|
Prelog: In early
1964, my family loaded up a 5X8 U-Haul with
everything we owned, hooked it up to bumper hitch on
our 1963 Valiant, and moved from outside San
Antonio, Texas (Valley Hi to be exact) to New York
City. Only God knows why, as I sure never figured
out what was going through my father’s mind.
Our very
first night in NYC we stayed at a motel called the
MET (as in the baseball team) close to Shea Stadium.
The next day my father took two of my younger
brothers and I to the World’s Fair, which was
virtually across the street. My very pregnant
mother, two younger sisters, a younger brother and
the dog (yes we were all in that Valiant from
central Texas to New York – the scenic route!)
stayed at the motel.
At about
7PM we were all bushed and wanted to head back to
the motel – but my father insisted that we go to the
Chrysler Theatre to see their last show. My two
brothers and I were not thrilled with this – but
gave in. We squirmed in our chairs through the
boring presentation for about 45 minutes when the
guy giving the presentation said that underneath one
of the seats was a pair of tickets to ride in the
Turbine car. That is when an old man in back of us
tapped my dad on the shoulder and said that he found
a pair of tickets under my youngest brother’s seat.
I know now that they must have been under his seat
and he either didn’t want the ride – or knew that we
would better enjoy it.
After the
show, my father took us to where the Turbine car
track was – and convinced the test driver to take
all four of us for the ride. It was a very exciting
ride that I will never forget. Since that time I
have always been interested in Dream/Concept/Styling
Study cars – and especially the Chrysler Turbine.
Below you
will find my copies from an original brochure, and the text from Special Interest Automobile
articles written in 1980 and 1997. They are very different articles. The first is about the 1963
Chrysler Turbine program, where 50 cars were given
to the public to test for 3 months. The second one
is more about the Turbine program, which actually
started with a 1954 Plymouth. I have enjoyed reading
and rereading these articles.
Dave Schultz – (BK)
The
below images are copied from my 1963 Chrysler
Turbine brochure given out at the 1964 World's Fair.
Click on the thumbnail to view the full-size image.
  
  
  
 
Below is the text from
January/February Special Interest Automobile article
written by Roy Query
Gas turbines go great if you know how to drive them.
But most people don't. Including most auto
journalists. They drive them like any other car. A
gas-turbine engine develops maximum torque at stall.
So if you want flashy acceleration from a turbine
car. you drive it the way you would an automatic-transmissioned
dragster. You sit at the line with your left foot
firmly planted on the brake and your right foot
holding the accelerator to the floor. The engine
then whines its way up, and within a second or so
the tach needle touches 52.000 rpm. At that point,
you slip your left foot off the brake. There's no
lag. The rear wheels start squealing, the car flies
forward, and you're off on a royal ride.
Driven that way, the typical gas- turbine automobile
will turn 0-60 mph in about 5.5 seconds and do the
quarter mile in the 13s. Chrysler's fourth-
generation gas turbine, coded A-83 1 and installed
in Ghia-bodied, bronze- colored coupes that were
built in 1962- 64, had the capability to turn
figures of that sort. no problem.
It never occurred to most people who were lent the
Chrysler-Ghia gas turbines back when they were new
to drive them that way, though. Nor did Chrysler
tell anyone:
So what happened was that a lot of people, including
journalists, reported that gas turbines felt
sluggish. If you drive a gas turbine the way you do
an ordinary car, you get a very disconnected
feeling. The drivetrain takes its sweet time
reacting to the accelerator pedal. You're at a stop
light with the turbine idling. The light turns
green, you push the accelerator, and nothing happens
at first. It takes a second or two for a gas turbine
to build up engine revolutions. And then, since what
amounts to the system's torque converter uses gases
as its working fluid instead of oil, the car moves
almost reluctantly. When prodded. 0-60 mph comes up
in about 12 seconds.
Chrysler's retired chief engineer of research and
development, George Huebner, told me that back in
1963 he'd gotten complaints from people in San
Francisco who'd been lent turbine cars for
three-month tests. Some said the turbines felt weak
on San Francisco's steep hills. Piston-engined cars
would climb the hills more briskly.
Huebner made a special trip to that city and staged
a demonstration drag race between one of the Ghia
turbine cars, with himself behind the wheel, and one
of Chrysler's more potent musclecars of that day, a
big-block Dodge. This was on the streets of San
Francisco. The turbine car easily outran the Dodge,
and Huebner recalls that the turbine car became
airborne at cross streets, just like Steve McQueen's
Mustang in Bullitt.
I had driven a gas-turbine-powered automobile once
before, in 1963, in downtown Los Angeles. Chrysler
was in the midst of a massive field test and was
distributing those now-famous 50 identical Ghia-bodied
turbine coupes to private citizens all around the
country. Chrysler's idea was to lend the 50 cars out
for three months at a time to people in all walks of
life. After each three- month trial, Chrysler would
gather in- formation, sift reactions, and study how
well gas turbines compared with conventional piston
engines. Were they reliable? Could they compete in
terms of performance and fuel economy? What were the
various pros and cons? Most important: Would the
public accept gas turbine automobiles either
alongside or instead of conventional cars?
My boss, Motor Trend editor Chuck Nerpel,
wasn't at all taken with gas turbines. He believed,
in fact, that the whole Chrysler program was just a
lot of PR hot air. Maybe that's why Chrysler invited
Chuck to test-drive one of the bronze-colored Ghia
coupes. This particular car was slated to be
delivered to a clergyman in Pasadena the next day.
Chuck asked Jim Wright, Motor Trend's
technical editor, and me to come along. I was the
magazine’s managing editor at the time. Each of us
got to drive the turbine car around what I remember
as being a couple of city blocks. It was too short a
course to get much solid reaction to the car but we
did form some impressions.
