The Chrysler Turbine Car: Engineering a Revolution | Full Documentary

foreign if you look at the history of the automobile in Detroit there appears to be pretty much just a straight line of cars evolving over time and the turbine car was just a gigantic deviation from the norm the First new automotive power plant in more than 50 years here was a car that had a totally new type of propulsion system no one had tried before the whole concept of a gas turbo powered card was fairly radical I mean the warranty the tremendous potential of the turbine opens the possibility of an exciting new chapter of Motoring and gives the automobile a running start in the jet page if you've heard one run there's no question there's something different going on in that car it sounds like the future one again I always thought it was the coolest post-war car ever The Styling was fantastic the body was built by Craftsmen in Italy but the engineering that went into it is just as beautiful a group of committed Engineers were able to accomplish something that is almost unaccomplishable there has never been another car just like it the turbine program was bold it was daring Chrysler said we think that we can actually make a product here that we can sell to Consumers sell more cars get a big chunk of the car market that's what they were all about the highlight of the program was the fleet of these cars they put on the road they lent to the public the most unusual consumer test program ever launched in the automotive industry they chose 203 families sent the cars out think about it it was insane that Chrysler did this people are driving experimental cars on the road it turned out to be one of the greatest marketing campaigns in Automotive History intense public interest that's putting it modeling this came out at a time when the idea of a car for the common man still had not reached a large part of the earth and here was Americans try crowded jet powered cars with five cigarette lighters in them you know I mean just crazy everything about the turbine car is cool everything it stood up against the naysayers you know we'll never have a turban car well we've had one and it still exists there were 55 made there's only nine that are left it's become an icon in the automotive world it's a symbol of engineering excellence and also the future of what could be [Music] thank you [Music] here it is the precise language of the engineer it's called the jet propulsion gas turbine to you and me it's the jet engine the idea of a turbine engine it's actually very simple a turbine is a highly Advanced use of one of man's oldest means for creating power to do work well a pinwheel I mean you pick up a pinwheels again you blow on it and it turns you know that's what a turbo does you blast the air through a winged rotor then you can do a lot of things with that rotor a turbine engine basically is you have a tube with fan blades inside of it air comes in one end and it goes into combustion chamber which creates fire and heat which blasts out the back past another set of fan blades these fan blades are on a shaft connected to the first set of fan blades it causes the ones in the front to spin and suck in more air and it creates constant combustion blasting the air out the back if you look at how fast aircraft design accelerated during World War One or World War II it seems that a lot of technology is driven by military applications people want to find what's best or fastest or strongest and also usually because there's an unlimited budget behind that military jet powered airplanes they started to appear just at the end of World War II you'd see them fly over or hear them they've made it through any kind of noise and they could go like hell I mean they were much faster than the propeller this is the turban jet the power that is driving the fighters of today through the Sonic barrier [Music] you get a much smaller lighter engine putting out much more power that's what a jet engine could do in aviation that was a terribly attractive characteristic they have completely taken over the military high performance airplanes and they were starting to take over the commercial airliner business at that point near Sonic Speed but inside one of the most stunning discoveries there is no feeling of movement at all A New Concept in air transportation Chrysler's turbine development really started in the late 1930s picked up a lot during World War II was the development of a turboprop engine it was a Navy contract the a86 was the gas turbine aircraft program the engine was successful but by then the war had ended but the turbine itself had sparked interest some of the people who worked on that program naturally thought we work at a car company could we take that engine and instead of turning a prop turn a drive shaft is not anything more insurmountable than we've done with business engines it's just nobody's ever done it some competitive Automotive Engineers see no practical future for the turbine engine but Chrysler Corporation Engineers could see something worth striving for you have to think about what was going on in the country in the 50s and 60s realization of the American Greed the Envy of the entire world everything was kind of upbeat because we had come out of this horrible World War and we were heading into a time of economic Prosperity just for the leaders right we're the best you know that was our our role in the world today lead gets Sputnik you're the Space Racer in America's hardest stride into outer space you had jet travel coming into Vogue the whole jet age thing it just not a corner a lot of times the Styles and the Fashions are shaped by the technology the times and vice versa we all know the finned car is in the 50s were starting with the Cadillac Harley Earl had copied the look of the P-38 with the tail fins very obvious big fins on the back of the car and then Chrysler got into enormous ones but that was all I think a reflection of that sense of aerodynamic styling no wonder that amid such promise of Adventure the rising generation should grain its next Chi wood to the streaking silver that bespicks tomorrow a lot of people started believing that technology was advancing much much faster than it had been previously everyone thought some day down the road we'll have flying cars jet packs so it didn't seem that far out of line that somebody said oh by the way we can make jet powered cars putting the same smooth power into family cars has long been an engineering dream but the challenge to the automotive engineer is much more difficult they did a comparison of jet engines and Automotive turbine requirements and nothing could have been farther apart I