IT was the dawn of a new era: space travel was becoming a possibility and jet-age automotive styling was all the rage.
That’s when Chrysler engineers began to explore turbine power as an alternative to piston engines and after some 30 years the iconic 1963 Chrysler Turbine was unveiled.
Beginning in 1953 and continuing into the early 1980s, Chrysler was relentless in its pursuit of a turbine-powered car that was both fuel-efficient and on-budget.
It fell short, but lessons were learned and legends were made and the Ghia-bodied Turbine became the public face of the program.
Chrysler’s connection to turbine power began during World War II, when its engineers worked to create a turboprop engine for the US military.
In 1953, eight years after the war ended, Chrysler turned its attention to developing the gas turbine engine for cars.
Soundtrack aside, a turbine offers many advantages:
- relative simplicity
- it has about half the parts of a piston engine
- hence there’s less wear
- exceptional power-to-weight ratio
- less vibration
- near-silent operation
Plus, it can run on basically any combustible liquid, including kerosene, peanut oil, even tequila — but not leaded fuel, as it leaves mineral deposits on the components.
There were a few negatives, such as a lack of engine braking, high fuel consumption, high heat, and acceleration lag.
Chrysler built 55 Turbine cars for 1963, and today only nine remain and one of them, still in top running condition, recently sold at auction in the US.
The sale price was not revealed, but it was somewhere into seven figures — the money well spent.
“It’s the ultimate dream car for a museum or an event or an individual, because it made such a dramatic impact on automotive history,” Dave Kinney, publisher of the Hagerty Price Guide said.
“There’s no such thing as paying too much for something if it’s the object of your desire and, in terms of investment, it will continue to grow in value, much like rare metals.”
Chrysler’s first turbine-powered car was a 1954 Plymouth, followed by a turbine ’56 Plymouth that successfully completed a 3020-mile cross-country road test.
That experience fuelled a new generation of turbine engine that was more powerful, compact, and efficient than ever before.
Still, most people didn’t notice Chrysler’s efforts until 1963, when the company rolled out its most recognisable version.
Styling was done in-house, overseen by the new design chief Elwood Engel, but Chrysler contracted with Ghia in Turin, Italy, to build the bodies.
Shipped to Michigan and mated to a bespoke chassis, 55 Chrysler Turbines were built.
The first five “prototypes” varied in colour and trim, but a fleet of 50 followed, all in identical metallic bronze paint, black vinyl roof, and bronze interior.
To gauge feasibility and generate publicity, Chrysler loaned 50 to private individuals around the country, and from 1963–66 a total of 203 people drove a Turbine car for three months and evaluated its performance.
While the results were promising, the cost of building the cars was not.
“A mid-range vehicle in the 1960s cost about $3000, and the turbine engine alone cost $10,000 or more to manufacture,” Brandt Rosenbusch, manager of historical services for Stellantis North America said.
“It just made no sense. To ramp up an entire plant to build 100,000 a year wasn’t realistic.”
When the loan program ended, the cars were returned to Chrysler, which kept three.
Six more were deactivated and given to museums, delivered with a crated turbine engine and transmission for display.
The rest were sent to a Detroit scrapyard and destroyed.
Rosenbusch, who also manages Chrysler’s corporate archives and its collection of 365 historic vehicles, said that although it was difficult to watch the Turbine cars being destroyed, the reasoning behind the decision was understandable.
“Like every other car company, Chrysler didn’t want prototypes out on the road,” he said.
“They were famous cars; they had their life. We didn’t want them to end up on a used car lot or have somebody pull out the turbine engine and put a 318 in one or a Hemi in one — and people would.
“So, while it’s a horrific video for anyone who cares about automotive history, the process was definitely justified.”
Chrysler still owns two of the Turbines; the third was sold to Jay Leno after the Walter P. Chrysler Museum closed about a decade ago.
The other six were given to the Detroit Historical Museum, The Smithsonian Institution, The Henry Ford, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles (now the Petersen Automotive Museum), the Museum of Transportation near St. Louis, and the Harrah Collection Museum in Reno, Nevada.
At the time, Bill Harrah owned one of the world’s largest automotive collections, but following his death in 1978, most of his 1450 vehicles were auctioned off.
That included 1963 Chrysler Turbine chassis #99123, the car recently sold.
The turbine makes a modest 130 hp (96kW) and 425 lb-ft (576Nm) of torque, idles at 18,000–22,000 rpm, and has a comfortable cruising speed of about 70 mph (115km/h).
It remains one of a handful of operational ’63 Turbines.
Beautifully well-preserved in its original condition, chassis #99123 wears its original tyres and colour-keyed wheel covers.
Styling features include three large dash gauges, a stylish centre console with unique controls and levers, tail lights that look like jet burners, and a horizontal twin exhaust.
“We went through seven different generations of the turbine engine,” Rosenbusch said.
“Most people think the classic Ghia-bodied turbine cars were the only ones we ever produced, but we also put turbine engines in cabover trucks and pickup trucks and Aspens and Volares.
“There was a constant running turbine car all those years.
“At the end we worked with the Department of Energy, mostly for funding, but we just never met those set goals.”
The last two cars in the program were a 1978 Chrysler LeBaron and an ’81 Dodge Mirada, both of which the government held onto after the program ended.
In the early 1990s, longtime Chrysler turbine mechanic George Stecher spent the final two years of his career looking for those cars.
“We owe a lot to George. He eventually found them sitting in a parking lot of a nuclear power plant in Ohio,” Rosenbusch said.
“So we picked them up and now they’re in our collection.”
“The M1 Abrams tank runs on a turbine engine, but it has the backing of the entire US Army, which is the kind of massive support you need.
“I think the alternative power sources and alternative-fuel vehicles that companies are turning to now, I think that’s the future.
“We spent 30 years working on turbine engines, but we never cleared the hurdles that we needed to clear in order to make it relevant going forward. I think it’ll probably stay right where it is.”
CHECKOUT: How Graham-Paige became Madison Square Garden
CHECKOUT: Pioneer racer Queen of the Steering Wheel