I remember all too well that the power train had a
very rubber-band feel, like an old Buick Dynaflow,
but worse. Mushy. Extremely. It was many years later
that I learned about the torque stall trick and how
to wind up the engine for maximum acceleration.
When Chuck got back to the office he banged out an
editorial damning the automotive gas-turbine
powerplant He talked about all the things wrong with
it, concluding that he didn't see much future for
gas turbines In motorcars And he's been right so
far. But he might just not have looked far enough
ahead I’ll talk about that in a moment.
Like Chuck's, my first impression of the Chrysler
gas turbine wasn’t all thrills and chills. I had the
pleasure though, of driving another of Chrysler’s
gas turbine automobiles just recently again one of
that same batch of bronze coupes. Unfortunately, I
didn't get to drive it any differently this lime
than during my first exposure in Los Angeles, but
that's all right, because 1 approached the car with
a great deal more respect
This second encounter took place at the Chrysler
proving grounds near Chelsea, Michigan. Nine of the
original 55 Ghia turbine cars still exist, ac
cording to retired engineer and turbine historian
George Stecher, the rest having been destroyed for
legal and tax reasons. Five were originally kept by
Chrysler Research for engineering evaluation and to
take part in publicity activities. The other 50 were
lent out to private individuals for field-testing.
Of the nine that remain today, eight have had their
engines removed. These eight are now in private
collections and museums. Chrysler still owns three
of the coupes, but only one currently runs. That's
the one I drove at Chelsea. My co-pilot was Elmer
Kiel, retired facilities coordinator of Chrysler's
proving grounds.
The Chrysler-Ghia turbine cars like all others ever
built, came with automatic transmissions. In all 55
cars the torque converter was removed, and the
engine's working gases acted as a torque converter
between the first and second turbine stages. They
were, in effect driving toruses. Actually, the trans
mission of a gas-turbine automobile needs only one
speed forward and one reverse, although the
Chrysler-Ghia turbine cars did use converterless
TorqueFlite automatics with three for ward gears,
all of which were put to work.
Anyway, at stall, these cars' fourth generation
Chrysler gas turbines delivered 425 lb./ft. of
torque an amount equal to a hefty V-8 at about 3.200
rpm. But if you drive the turbine as you would a
normal car, which I was asked to do by Kiel and
Chrysler for obvious reasons, you do get that manana
feeling. It's still disappointing. Also, there's
very little engine braking although this turbine
does have a variable-nozzle stator ring interposed
between the first- and second-stage turbines. This
variable nozzle angles the expanding gases before
they hit the second-stage power turbine and can put
reverse thrust on it. That produces a little engine
braking. 1 suppose without it there'd be even less,
but there's not much as it is. Otherwise, the Bronze
Blowtorch feels and reacts like any other American
car of the early 1960s. Basically it looks and
generally feels like a 1963 Thunderbird. Steering is
slow and sloppy by today's standards; handling
likewise.
There's one additional concern for those who might
try whooshing around fast corners in a
turbine-powered vehicle. If you go quickly into a
comer and expect to power through with the throttle,
you're in for a surprise. The turbine, remember,
needs time to build up revs. In those few
milliseconds while the engine spins up, if you're
rounding a fast turn and need to hold the line with
power to the rear wheels. by the time the turbine
kicks in, you'll be down in the ditch. Not that that
situation arises very often in normal, sensible
driving, but it's something to be aware of.
Reports of the gas turbine's demise have according
to George Huebner, been greatly exaggerated.
Huebner, now 82, remains as lively an advocate - as
firmly convinced - of the automotive gas turbine
engine's future as he was during his long and
distinguished career as Chrysler's chief research
engineer. The acknowledged father of America's
automotive gas turbine feels that this engine stands
a better chance today than it did back when he
sweated the details in the roaring turbine days of
the 1950s, sixties, and seventies
Huebner attended his retirement party in 1975 and
then went right back to work. A year after he left
Chrysler, he began an eight-year stint with Volvo in
Sweden, developing a small gas turbine for
front-wheel-drive compacts. The result was a
prototype turbine that weighed 25 percent less than
an equivalent piston engine, delivered 100
horsepower, out-accelerated anything in its class,
got 45 miles per gallon and had an amazingly clean
exhaust. Volvo at that time had the gas turbine 5
two main problems, cost and oxides of nitrogen (NOx)
emissions, just about beat.
In fact, former Chrysler engineer George Stecher
told me that in 1981 toward the end of Chrysler
Corporation's turbine program, they were running a
seventh-generation gas turbine in a modified Dodge
Mirada body and chassis. This car, in 1981, passed
federal and California emissions standards that
eventually went into effect for model-year 1989.
That's one of the pluses of gas turbines: If you can
shove enough air through them and run them hot
enough, they run with an amazingly smog-free
exhaust.
And in passing, other notable turbine achievements
include Parnelli Jones coming within two laps of
winning the 1967 Indy 500 In Andy Granatelli's ST?
turbine-powered race car. Jones led the field for
198 out of 200 laps but ended up a DNF when the
transmission failed Nine turbine cars entered Indy
for 1968, three of them qualifying, but by then
rules were so stringent that they didn't do much.
Vince Granatelli, Andy's son, built a
turbine-powered Corvette in 1979. The engine for
this conversion was originally designed to power an
oil-field generator. It developed 880 bhp and
delivered 1,160 lb./ft. of torque. Rpm was so high
that at idle the Corvette was running 60 mph, and
the only way it could be slowed in city traffic was
with the brakes. Needless to say, performance was a
little hairy
Connie Bouchard, long-time manager of Ford's
gas-turbine program, now retired, told me that in
the late 1950s Ford stuffed a non-regenerative
Boeing aircraft gas turbine into a two-seater
Thunderbird just to see what would happen. This
marked the beginning of Ford's 20-year turbine
program. The Thunderbird had lightning-fast
acceleration. Bouchard told me, but it would also
literally set fire to grass and weeds alongside the
roadway.