mean jet engines gobble fuel like a a line in a herd of gazelles it's blaming breath is White Hot Gas fed by drops of liquid fuel what's that gallon go they don't idle very well and they just aren't billed for automobiles so it meant a whole rethinking of the turbine concept an aircraft with a jet engine on it is pushed simply by the hot air coming out the back in an automotive setting it's much different there are really two major steps to powering the gas turbine automotive engine the first stage turbine does nothing but drive the compressor wheel and whatever accessories there are like generator and oil pump behind that is the second stage turbine also running at high speed 40 50 000 and obviously that's too high for a rear wheel axle so there's about a ten to one set of reduction gears that drives the car the turbine would be considered the bleeding edge the very height of an automobile and that's the way most people look at it well wow this is a jet car even though it really wasn't a jet car jet engines just took all that gas and blew it out the back we made use of it in a mechanical sense to propel the wheels there was logic to it I mean the engine has a lot of attractive characteristics that if they could be adapted to the automobile engine make them very very popular the term Urban engine looks different on the outside because it's definitely different on the inside the parts inside the turbine are spinning whereas the parts inside of a piston engine are reciprocating going back and forth they shake they vibrate they make noise something that spins can be smoother you've got an engine unlike any other engine in an automobile that put out absolutely no vibration they're felt less smoothness which you don't feel in a piston engine car and the fewer moving Parts there were no Pistons no crankshaft no Rod no valve train the turbine engine is like one quarter of the parts it was about 200 pounds lighter than a standard combustion engine that's the interesting part low maintenance one spark plug maybe once every 50 000 miles to put a new spark plug another but never change the oil Burns you could run on unleaded gasoline jp4 jet fuel kerosene diesel home heating oil v05 hair spray we've heard stories that one that was in France that ran on Chanel Number Five perfume I went down to Dothan Alabama for The Peanut Festival and we ran the vehicle on peanut oil and it smelled like a Chinese restaurant if people were amazed in South Africa they wouldn't believe us when we said this car would run on cognac so we gave it a try [Applause] it worked of course this is all interesting but why would you need to do that I mean what what was cheaper than fuel when the car came out in many places fuel was 19 cents a gallon the multi-fuel aspect of it was later something people said oh my gosh we could have cashed in on that but people weren't thinking about the cost of gasoline just yet the world's most exciting cars which will run on any pure now other car companies toy to the technology and turbines weren't invented by Chrysler actually the English did it first the Rover had a gas turbine the first car in the world to be powered by our gas turbine engine on these test runs a speed of 19 miles an hour was easily attained Chrysler was the company that actually decided to put the big investment into it for years and years Chrysler was known as the engineering company in Chrysler Corporation Laboratories as many as 1 500 different research tests are usually proceeding at the same time so you will have a more dependable and efficient vehicle it started with Mr Chrysler he was the one that really stressed that we should be bringing out Innovations yearly several of the inventions that are common in automobiles were started at Chrysler because they would go along with the weird idea where the company brought out power steering cruise control downdraft carburetors to really give these Engineers free reign to really develop and innovate something was pretty remarkable in Detroit at the time everything that is done in this town between companies is on a competitive basis especially 1950s and 1960s the other manufacturers all had tournament programs General Motors did a couple four did a couple when it came to the turbine engines there was definitely one upmanship going on big red is an experimental gas turbine powered super truck for the 1970s we kept very close track of whatever was published of our competitors activities and some of the stuff they did was pretty darn good it was a gas turban fraternity we all kind of got together whenever the opportunity presented itself and although we were careful not to divulge anything that was secret we still did a lot of talking a little bit of beer drinking and a milestone and automotive engineering is marked by the completion of General Motors Firebird II Joe Modis has the Firebirds which looked like a land-based jet there's no way they're going to build this this is really just a fantasy thing hey you want some ice cream or a cool drink orange juice please me too [Music] beautiful incredible vehicles but they weren't intended to go production from the beginning Chrysler was focused on a high production car let's start working on Automotive turbines not as show cars but as cars that we can actually sell to people we foresaw a brilliant future for this turban car and we had a guy like George hubner to promote it George hubner was the director of research for the corporation and he was a Believer for a high-tech kind of guy he was very persuasive plus an enormously capable engineer so a good combination he wasn't somebody that you pump up for a few minutes and send him out to face the cameras he knew what he was doing and he was always there part of the discussion asking good questions and getting answers he had a team below him working on these cars and building the cars designing the cars and he had to go up a level to get the people above him to authorize expenditures and so on he was really a convincing specifically internally he sold it to the hierarchy of the corporation if any one individual could take credit for the Chrysler turbine program going as far as it did it would have been charged George hubner executive engineer research who literally lived with the turbine engine from concept to completion it probably wouldn't even launched without him Sam Williams may have talked somebody into letting him shoehorn in engine into a car and they probably would have said okay that's that's cute Sam get back to work and build us something else Sam was kind of the initial spark he was one of the guys that said don't worry about the problems with the jet engine aircraft that's different