what ever happened to the Turbine

[QUADRATIC]

Turbine based on a LeBaron, 1978 or so. Ever end up in private hands?

[440roadrunner]

Hell I didn't know about this. I thought all Ma ever built was the T Bird look alikes in the early days.

[vintageracer]

This is the first time I ever heard about this one too! They look like 1978 Cordoba "Premier" wheelcovers. Always liked the look of them.
That is a very good looking LeBaron! I'm surprised they still wasted time on a turbine though! Would have thought they'd figure out that there are too many problems running a turbine amongst the general public!!
David

[gsmagnum]

I wonder if the turbine car program wasn't just to test the engines for the military part of the company toward the end.

[BK]

LeBaron - MoparWiki

Here's what I put together in 2002

Chrysler Turbine

It would be nice if someone would take on the project of getting it into the MoparWiki

Turbine - MoparWiki

[gsmagnum]

Ford actually had turbine powered big rigs in the late 60's, early 70's, so it wasn't just Chrysler doing them.
I still think both may have been developing tank engines more than investigating feasibility in cars.

[DynoDave]

Ford actually had turbine powered big rigs in the late 60's, early 70's, so it wasn't just Chrysler doing them.
I still think both may have been developing tank engines more than investigating feasibility in cars.

GM studied them as well, and made a significant investment in their research. I've been in the dedicated building at the GM Tech Center that was used for turbine engine development. It's quite the place. It's own electrical substation, a compressor the size of a ship engine that takes up an entire room with a flywheel so big in diameter that half of it spins in a trough in the ground or it would stick though the roof, dyno cells with explosion-proof ceilings, and a test cell built into the ground, like a bank vault with a thick clear viewing window and crane overhead....crane carried fresh engines and set them into the hole, and massive volumes of air from the monster compressor described earlier where pumped into the engine in the pit to spin it up...to make sure it was mechanically sound to proceed to dyno testing. Several dyno cells, engineering work space, a garage for installing the engines in test vehicles...it was a lot of fun to see.

Lots of good Chrysler Turbine history here.

http://www.allpar.com/mopar/turbine.html

[QUADRATIC]

Clay mock ups, I wonder if it's a lost art?



Nose looks pointy..I like it.

Took these all from the internet....

[Magnumguy]

Interesting in the clay mock-up. it's just the nose being crafted, and a whole prod. car from the cowl back.

[Jonnyuma]

Hell I didn't know about this. I thought all Ma ever built was the T Bird look alikes in the early days.

Elwood Engle designed both, that's why the similarity. I saw one of the originals in the Museum of Transport outside of St. Louis. Jay Leno has one also (surprise!). I have no idea what happened to the LeBaron-based car, but I think I have an old magazine article somewhere in the pile about it. I'll look for it.

[DynoDave]

Awesome photos quadratic! Thanks for sharing.

Yes, clay is still worked/finished by hand.

[DobaMark]

There was a show, maybe on the History Channel on the turbines. The last ones was installed in a Mirada, so it lasted to maybe the early 1980's even though it wasn't a big deal publicly since the trial with all the special Turbine cars in the 1960's.

[Abods-R-Us]

http://youtu.be/Io9gInXrA1A

Some early turbine car video