Connie Bouchard, unlike Huebner, is not a believer
in the gas turbine's automotive future. "The
expenditure of tens of millions of research dollars
shows that gas turbines are misapplied in
automobiles," he states. Why? Because cars require
an engine that de livers good fuel efficiency at low
power levels. It's at low power levels, after all
where 85 percent to 90 percent of a person's driving
takes place. Also, in my opinion, there are
insurmountable problems of cost and durability.
Ceramic regenerators, for example, are extremely
vulnerable to stress, fatigue, and airborne grit.
General Motors began an active automotive
gas-turbine program in 1951. GM released a series of
turbine powered Firebird Motorama showcars in the
mid- 1950s and currently, under Al Bell, continues
research into auto motive turbines to this day. Al
Bell does see a future for gas turbines in cars and
trucks, especially with materials like improved
ceramics, which allow higher operating temperatures.
The gas turbine engine is certainly very much alive
in turbojet aircraft large helicopters, marine and
stationary applications. The Patriot missiles that
recently knocked down so many Scuds in Iraq and
Israel were powered by gas turbine engines. Cruise
missiles also use small gas turbines. Likewise the
battle tanks of Operation Desert Storm.
Today, General Motors, Volvo, BMW, Peugeot, Renault,
Toyota, Nissan, and Mitsubishi are all actively
working on automotive gas turbines, trying to make
them contentious with piston power plants. Trouble
is, future turbines for automobiles can't just be as
good as piston engines.' they have to be
considerably better. That's because all automakers
have such huge investments in piston engines that
they aren’t likely to change over for something
that's only as good.
The gas turbine presents a number of advantages and
problems, all of which have been reviewed and
wrestled with for decades. So far, the basic
problems outweigh the advantages, but that
mightn't always be. Here's a compendium of the
automotive gas turbine's pros and cons.
The gas turbine is an extremely simple engine and
contains only 20 percent as many parts - moving or
otherwise – as, say, a piston V-8. A turbine has no
pistons. no valve crankshaft, camshaft, rockers, and
so forth. There's also no radiator nor cooling
system in the normal sense A turbine weighs a
quarter to half as much as an equivalent V-8.
The turbine uses a very simple ignition
system and only one spark plug (igniter). The
igniter is important for startup, but after that you
really don't need it. Yet it's usually kept sparking
at regular intervals and acts as a pilot light to
prevent hydrocarbon spikes after deceleration.
Unlike a piston engine, a gas turbine never needs
tune-ups, never burns oil, can't "knock" or
detonate, and never stalls out.
Nor do you have to wait for a gas turbine to warm
up. It's ready to go immediately, at full power,
even in subfreezing weather, and it instantly
provides hot air to the passenger compartment.
A gas turbine can burn virtually any combustible
fuel, so at least in theory, it could help wean a
nation's economy off fossil fuels. This type of
powerplant also runs extremely cleanly. That's
because it takes in about five times as much oxygen
as it needs in order to run. The extra oxygen
disposes of unburned hydrocarbons and carbon
monoxide, And by running lean mixtures, the air's
nitrogen and oxygen don't disassociate as in piston
engines. so NOx aren't a problem. All of which makes
the gas turbine a real contender in the smog war.
A gas turbine runs very smoothly. There's no
vibration and almost no noise. The regenerators act
as mufflers, and while a turbine's exhaust pipes
have to be much larger than normal ones, the engine
needs no mufflers, resonators, or catalytic
converters.
Now comes the minus side. Some of the gas turbine's
handicaps are as follows: Materials are relatively
expensive so far, and it's more costly to machine
turbine components than parts for piston engines.
Cost has always been the gas turbine's main
stumbling block.
We've talked about turbine lag and the lack of
engine braking. Gas turbine efficiency, which
translates as fuel efficiency, increases in direct
proportion to running temperature. Lousy fuel
mileage, especially at part throttle, used to hamper
early automotive gas turbines, but with modern
materials better able to cope with high
temperatures, that's not the problem it used to be.
However, materials that withstand high heat and
don't distort still tend to be exotic and expensive.
Clearances are critical in a gas turbine, so
expansion rates of different metals, ceramics, and
combinations have to be compatible. That can again
lead to high manufacturing costs. The expense factor
hasn't been licked yet, but according to GM's A'
Bell, it's now more a matter of refinement than
inventing new technologies.
Another caution, as Connie Bouchard indicated, has
to do with air intake. Gas turbines gulp huge
volumes of air, and that air has to be clean. Any
airborne grit can mess up internal clearances in a
big hurry. So filtration can't miss even the tiniest
micron of dust. Apparently that's no longer a huge
problem, though, as we saw on the TV news when US
military tanks, powered by turbines, had no problem
with all that desert sand in the atmosphere.
To understand how an automotive gas turbine works,
think of it as a blowtorch and three fans. The
blowtorch nozzle stands inside a big tube. Behind
the blowtorch, at one end of the tube, the first fan
- we'll call it the compressor forces in great gobs
of air. Light the blowtorch and some of the oxygen
in the air burns. This dramatically expands the
volume of gases downwind from the blowtorch and the
force of that expansion drives a second fan, one
that's attached by a shaft to the compressor.
Engineers call the second fan the compressor
turbine. These two fans share a common shaft, so the
faster the compressor turbine spins, the faster it
turns the compressor and the more air enters the
combustion chamber.
