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O/T 44,500 RPM Chrylser

3

37chief

Well-known Member
Location
California
Reading a article in the barber shop today, about chrysler's attempt to build a car to run with a turbine motor. In the early 60's Chrylser built 55 of the cars. The article went on to say the ones that didn't blow up were real smooth driving. They fixed that problem, but destroyed all but a few. realizing they just didn't want to spend more money. Anyone ever seen one, or even heard of one? Stan
 
Years ago I pulled up to a stop light in Edina a suburb of Minneapolis. It was summer and I had the windows down and a car pulled up next to me.I thought----gee that car sounds funny! I let him go ahead of me when the light turned green and discovered it was on of the turbine cars that Chrysler had built as an experiment.
 
Yes; one was in Moorhead, MN or Fargo, ND for 6 months and we had it in the Moorhead State University auto shop for a day to look over. Very interesting. I think it was 1965.
 
There was a lot of hoop a laa about turbines in the late 50's. IH has that one in the museum with the hydrostatic drive on each axle. Chrysler gave up for several reasons. Fuel consumption and emissions among those reasons.
 
(quoted from post at 22:01:13 02/04/14) Reading a article in the barber shop today, about chrysler's attempt to build a car to run with a turbine motor. In the early 60's Chrylser built 55 of the cars. The article went on to say the ones that didn't blow up were real smooth driving. They fixed that problem, but destroyed all but a few. realizing they just didn't want to spend more money. Anyone ever seen one, or even heard of one? Stan
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I missed the Chrysler car, but how about the IH and Ford experimental turbine TRACTORS, or the GMC turbine semi?

http://www.marvinbaumann.com/turbinetractors.html

http://www.overdriveretro.com/the-bison-back-to-the-drawing-board/

http://www.examiner.com/article/a-look-back-at-ford-s-big-red-turbine-powered-concept-truck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q97nIPVjXNg
 
I seen one 25 years ago at Harra's car museum in Reno Nevada, they have since sold off the collection, it was a neat car, but it said on the sign on it they had trouble with it melting the asphalt when sitting at lights, but the acceleration was incredible!! the words on the sign not mine
 
Ford also tested a Turbine tractor . There was one in the Smithsonian Museum when I was there last in 1968. They also built several semi tractors with turbine engines and actually were using them to deliver parts as part of the test.

With the tractor we were told that the exhaust gasses were too hot to use in field with growing crops like if you were putting up hay or cultivating corn. I don't know why the semi failed as those test were conducted before there were emission standards on heavy trucks.

http://www.agriculture.com/machinery/tractors/antique-tractor/a-jetpowered-tract_201-ar26626





http://www.examiner.com/article/a-look-back-at-ford-s-big-red-turbine-powered-concept-truck

Rick
 
Girl that grew up on a farm about 5 mile from me and her husband was one of the test families for those cars. Did not know her but baled hay at the home place for her brother.
 
I saw one on Rt37 going north through Mound City, Illinois one afternoon when I was in the 8th grade around 1964. It was a light root beer color and at first I thought it was a Thunderbird. It was like seeing a meteor or making a hole in one and no one was around to witness it with you. We had just moved up there from Georgia and I was riding my bike around town exploring when I saw it.
 
In the 11950s Rover Car company (UK) built a gas turbine for one of their cars. It was a single wheel turbine. The engine later got put in to a couple of light aircraft.
 
I think one of the biggest cost factors was the fact that the bodies were built by Ghia in Italy. There were 55 built, 9 remain. Production cost per car approximately $50,000 each. That would be over $350,000 each today. And you thought electric cars were expensive! I thought the body style looked great!
 
I rode in one in Dallas in 1964. Dealer had one on tour. Dad knew the service manager. So we got a ride one day. Ride was good but it had the whine of a jet.Best I recall. They had a problem with melting the road and any ting close behind them
 
One used to show up at the Mopar Nationals back in the '80s. Looked it over a few times. The engine was real small, but made a lot of power. The idle speed was real high, so it burned a lot of fuel all the time. There is a turbine IH on loan from the Smithsonian at the I&I showgrounds in Penfield, IL. It was way overpowered for it's size, and bad on fuel.
 
Chrysler started experiminting with turbines in the 50's
finally started to get them perfected in the early 60's
in 64 they made a movie called the lively set
chrysler was hoping that this movie was going to intoduce the car to the public
but for some reason chrysler pulled the turbine funding rite about the time the movie came out
 
I think that you might mean this guy. I remember reading about it. It resembled an early Dodge Dart. Personally, I"d have preferred the 426 Hemi option. Much, much, much faster than the turbine Dart. Much faster.
a144157.jpg

Article Chrysler Turbin Car
 
Mopar Action Magazine had a nice article a couple months back, most of the cars were scraped after the testing was done. They were scraped to save import car taxes,yes they saved a few. Seems it was more about getting their name out and selling the cars they built, than ever bring a turbine to the market.
 
