Jet Cars Part 2: Chrysler Turbine Car

Adolfo Lopez Mateos ran his Chrysler Turbine Car (a loaner; they all were) on tequila for awhile. He did this because:

1.)  Chrysler had claimed the turbine would run happily on it, as well as peanut oil, vegetable oil, jet fuel, or even Chanel No. 5.  

2.)  As President of Mexico, he could afford to run his car on tequila.  Chanel No. 5 would have been affordable, but possibly a little showy…

You didn't need to be a president to get your hands on one of Chrysler's 50 loaners, however. During the heady days of their public test program (1963-66) Chrysler asked licensed drivers to send in letters describing their driving patterns, and why they would like to try the new turbine. Chrysler, which had been building and testing turbines since 1954, built 5 prototypes of the new Turbine Car prior to commissioning Italian coach builder Ghia* to build 50 bodies for the "production" version in 1963-64. Chrysler then chose 203 American motorists (23 were women), and gave each of them a new Turbine Car for 3 months. The public test program (we'd call it crowd-sourced research today) logged 1.1 million miles, with only 4% of the test logs reporting any mechanical repairs, a low number for such a new machine.  It is not recorded how many problems may have been caused by the one fuel Chrysler engineers advised against using: gasoline, all of which was leaded then. 

Elwood Engel had come over from Ford (see "When the Sixties Really Began" in these pages for Nov. 15, 2015) just in time to design the new '64 Imperial and work on the Turbine Car.  He delivered a design which reflected his experience at Ford, something we could call conservatively futuristic. There are shades of the '61-'63 Thunderbird in the windshield and roof line, in the chrome outlining the unbroken top fender line from front to rear, and also in the format of the car…it's a four-seater sports coupe of about the same size. The big circular headlight housings have decorative grilles evoking turbine blades, while at the rear what look like jet exhausts are really just the backup lights.  The theme is repeated in the leather-lined interior, with more circles and blade motifs to remind you of the smooth, busy turbine in front, which would spin happily up to 44,500 rpm.  Power was transmitted through a Torqueflite automatic transmission to the rear wheels; what looks like a Buck Rogers housing for the drive shaft is just a poetic evocation of it; the console mounts the shifter and auxiliary controls close to the driver's right hand, and divides the back seats as well. You couldn't buy a Chrysler Turbine Car (though many would-be buyers sent in blank checks which Chrysler returned), but if you were lucky Chrysler would lend you one in any color you liked, as long as that color was Turbine Bronze.  In Part 3, we'll see how the Turbine Cars worked, what we learned from them, and what happened to the jet car in yesterday's future.

*Ghia also built the Imperial limousines from 1957-66 and is featured on our posts for March 14, 2016 (the Chrysler-powered Ghia 450SS) and August 29, 2015 (the Dodge Fire Arrow and the Dual Ghia).

Photo credits:

Chrysler Turbine Car #27 exteriors:  wikimedia

Turbine Car interior:  carstyling.ru