Just beyond the compressor turbine, separated by a
gap with no mechanical connection at all. is a third
fan. This third fan is called the power turbine, and
it's the one that moves the car. Hot gases flow past
the compressor turbine, hit the power turbine, and
make them both spin at very high speed. The typical
gas turbine idles at about 8.000 rpm and turns
roughly 50,000 rpm at full throttle. Reduction gears
with about a 10:1 ratio reduce the power turbine's
rpm to a range that's usable in an automobile.
Now that's basically all there is to an automotive
gas turbine, but there are a couple of refinements
you ought to know about. First, let's talk about the
regenerator. Most gas turbines for cars - and
Chrysler built seven generations between 1949 and
1981 - use two spinning regenerators that catch hot
exhaust gases after they've done most of their work.
The regenerators are geared to the compressor shaft
and turn at a speed that lets them transfer exhaust
heat efficiently to the incoming fresh-air stream.
By timing the speed of the regenerator, engineers
can keep exhaust gases from catching weeds on fire
but, at the same time, add that other- wise wasted
energy to the intake air so _ it begins to expand
the working charge even before it reaches the burner
("blowtorch"). The regenerator, as I mentioned, is
one of the big breakthroughs in gas-turbine
technology.
The second refinement of note is a device known as a
variable nozzle, or variable-pitch diverter ring.
This is a finned hub that stands between the two _
driven turbines. It doesn't spin. but its internal
blades can change pitch. The idea is to re-angle the
blades inside this nozzle so they direct hot gases
onto the power turbine in controlled ways. For
example, when you want maximum acceleration, the
blades lie so the expanded gases are directed at
nearly 90 degrees to the blades on the power
turbine. But when you want engine braking, which
normally isn't a feature of gas turbines, you can
angle the fins so that gas hits the power turbine
from behind, slowing it down. The mechanism that
controls the diverter-ring pitch can be mechanical
as. for instance, by a rod on the throttle linkage,
or electronic, with sensors and microprocessors.
Credit for most of the pioneering work on gas
turbines, everyone acknowledges, goes to George
Huebner, and he's certainly the central figure in
this drama of the Chrysler-Ghia turbine coupes.
George J. Huebner Jr. was born in Detroit in 1910,
attended high school there and in St. Louis, got his
degree in mechanical engineering from the University
of Michigan in 1932, and joined Chrysler immediately
after graduation. He soon found himself working
with Carl Breer in Chrysler’s mechanical
engineering research laboratory, doing testing and
development. In 1936, Huebner became a production
engineer for Plymouth Division, but four years later
he returned to Chrysler Research as a project
engineer and coordinator of re _ search programs.
During World War II, Huebner took charge of one of
Chrysler's more ambitious military development
programs, the creation of a 2.250-cid. V-16 air-
craft engine for the Republic P-47H fighter plane.
Huebner's responsibilities included engine
development, installation in the aircraft,
modification of the plane itself, and final testing.
The original P-47 Mustang had an air-cooled radial
engine, so the V-16 took some shoehorning.
It was during the war, working with aircraft, that
Huebner became interested in the then-new concept of
gas turbines. An Englishman named Whit- tie had
developed the first turboprop airplane in 1939.
Huebner read everything he could about gas turbines
and then began thinking ahead to the possibility of
adapting one to ground vehicles. Nobody had done
that before.
"I started initial explorations in the mid-1940s,
before the end of the war," Huebner told me. "The
first design studies took place around 1944.
Those studies were submitted to the military and, as
a result, Chrysler received a contract in early 1945
from the US Navy for a regenerative gas-turbine
engine." This was to power anti-sub- marine
aircraft. Huebner spearheaded that project and, on
the side, began tinkering with an automotive gas
turbine.
The reason gas turbines perform so successfully in
aircraft, boats, missiles, and as stationary
powerplants is because there they can be run almost
constantly at wide-open throttle. This is very
different from automotive use, where an engine's rev
range changes from moment to moment. And by the
nature of the beast, gas turbines tend to be more
efficient wide open than at part throttle.
Another given is that the hotter you can run a gas
turbine, the more fuel-efficient it becomes. As
noted, turbine efficiency increases with working
temperature. But too much heat can get out of hand.'
can cause everything from NOx to metal distortion to
internal meltdowns to, as Ford's Connie Bouchard
pointed out, toasted toes on passing
pedestrians.
High fuel consumption and excess heat were two early
problems Huebner had to contend with. The
breakthrough came with the development of a ceramic,
spinning, Ferris-wheel-like regenerator, which
Huebner developed and co-patented in 1949. The
regenerator takes heat from a turbine engine's
exhaust stream and returns some of it to the
inrushing air. That does three things: 1) It makes
the gas turbine's internal temperature controllable,
2) it adds to the engine's working efficiency
by preheating the incoming air, adding energy to the
combustion process, and 31 by returning this free
energy. it boosts the gas turbine's fuel efficiency.
The idea of the regenerator wasn't entirely new even
when Huebner applied it to the gas turbine. Static
preheaters had long been used in blast furnaces to
help refine iron ore. Huebner became familiar with a
similar air preheater manufactured by the Swiss firm
Brown-Boveri, a device called the Velox
boiler.
At that time, in the late 1940s and early fifties,
Huebner's research-and- development staff consisted
of a dozen or so engineers, and their workload was
staggering. Throughout the 1940s, gas turbines had
to settle for R&D's back burner, because Chrysler's
more pressing projects included the development of
the 1951 hemi V-8, the refinement of power steering,
development of the TorqueFlite automatic
transmission, work on fuel injection, electric
vehicles, and several other experimental agendas.
And yet gas-turbine development continued
apace.
