariff was incorrect. The destruction of the cars was merely keeping in line with the automobile industry’s practice of not selling non-production or prototype cars to the public. This same issue arose later with the General Motors EV-1.

Of the remaining nine cars, six had the engines de-activated and then they were donated to museums around the country. Chrysler retained three operational turbine cars for historical reasons; two of the three are now owned by the “WPC Museum.” All of the turbine cars owned by the WPC Museum are in running condition at the archives of the museum. The last turbine car that is functional, owned by the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, was photographed for Mopar Action magazine, and appears at car shows around the United States from time to time. As of May 2010, one of the Turbine cars was on display at the The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan as part of the Showroom of Automotive History display.

Only two Chrysler Turbine Cars are in the hands of private collectors: One was purchased by private automobile collector Frank Kleptz of Terre Haute, Indiana and is functional. Kleptz’s Turbine Car was originally donated to the former Harrah museum in Nevada. The second one is owned by comedian and television host Jay Leno, who purchased one of the three Chrysler Turbine Cars which had been originally retained by Chrysler.

Chrysler’s turbine engine program did not die completely. A new coupe body would appear, re-engineered and rebadged, as the 1966 Dodge Charger. Chrysler went on to develop a sixth generation gas-turbine engine which did meet nitrogen oxide regulations, and installed it in a 1966 Dodge Coronet, though it was never shown. A smaller, lighter seventh generation engine was produced in the early 1970s, when company received a grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for further development, and a special bodied turbine Chrysler LeBaron was built in 1977 as a prelude to a production run (photos of the Chrysler LeBaron Turbine car are featured in the Bob Marcks post).

Bob Marcks’ caption: Here’s the Turbine Car as it turned out. It started life as the Chrysler LeBaron. I changed the whole front end, and refined some of the other elements in the rear quarter and back. The grille texture and “waterfall” was similar to the ’76 Imperial, to keep a Chrysler look. I didn’t know if there was a “right’ shape for a turbine engine grille, but I figured it ought to be different so I made it narrow. I like the center photo because it shows off the execution to best advantage. I supervised it “off-site” with non-union help on the modeling, so I could get involved myself. Unknown to me, the car was selected to be inspiration for the 1980 Imperial (If they liked it so much, how come I wasn’t invited to participate??). I thought the ’80 could have been a lot better, a little crown in the surfaces would have helped for openers.

I was a staff designer with Raymond Loewy in 1953-54, and then my own firm produced the color and trim changes for the 1966 Studebaker and the 1967 prototype.

Our 1967 Studebaker prototype proposal is in front of the Marcks, Hazelqist, and Powers office in Dearborn, Michigan, along with drawings for future ’70 proposals. Marcks, Hazelqist, and Powers had a 1967 Studebaker prototype designed, and close to production. The last production car came off the line in March 1966, which was about the time this photo was taken. The Studebakers were necessarily tame because they were to be, at best, major facelifts of a pedestrian body of the period.

Studebaker never built a sedan which was based on the beautiful 1953 coupe. I was a designer there then and since then I have thought that they should have built such a sedan.  Here is my scale line drawing of Starliner based sedan. This drawing was sent to Brazil along with several others which were developed into a 1/15th scale model.

When I had my own firm we designed (sadly) the last (1966) Studebaker, but were working on future possible Studebakers. In this case we were trying to work with an existing platform which included the windshield and doors, etc. That was a problem.

We actually created a more restrained version (we didn’t modify the roof) of this Lincoln with the filigree work  as our company car. In Los Angeles it really did get favorable attention and envy from all the auto exhibitionists and even the hippies gave it a thumbs up. If anyone asked we told the the trim was silver from Tasco, Mexico. That illustration is in color and beautiful, by one of the staff guys.

I was a designer for Ford in 1953, and 1956-1961. Here are two of my Ford proposals, one is of a series for the 1964 Ford ’64 Galaxie, which I also designed. Another of my sketches provided the major inspiration for the ’64 T-Bird. The two Ford drawings I’m proud of because they were part of a series that became the ’64 Ford Galaxie, two years after I left Ford. You can see the beginnings of the rear quarter in one of the drawings. Regrettably, I don’t have the final Galaxie drawing.

Ford leaked this photo of a Thunderbird rendering to a magazine as a preview teaser (from fall 1963 Motorcade) for the ’64 T-Bird. As I recall, it was originally as a metallic red.  I had left Ford in 1961 so it was very unusual for them to use a design that was from someone who had left. Ford had a total staff of 1,000 in the styling building, this just for designers, modelers, support, and a skeleton crew of engineers. The engineering department itself was somewhere else.

This is an Imperial proposal I did later when I was employed by Chrysler.

Here’s the Turbine Car as it turned out. It started life as the Chrysler LeBaron. I changed the whole front end, and refined some of the other elements in the rear quarter and back. The grille texture and  “waterfall”  was similar to the ’76 Imperial, to keep a Chrysler look. I didn’t know if there was a “right’ shape for a turbine engine grille, but I figured it ought to be different so I made it narrow. I like  the center photo because it shows off the execution to best advantage. I supervised it “off-site” with non-union help on the modeling, so I could get involved myself. Unknown to me, the car was selected to be inspiration for the 1980 Imperial (If they liked it so much, how come I wasn’t invited to participate??). I thought the ’80 could have been a lot better, a little crown in the surfaces would have helped for openers.

1977 Turbine Car sketch and photo of it when it was being designed in clay.

The ad campaign for the Chrysler Cordoba, with Ricardo Montalban’s praise for its “fine Corinthian leather,” contributed greatly to its success (the company worried that the car was too small to be a Chrysler!) and it has been called “one of the five best automotive campaigns of all time.” At the time, in 1977, I was a Chrysler designer who had recently moved to Chrysler from California, where I had lived on the beach, at Sunset Boulevard and PCH-1 (Pacific Coast Highway One). So I was familiar with what the affluent residents of Malibu and Beverly Hills drove. With that in mind, I customized a Cordoba for Ricardo Montalban with the objective of making it a car he could really drive with pride in that elite environment.

I studied the classics of the ’30s and ’40s. I settled on an Art Deco-style black and silver motif, that is carried throughout. Gold accents turn up in the pin-striping, hood ornament and tire stripe. I designed custom seats that were trimmed in extremely soft Silver (belly) leather. The carpet is black mouton. The fake woodgrain trim was replaced with silver leather and brushed silver inserts on the instrument panel. I added a Maserati air horn—the “right” sound for Sunset and Wilshire Boulevard traffic. It had a remote starter that died early on. It has wire wheels and Vogue tires, found on classic cars of long ago, and half the Eldorados in Beverly Hills. After appearing at the Detroit and Chicago Auto Shows, it was sent to Ricardo Montalban for his use.

Shortly thereafter, I received a four page hand written letter from Ricardo in which he said, “My reaction to the prototype Cordoba is…I’m in love with it!  It is, without a doubt, the handsomest car I’ve ever had. All my friends, parking boys, gas attendants, express their admiration. It is truly unique.” And the letter winds up with, “I congratulate you on the marvelous job you did on the car and please consider me your devoted fan (a little role reversal there!).”

It was his until the Cordoba model change two years later. At that point I acquired it for just $5,000, as my personalized dream car. It is now in the Chrysler museum in Auburn Hills, Michigan.