Of all the results produced by the crossover between the automotive industry and war, one of the most striking was the experiment to
create turbine-powered vehicles on wheels
.
Between the 50s and 60s, after World War II, several companies ran after this promise of speed and innovation: it could consume almost any type of fuel.
It was also the time when aerospace activity was boiling.
The infinite sky seemed to be the only limit.
Chrysler
stood out among all the attempts.
He not only developed prototypes, but also put them in the hands of street drivers.
Chrysler Turbine
Care for the environment and some difficulties inherent to the project suspended the manufacture of its pioneering model.
Today there are only nine units left, barely two in the possession of private collectors.
The popular television host Jay Leno is one of the privileged.
The
Chrysler Corporation Gas Turbine Car
was presented under such a pompous title at the New York Motor Show in 1963.
The event was preceded by a tour of the United States that combined engineering and marketing.
At that time, a car with a jet engine was still a revolutionary dream.
The Detroit company was as close as few to make it happen.
Jay Leno shows off his Chrysler Turbine
One of only two specimens that survived.
Rover had already made an attempt - an advance in the field, with experiments in 1948 - and even Fiat tested its own creation in 1954, made with the prevailing aesthetics in the exploration of the Milky Way.
Before it was only accessible to a couple of private fans like Jay Leno,
the Chrysler Turbine toured North American roads with fifty regular drivers.
I was one step away from reality.
It was necessary to break down the frontiers of technology: the turbines generated a thousand degrees of temperature, too much noise and raised costs to stratospheric levels.
More than a million kilometers later, by trial and error, the problems were corrected.
Chrysler Turbine
In 1963, the Clean Air Act sentenced the fate of the car with which
Chrysler sought to make a leap in the industry.
Furnaces and hydraulic press through, the future was reduced to twisted irons.
Nine units were saved that can tell the story.
44,000 rpm and 130 hp: this is the turbine car that Jay Leno has
The great challenge was the construction of the jet engine.
Chrysler's could reach 44,617 rpm, which meant a problem due to the excessive heat it would produce in its operation and the danger it would throw motorists into.
The first step was to reduce the revs to 22,000 rpm.
Chrysler Turbine
The next one occurred in the second generation, with the inclusion of a regenerator that lowered
the Inhumans to 950°C
.
That new version also brought a reduction in material costs, metals that had to withstand continuous use without melting.
Finally, in the fourth generation, the work of engineer George Huebner was finished.
A-831 was the technical name with which they baptized the engine.
The turbines had just the right weight and size to fulfill their task, adapting to the needs and limits of a car.
It delivered 130 CV, consumed 14 liters per 100 kilometers
(but it rose in urban environments, with a slow and irregular rhythm) and the speedometer reached 192 kilometers per hour.
Another important point was the long duration of the oil, shared by various components and remaining uncontaminated.
Chrysler Turbine
The coating was also important.
The body design was carried out by Elwood Engel, an eminence who had drawn the lines of the Thunderbird and who had recently arrived from Ford to put his signature on the Chrysler Turbine.
The units were built by the Ghia company, one of the historic Italian bodybuilders, and manufacturing was completed in Detroit.
The units were painted metallic “turbine bronze”, a color coined for the occasion.
A concept car, white and crossed by blue lines and with the number 5, had a cinematographic destiny: “The Lively Set”, a 1964 film.
In total five prototypes were built
, which toured salons and fan meetings.
Another fifty examples of this two-door hardtop coupe were delegated free of charge to 203 typical American drivers.
The goal was to soften the project, officially announced in 1962, and fix any flaws that might arise.
It turned out to be a successful practice, with minimal errors collected over 1,600,000 kilometers.
From successful trial to museums and a million-dollar garage: why did the Chrysler revolution fail?
Everything seemed on track to go into limited series production.
The company had already chosen the luxurious venture that it was going to equip with the innovative jet engine.
It was going to be what later became known as the Dodge Charger, launched in 1966 but already with a conventional engine, far from the exclusive project they had planned in Detroit.
The move had a strategic market calculation.
It was not for nothing that it had all started with two Dodge Darts that crossed the American soil from end to end, turning on the amazed look of the nut.
Then the visits to the Halls were made, the most important in New York in November 1963. The tour would continue through that country, neighboring Canada and Mexico and also through Europe.
Of all that, less than 10 copies remain.
The most collectible post WWII vehicle.
This is how Jay Leno defined it
, privileged that he can sit behind this wheel
.
It is part of the fleet valued at 100 million dollars that the host of late night shows houses in his Big Dog Garage in San Francisco.
In fact, Jay Leno's Garage was the program in which he showed the details of these pieces coveted by all.
The Chrysler Turbine engine: 130 horsepower.
The Chrysler Turbine gleams on screen with its full-blown interior
: orange-brown leather, aerospace-age spherical instrumentation elements, and the shifter embedded in a turbine-like cylinder that runs through the entire cabin.
On the exterior, from north to south, it is also run through by a pair of tubes from the headlamps to the typical jet engine rear wells.
Although he wanted it since he was 14 years old, it is one of his most recent acquisitions.
He even collaborated with another friendly collector to restore another unit.
Later, his contacts in the company and the insistence
allowed him to buy the number 34 plate.
"It is from a time when America could achieve everything: go to the Moon, build jet cars and Chrysler was at its peak," summed up the spirit. behind the car.
Chrysler Turbine
The tests with the car that emanated almost 1,000 degrees.
But what happened between that promising release and this present of nostalgia?
The car could not overcome one major barrier: cost.
It is estimated that, in current values,
the sale price to the public climbed to 300 thousand dollars
, four times what had to be paid for a sports car with a 318 V8 engine, such as the Dart, the Ram and some versions of the Plymouth, or even Twice what a Cadillac cost.
But what turned it into a ball of rubble was a national act.
Democratic Senator Kenneth Roberts promoted the Clean Air Act of 1963,
legislation that sought to limit and monitor the emission of gases that could affect the environment
.
He was directly concerned with automobile production, which had to conform to maximum standards and levels.
It was the same regulations that launched the Cannonball race, the crazy competition that crossed the United States from west to east.
For the Chrysler Turbine, unable to control the emission of nitrogen oxides, it meant the end.
Of the nine that survived the destruction
(for tax reasons, some argued; for business secrecy reasons, others risk), three remained in the hands of Chrysler.
Six were donated to museums.
One fell into the hands of Frank Kleptz, who received assistance from Jay Leno to restore it and make it operational.
Another now lives among Lamborghinis, Mercedes and McLarens in the home of the television host.
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