"I wore two hats in those days, comments Huebner. I
had the title chief engineer of research and also
executive engineer of Chrysler's missiles and space
operation, and I worked 14- 15 hours a day,
including Saturdays and Sundays. One of Huebner's
young engineers on the gas turbine project was Sam
B. Williams, who later went on to found Williams
International Inc., of Walled Lake, Michigan, a
company that currently manufactures turbines for
cruise missiles.
There's an article in SIA for June 1980 that
very nicely summarizes Chrysler's entire automotive
gas- turbine program. so ifs not necessary to repeat
all those details here (see Yesterday's Car of the
Future. SIA #57). Suffice it to say that from
1954 through 1981. Chrysler built 77 gas-turbine
automobiles plus any number of experimental engines.
The estimated total expenditure came to $23.8
million Government grants and contracts covered some
of this, but Chrysler Corp. bore the brunt of the
cost.
Chrysler's turbine program climaxed in 1963 with the
construction of the 55 identical, Elwood
Engle-designed, Ghia bodied, metallic bronze coupes
Huebner puts the cost of each car at between $50,000
and $55,000. Virtually nothing interchanged between
these 55 turbine cars and production Chrysler
vehicles. The only similarities I could find were
some switches on the instrument panel.
"People called them Ghia cars." notes Huebner, but
Ghia built just the bodies. The body was designed in
the US, the steel was shipped from the US as was the
glass, all the upholstery and the only thing Ghia
did was hand form the bodies. They pounded, without
dies, fenders and body panels into the prescribed
shapes. The rest - every bit of it - was all built
here, and you have to remember that there wasn't one
significant item on those cars that inter changed
with anything else. Even the paint was special.
"We put those cars together in a small, rented
assembly plant on Greenfield Road in Detroit,"
Huebner continues. "It was a powerplant branch of
Chrysler Research.... There was enough room in that
plant to assemble the turbine engines and the
chassis The bodies were shipped in from Italy
already trimmed, and were married to the chassis in
our plant.
"The turbine cars used unit construction with a
front sub-frame. The sub-frame was an experiment
suggested by our chassis design people, who wanted
to assess the value and cost of a totally isolated
front suspension. It was very successful but also
very costly, and the concept was never put into
production [at Chrysler] because of the cost. But
there wasn't any cost cutting on the turbine cars.
Those 55 coupes were probably the most completely
custom-built automobiles ever constructed at any
time anywhere."
There were about 160 people involved at that time on
all phases of the turbine project, including engine
development car assembly, and logistics. Huebner’s
staff had the first bronze coupe running in early
1962. It took 10 - 11 months to finish all 55
turbine cars.
As mentioned, of the 55 cars built, five remained
with Chrysler Research, and the other 50 went out
into private hands. Chrysler announced its intention
to lend out the 50 cars to private individuals on
May 14,1963. Within six weeks, 30.000 volunteers had
sent in unsolicited requests. Exactly 203 drivers
were chosen from all walks of life and all parts of
the country. Twenty-three were women, the rest men.
Each received the free, unrestricted use of a
turbine car for three months. at the end of which
time the vehicle went on to the next individual. The
public test pro gram began on October 29,1963 and
ended 27 months later.
The first of the five Research cars went out on loan
to Chrysler's International Division. The idea was
to fly the car to different nations for publicity
and testing purposes. One of Its first stops was
Mexico, where that country's president, Adolfo Lopez
Mateos, was an auto enthusiast. Lopez Mateos asked
if he might be allowed to drive the turbine car. Not
only did he want to drive it he asked that the
turbine be fueled with that great Mexican resource,
tequila!
Huebner had mentioned in press interviews that gas
turbines would run on any free-flowing combustible
liquid Now, hearing of Lopez Mateos's request he
quickly had Chrysler Purchasing buy two gallons of
tequila. Huebner poured this into the fuel tank of a
lab engine. The lab turbine fired up immediately and
ran fine. So Huebner gave the Mexican president his
blessing. The turbine ran great on tequila just as
it had on methanol, ethanol diesel fuel, white gas,
and even Chanel #5, another odd fuel someone had
poured into the tank of one of these cars.
Of the other 50 cars in private hands ...the main
purpose was to see whether the American public would
accept a complete change in its powerplant, This was
the big question, and it still is says George
Huebner. Other goals of the program included
publicity for the gas turbine, along with field
testing for fuel mileage, reliability, flexibility
durability, and possible unforeseen problems.
After the turbine experiment ended in January 1966,
the final consensus turned out to be highly
favorable. Most volunteers said they would buy a
turbine car if one were put on the market at a
competitive price. No one suffered any major
problems: no explosions nothing burnt or singed, no
one stranded. Actually the experiment went amazingly
well.
In Chrysler's debrieflngs, there grumblings about
fuel mileage and sluggish acceleration. However,
these complaints were largely offset by comments
that the turbine would burn less expensive fuels
than gasoline. As per Chrysler's instructions, most
people used diesel #2 or white gasoline. Regular
pump gasoline could be substituted in a pinch, but
the tetraethyl lead tended to erode turbine fins, so
it wasn't recommended.
Immediately after this massive experiment, Chrysler
sought earnestly to put a turbine car into
production. "We had the tooling," recounts Huebner:
"had bought the tools and laid out the production
line for a much larger run of vehicles. Those would
have appeared as 1966 models. So it became a serious
project. Very serious, and it remained serious
through 1973 and '74. There were still plans to
bring out a limited production run of vehicles. The
NOx problem had been put to rest, and the production
vehicles would have been successful. The problem
was, though, that Chrysler Corp. went sort of broke
at that point. The money ran out."