When I went to Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford for training in 1980, they showed us a video of a Corvette with a PT6 on a track that was fast! In 2008 I went to a meeting in Lafayette, LA, and saw a Chevy S-10 driving in town that had an Allison C-20 (very common turbine in the Bell 206B helicopters). I think that is the same engine that a company in Lake Charles, LA puts in the bikes like Leno has. Once the engine components cycle or time out, they are basically scrap for aircraft and so are pretty cheap. If they aren't destroyed to prevent further aircraft use.
 

My recollection is that the turbinge cars didn't have great accelleration but had good speed. They got poor fuel economy but Chrysler said since the fuel they used was cheap it all evened out. Wouldn't be true today. However, I think they could use more than one type of fuel.

The turbine car they raced at Indy, as I recall, had good speed but the powers that be didn't want to have it compete with the regular engines. At that time, the Indy cars ran a 4 cylinder DOHC Offenhauser(sp) furl injection engine. Progress occurs, and now we have DOHC 4 cylinder fuel injected street cars and trucks.

KEH
 
I was a kid on vacation with my family at [Maybe] Provincetown RI. around 1967 and there was on parked on the street. Since then I have only seen pictures and a show called something like; 100 cars you must drive had a test ride in one. I read somewhere the problem was too much heat for an engine compartment but other than that they were pretty advanced for what we had and still are.
 
Yup, saw one at the 1961 Worlds Fair in NY City. Very futuristic looking car. Would still be a futuristic looking design yet today. Sort of George Jetson type futuristic. Really cool looking car.
 
I remember seeing one on Washtenaw Ave. in front of Arborland Mall in Ann Arbor, Michigan back in the day.
 
There was a fad for several years through the 50"s and 60"s that gas turbine power was going to replace reciprocating engines .
I"ve even seen micro turbine firefighter water pumps designed to be man portable . Somebody also contributed to the explosion and deck fire on the USS Enterprise ( scraped ) . By specifying turbine APU"s instead of reciprocating diesel. A deck hand turned The turbine APU exhaust toward a bomb and the rest is history.
The gas turbine is only practical where steady state t operation at or near 100% power in a high HP to static weight application.
Also applys to light diesel operation on the highway vs HD diesel applications. Part throttle, light load efficiency drops with turbines, boilers and diesels.
 
When I was growing up, one of the dads in the neighborhood who worked for Chrysler, brought one home for a night. It was quiet. They also had gas turbines in locomotives. Good power but hard on fuel.
 
(quoted from post at 12:47:35 02/05/14) When I was growing up, one of the dads in the neighborhood who worked for Chrysler, brought one home for a night. It was quiet. They also had gas turbines in locomotives. Good power but hard on fuel.
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aw one on a Dallas street around 1962.
 
I saw one in Atlanta in, I think, '64 at a service station near the Ford plant and went back to check it out. I had seen them in Popular Mechanics or something. Anyhoo, the dude in the white lab coat wasn't interested in conversing with or answering questions posed by 20 year old who wasn't in a position to do him any good. But I'm still alive and I bet he's long dead.:) TDF
 
(quoted from post at 13:14:48 02/05/14.

Anyhoo, the dude in the white lab coat wasn't interested in conversing with or answering questions posed by 20 year old who wasn't in a position to do him any good. But I'm still alive and I bet he's long dead.:) TDF
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Before you get too peeved about status and pride. The dude in the coat was probably under a deadline , trying to get a temperamental vehicle to operate . with a demanding boss pushing for good results from a unsuitable design application. He may have been preoccupied being deep in thought trying to solve a problem. You were not in his shoes, how would you know?
 
(quoted from post at 10:32:26 02/05/14)
(quoted from post at 13:14:48 02/05/14.

Anyhoo, the dude in the white lab coat wasn't interested in conversing with or answering questions posed by 20 year old who wasn't in a position to do him any good. But I'm still alive and I bet he's long dead.:) TDF
Click to expand...

Before you get too peeved about status and pride. The dude in the coat was probably under a deadline , trying to get a temperamental vehicle to operate . with a demanding boss pushing for good results from a unsuitable design application. He may have been preoccupied being deep in thought trying to solve a problem. You were not in his shoes, how would you know?
Click to expand...

Well, now we know where B&D was around 1964.... :)
 
Oh yes, Arborland! Used to go there a lot as a child. Montgomery Wards always had cool things. I do remember seeing a new purple "70 Superbird on display out in front of Naylor Plymouth On Stadium Blvd back in the day.
 
IIRC, I remember seeing Andy Granatelli (#1 @ STP, sponsor of the turbine powered racecar) comment after the race that a failed $6 ball bearing kept the turbine car from winning the race. It was leading I believe until the last lap or so.
 
(quoted from post at 00:08:06 02/06/14) IIRC, I remember seeing Andy Granatelli (#1 @ STP, sponsor of the turbine powered racecar) comment after the race that a failed $6 ball bearing kept the turbine car from winning the race. It was leading I believe until the last lap or so.
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The powers that be at Indy.demanded a reduced size of the engine air inlet to bring it's power down thinking it had an unfair advantage(it did) over the Offies.
 
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