That put a definite crimp in Huebner's production
plans. Other factors soon got in the way: the Arab
oil embargo. Chrysler's need to downsize and
re-engineer cars for front-wheel drive, and the US
economy in general. Huebner retired in 1975, and
there went Chrysler's staunchest advocate of gas
turbines. An era had ended. And it might be a while
before we see its likes again.
Acknowledgements
Our thanks to George Huebner, Ann Arbor,
Michigan: Albert H. Bell III and George Stecher.
Warren, Michigan: Connie Bouchard, Birmingham,
Michigan: T.C. Brown and Elmer S. Kiel. Chelsea,
Michigan: and Chrysler Corporation, Detroit,
Michigan.
If you would like to purchase the
back-issue/re-print of the SIA magazine this article
first appeared in, or other great items for
classic/special interest car collectors, please
visit the
SPECIAL INTEREST AUTOS on line store.
Photos that were in the original
article
Click on the small photo to view the
large one
Text from the 1980 Special Interest
Automobile magazine
Yesterday's Cars of The Future.
By: Leon Dixon
CHRYSLER'S
turbine program began with an orange-red 1954
Plymouth built in the fall of 1953. The engine in
this car was nothing less than a smash break-
through. It incorporated a regenerator which took
advantage of the hot exhaust gases much like a
turbocharger or afterburner, resulting in reduced
exhaust temperature-a big problem up till that
time-and dramatically reduced fuel consumption
compared to non-regenerative turbines. No other
automaker had anything like it. GM, Ford, FIAT and
Rover all had turbines by this time, but none had
regeneration capability and thus drank fuel in
unacceptable volume besides producing high exhaust
heat. Chrysler had taken a quantum leap in
automotive turbine development, and from the moment
George Huebner started and drove that first Turbine
Plymouth around the Highland Park engineering
facility, there would be no overtaking the leader.
The next big
Chrysler turbine news came in March 1956 when a
slightly Improved version of the '54 engine was
installed in a '56 Plymouth and driven cross-country
from New York to Los Angeles. According to
Chrysler's report on the event, an intake casting
and faulty bearing In the car were replaced, but the
engine itself performed "without failures of any
kind" while averaging about 13 miles per gallon.
This test resulted in a second- generation turbine
engine, which was installed in a 1959 Plymouth
four-door hardtop. The car was dubbed "Turbine
Special." as were its predecessors. The outside
appearance of the Turbine Specials was like standard
production models with the exception of certain
trim, hubcaps, special medallions and scripts. In
December of 1958 this latest turbine car was driven
from Detroit to New York, and Chrysler engineers
claimed a marked improvement in fuel consumption.
The second-generation turbine developed 200
horsepower- twice that of the first generation
engines-and hp ratings on gas turbines actually
reflect greater torque and power than similar number
ratings of a piston engine.
During
1960-61 a third-generation Chrysler turbine engine
was developed, and it became clear that the
automaker was ready to pull out the stops all the
way up to and including the production line. By
early 1961 three vehicles were shown to the public
with new third- generation engines installed. These
were another four-door hardtop Plymouth (1960
model), an interesting 2 1/2-ton Dodge truck and the
radically styled (some say bizarre) Turboflite idea
car.
Of the
three, the Turboflite grabbed the lion's share of
press exposure and was shown at the major auto shows
both In the United States and abroad. The Turboflite
was a Motor Trend cover car for the August
1961 Issue and got dandy reviews from MT
writers. Its radical features included a sleek
wraparound windshield, which was incorporated into a
transparent semi- bubble top with reverse slant rear
window. Reverse slant backlights, as they are called
In the industry, were popular at the time on '58-'60
Continentals and more so on later Mercurys. but were
first seen on the Packard Balboa-X and Predictor
show cars. The entire canopy rose automatically by
hydraulics as doors were opened. and the interior
was lit by a strangely pleasant greenish indirect
lighting system a la early '70s Challenger/Barracuda
dash. The taillight system incorporated amber
caution lights, which glowed whenever the driver
took his foot off the gas pedal. Front fenders left
the wheels almost fully exposed, and this unusual
design Incorporated "landing gear type retractable
headlights. The very unusual tires on this car had
two whitewalls-one on the sidewalls and one in the
center of the tread!
Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird (see SIA #45)
fans will no doubt note the similarity of the
familiar wing which surely Inspired wing design on
these cars. However the Turboflite design went one
better by incorporating an airbrake flap for
high-speed slowdowns. Unfortunately the Turboflite
was never actually set up to drive. It was what
industry people sometimes call a "pushmobile" -a car
whose main purpose is to test public reaction while
on display-show cars are very seldom driven even if
they aren’t pushmobiles. When its successful show
career ended, the Turboflite gave up its turbine
engine and was fed into the shredder.
As in past
practice, a 1962 production body - this time a Dodge
- appeared on the scene with modified trim and
turbine motif. Dubbed the Turbo Dart, the car was
driven from New York city to Los Angeles In four
days in December 1961. Chrysler engineers claimed
the turbine got consistently better mileage over a
conventional piston engine car, which accompanied
the T.D. in all sorts of weather. One of the big
advances of the '62 Turbo Dart was its third
generation turbine engine which incorporated a
variable nozzle mechanism (think of the adjustable
propeller blades on a turbo-prop - airplane-the
ideas are similar in principle. The new engine-known
to Chrysler folks as the CR2A - now had engine
braking, better acceleration and improved fuel
economy thanks to the nozzles.
The Turbo
Dart was joined by a Plymouth called the Turbo Fury,
similarly enveloped in a production body, and
eventually the two were augmented by an additional
Dodge and Plymouth. All four went on an extensive
tour of the United States. The cars played to
audiences in all the major cities, and some lucky
dealers were actually able to display one of the
four on their showroom floors.
By this time
there was no turning back on Chrysler's turbine
development, and both industry and press could see
that it would simply be a matter of time before the
turbine was actually rolling off an assembly line.
Chrysler had no intentions of disappointing anyone
on this point, and in early 1962 the company
announced plans to build 50 to 75 turbine-powered
cars, which would be loaned for brief periods to
"typical motorists" whose names were to be selected
by an accounting firm.
For many enthusiasts the announcement came as a fulfillment. Uniquely
styled limited production turbines had been rumored
for nearly ten years. Several publications had dealt
with the idea, but the October 1956 issue of Car
Life had some interesting renderings, which
depicted proposed Chrysler turbine cars. One car was
a handsome bubble-topped two-place coupe with a '59
Continentalesque rear end treatment. The design
still looks exciting although a bit dated. Another
car (the Ventura) was a very radical mid-engine job
which looked somewhat akin to Bucky Fuller's
Dymaxion cars (see SIA~#39) with the greenhouse
moved forward to the nose. The mid-engine concept
played another act in a Ghia body, as we shall see
later. It was no wonder that by late 1962 rumors had
run the gamut from doubters who said, "they'll never
make it" to claims that the car would be sold
outright with optional piston engines for $10,000 a
pop!
During this
time a fourth generation turbine engine was being
readied for the mystery car, and George J. Huebner.
Jr. Chrysler's Executive Engineer of Research
received an award for his efforts in the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers. His was the first
ASME award ever bestowed on an automotive engineer.
As for the new engine, Huebner and crew did a
remarkable job of redesigning and shaved 40 pounds
off total engine weight to boot. The new power plant
now sported twin regenerators and dual exhausts. Up
to this point there had been some problems with
delayed accelerator response (similar, but slightly
more noticeable than in turbocharger lag). but this
condition was brought under better control with the
new design.
The
engineering boys did a few more tricks in this first
production turbine car. The power package was
cradled in a cushioned quick-change unit, which also
incorporated the transmission and front suspension.
One pump served the engine. Transmission, power
steering, etc. but no motor oil as such was used
since transmission fluid performed all necessary
lubrication functions. One very interesting point is
that there was no torque converter in the
three-speed gearbox. The function of the converter
was taken over by the rotating blades of the engine
itself. Remember that the gas turbine was not unlike
one big torque converter in principle with hot
compressed air (instead of fluid) turning the second
set of vanes.
The
much-discussed Corporate Turbine Car was introduced
at a press showing in New York on May 14.1963.
Although the car was given several names by early
rumors, Chrysler simply referred to it as "The
Chrysler Corporation Turbine Car"-period. We'll call
it the Chrysler Ghia Turbine Car (CGT) hereafter for
simple clarity. The Ghia part comes from the fact
that the body of this revolutionary car was built in
Italy by that firm. a practice not unusual for
Chrysler (see SIA #30. #50. The turbine car was not
only reality. It was also in limited production (if
not for sale), in the hands of the public and on the
streets in numerous locales and climates. It was a
gutsy move.
In all, 203
selected drivers (20 of them women) got a chance to
try their hand with a Chrysler Ghia Turbine Car for
periods of about three months each. Each agreed to
maintain the car's appearance and keep records for
Chrysler. All service was to be performed by a
special turbine service representative. At least two
of the lucky families to get temporary custody of
the turbine cars lived near this writer, so I simply
asked for and got a dream ride in the dream car. The
sensation, as I recall, was one not unlike a feeling
of powered coasting with none of the customary
engine vibrations. This all was enhanced by the
jetlike sound of the exhaust. At the time it was
said that Chrysler purposely left the exhaust wail a
little louder than necessary to draw attention to
the car, and auto show pamphlets alerted people to
"...listen to it. The exciting new sound of the
Chrysler Corporation Turbine Car."
The car's
color was called "Turbine Bronze," but it had more
of a metallic coppery tone and the black vinyl roof
was the only major color contrast with the coppery
color. Interior color was matched to the paint with
very comfy thin-shell bucket seats upholstered in
coppery leather and separated by a cylindrical
turbine-motif console.
Three major
gauge pods were clustered directly in front of the
driver n no - nonsense fashion. These included:
turbine inlet temp/amps/oil, speedo/odo/fuel,
tachometer/clock. The full-length floor console
housed the light switch, wiper switch, heater
controls, rear defroster switch, emergency brake
lever and clever designed gearshift with modified
quadrant (Park-start. Idle. Drive. Low. Reverse).
The CGT cars were equipped with the usual goodies
like power windows, steering and brakes. Aside from
the gauges and trans quadrant, there was little clue
of the unique power plant hiding under the hood.
Bodies were
certainly up to Ghia's standards with fit and finish
superior to what one normally finds in production
multiples-there were Italian influences such as an
interior release catch for the trunk with no outside
key access. Giovanni Savanutsi was Ghia's Chief
Engineer and oversaw metalwork and body assembly
and, though Elwood Engel styled the Ghia Turbine,
there seems to be a general consensus among Chrysler
people that perhaps Savanutsi may have had at least
some influence on the car.
Interestingly enough, a mid-engine concept surfaced
in the original Ghia body program (remember that
during the CGT development Phil Hill and his
beautiful mid-engine Ferrari sharknose racers were
burning up the Grand Prix circuits). One Ghia
Turbine was planned as a two-place roadster (see SIA
#17) and would have been very similar to the car,
which was actually built. The "Typhoon," as it would
have been called, was never built except as a
full-sized mock-up, but nevertheless it would have
been a sensational car. One can only guess how it
might have performed.
Speaking of
performance, Chrysler has never been known as a
carmaker content to sit back and ignore the subject,
and even as the first five Ghia bodies (see sidebar.
p. 21) were assembled, one was selected for use in
Hollywood. The only car not painted Turbine
Bronze was white with a big #5 and blue racing
stripes. It starred along with James Darren, Pamela
Tiffen and Doug McClure In an auto racing movie
entitled "The Lively Set." The movie is what some
Hollywood folks call a "semi- stinker," but few car
enthusiasts would agree with that assessment. The
scene-stealer for us Is that white Ghia Turbine car,
and there are enough action scenes (including an
actual loss of the hood at high speed) to make even
Rex Reed sit up and notice. The Ghia Chrysler
Turbine heats the tires off a Ghia 6.4, and there
are several shots of Mickey Thompson driving a
Chevy. It's well worth checking your late-night TV
schedules to see the Turbine In action (and yes, it
actually did all those stunts and chases with real
turbine power-no faking here).
The white
Turbine race car was also built in a 1/25-scale
promotional friction drive model along with a
standard bronze promotional. Both were made by
Jo-Han Models, Inc., who also turned out an amazing
kit of the turbine. This kit was nearly as
incredible as the real car, with such details as
folding seats, opening doors, hood, deck lid,
steerable front wheels and more. Back at Chrysler,
production on the CGT car went along at a rate of
one car - per week, and the 50th car was completed
in October 1964. Chrysler was all set to fry even
bigger fish at this point.
Hundreds of
stories came out of the project. George Huebner once
made the statement that Chrysler Turbines would run
on anything which could flow through a pipe and burn
with air. That statement was put to the test -
several times and passed on each occasion. Turbines
ran on unleaded gasoline, diesel, kerosene, JP-4,
alcohol, Chanel ~5 and yes, Jimmy, peanut oil!
However, one of the most interesting fuels ever to
run the turbine was also the center of an episode of
equal interest. George Huebner picks up the story:
"The first car of the 50-car program was barely
ready when it was - pressed into service on a world
tour by Chrysler International. The car reached
Mexico, and I got a call from one of the
International people who said that the president of
Mexico wanted to operate the turbine on tequila! I
said that I thought it would work fine, but just the
same. I went to the purchasing department the next
morning and got two gallons of tequila. We drained
the tank on engineering's car and dumped the two
gallons in. The car ran all over Highland Park with
no trouble. Meanwhile the president of Mexico ran
the car there on tequila, but was later quite upset
when reporters failed to mention that he was
driving. The turbine and tequila stole the show, you
might say."
The Chrysler
turbines had reached a - point where the information
available suggested one direction: production. -
Armed with data gathered in the 50-car program.
Chrysler engineers developed a fifth generation
engine and set about - planning for a new and larger
program. Bill Brownlie of Chrysler Product
Development recalls just how close we came to
actually being able to buy - turbines: "Lynn
Townsend called Elwood Engel, myself and others into
a meeting during the time of the 50-car program and
we discussed actually offering a new turbine car on
a limited basis to what would have been virtually
hand-picked customers as a test of public
acceptance. In that meeting it was decided to build
a limited number of special-bodied turbines-that
body became the '66 Charger fastback."
Tom Golec,
supervisor of car development recalls that
low-volume tooling was ordered and approximately 500
Turbine Chargers were planned for the initial run.
Mr. Golec points out that - a special no-slip clutch
unit was developed for the '66 Turbine Charger, but
was never used due to very high cost. Supposedly two
'66 Turbine Chargers with the special clutch were
built, but they were never shown to the - public.
The Charger became a sporty Dodge with a
conventional engine and slightly different trim (the
Turbine job had a grille opening much like the 1970
Challenger)...the project was stillborn.
What killed
the project? The mid- - sixties produced a variety
of rumblings out of Washington. Insurance -
companies clamped down on supercars, safety laws
were written and smog laws took effect. Once the
Clean Air Act - became reality. it specified control
of NOX emissions and. according to - George Huebner,
it was not known at that time if the turbine would
meet future NOX requirements. The first
direct result was to shelve the '66 Turbine Charger.
The government was now in the car-making business
and Chrysler was out of the turbine car business-at
least on any mass scale. Regulations on conventional
engines took on very high priorities, and though a
sixth-generation engine was developed to meet NOX
standards. Little was done with it-engineers were
largely occupied with the emissions problems of
piston engines.
Turbine work
slowed as a result a sixth-generation engine did
make it into a '66 Coronet but the public never saw
it. Finally, interest was sparked again in 1972 when
Chrysler won an E.P.A. contract and developed the
present smaller and lighter seventh- generation
engine.
What now
stands between the turbine and production seems to
be refinement and government regulations. Chrysler
people are currently working on ceramics and various
improvements such as electronic controls. As for
regulations, who can say what is in store? One thing
is certain, an engine which operates efficiently on
a multiplicity of fuels, is not a luxurious
whimsy--it's nearly a necessity, especially in light
of present developments in the Middle East
Our thanks
to George J. Huebner Jr., Ann Arbor,
Mich.; Bill Brownlie, Diane Davis, Torn Golec, Tom
Jakobowski, and Chuck Wagner of Chrysler Corp..
Detroit, Mich.: Richard Lanqworth. Coontoocook, NH:
and Sam Shields. Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.
Photos that were in the original
article
Click on the small photo to view the
large one
  
  
Other Turbine photos I have found
  
 
  
Much of the
reference material I have put on this page comes from Mark Olsen's
Turbine Car web site. Mark's was one of the 200 families to receive
a Turbine for 3 months. He is the young man pictured to the right in the
b/w photo above. I am desperately trying to locate the authors of the
two SIA articles to ensure they don't have a problem of their fine
articles on this page for our members to read.
|