animal we're going to make this thing work he was concentrating in his efforts and his Visions on miniaturization making things small it's a machine like anything else you just downsize it break out the slide rules and start doing math and make it smaller what's remarkable about it is that Dr Williams is blind so all of the stuff he was doing in his head he couldn't see he had to imagine we had people like Williams and Chapman and several others that were unbelievably good Engineers they really started with a blank sheet of paper objective was to make an engine that was so efficient so inexpensive and so clean that everybody would want one of course that's everybody's ambition too you know [Music] the challenge was really the materials used in the engine and the cost to go along with those the fan blades what those are made out of becomes a big issue metals that you know you're people talking about in the automotive World things like in Canal or titanium but exotic metals are expensive through Chrysler metallurgical research new materials were developed which contained plentiful and relatively inexpensive elements that could be made by conventional methods and still have excellent resistance to heat and oxidation even at extreme temperatures they developed an alloy not good enough for aircraft but fine for automotive use it was still expensive those are the kinds of things that made the program difficult but fascinating stuff we had never even thought of before new problems to be solved and it occupied us a hundred percent what can we do to either make it more powerful more efficient and one of the things that Chrysler came up with very early on as a concept of regenerator and regenerator recycles the heat which is more efficient because you're saving energy as the exhaust goes out of the car it goes through one side of the regenerator and as a regenerator rotates around the intake air goes through the regenerator and picks up the heat that was just put in the regenerator at the backside and so it's recycling the heat from the exhaust so that does two things it increases the intake temperature and it lowers the exhaust temperature every bit of heat that you can recover with the regenerator was fuel that you didn't have to put into the combustion chamber it absolutely had to have some kind of a device like that to keep all the heat just blowing out the exhaust the big fear that everybody had was the exhaust that oh don't stand behind it I mean there were stories that if you drove under the grass and set the lawn on fire I can't tell you how many people would say that melt the car behind them no exactly exhaust was a little cooler than your regular exhaust now the Piston Edge the regenerator was the major step forward between a jet engine and an automotive engine the other major problem initially at least was noise a jet is really noisy when I start it up stand back its deep throated voice will climb to the shrieking of a thousand fiends some of the first turban cares he ate below your ear yourself we spent a lot of effort working on reducing that noise by different designs of turbine wheel blades and ducting and so forth they got it down to a tolerable level [Music] it went along relatively quickly from World War II nine years later they actually had a running turbine in the 1954 Plymouth the first american-built gas turbine engine in a production line automobile for the first time they demonstrated the turbine in front of the media and their minds were blown they had no idea really what it sounded like what it was loud and a little sluggish it was a kick the first cars were nowhere near a production car that's for damn sure but the engines were put in a production car and it were driven down the street so that's the first step we did put it in a couple show cars however the idea was can we make this practical for the public roads so let's put it in a 54 Plymouth and a 56 Plymouth put them in real world vehicles and give people a sense of what we're trying to do they didn't say hey let's take them to car shows and show them up they drove them cross country [Music] we're going to drive it to Los Angeles and when we get there Mr hubner is going to drive journalists around that weren't expecting to see this and then he's going to drive it back those are PR projects you know just to get everybody aware of it even the hierarchy of the corporation they would stop everywhere and have press conferences and show the cars off George humer discovered the reporters would show up in droves he knew how to go around his bosses he went directly to the public when we stopped for lunch in Springfield Illinois the owner called up all his friends and invited them over for a special show all sudden we're bringing out this vehicle that sounds like the future they expected and that really people's interests the whole country was behind this idea that we're moving forward the Chrysler was really at the Forefront the publicity got us the funds to keep working on this engine we had money coming out of our ears for a while a lot of people who got excited about the idea came to work there when I worked on this program it was the most fun job I've ever had in my life for sure I died and went to heaven I think that everybody that worked on a program kind of became a family we played hard and we worked hard and we were kind of like a Skunk Works inside a Chrysler Corporation very talented very skilled very competitive Whenever there was a problem everybody thought their idea was the best but we kind of managed to come to some Central agreement was a little bit of everybody's input that's a field of engineering that's what drives you the unknown initially in the 1950s the engineers were housed here in Highland Park once the program really started gearing up they moved out to Dearborn Michigan into the Greenfield plan the Greenfield Plant was just turban team that's the only people that worked there we had a lot of confidence that this was going to be the car of the future in the early 1960s Mr Huebner had a brilliant marketing idea he had to go to them and say look guys I want to run an experiment I want to build a fleet of jet powered cars and lend them to the public the objective of this unusual program was to test consumer and Market reaction to turbine power and obtain service data and Driver experience with turbine cars under a wide variety of geographical conditions by the way we'll insure the cars the drivers won't insure the cars Chrysler will insure the cars think about the liability of a major corporation lending experimental cars to strange families scattered about the contiguous 48 states it would never happen today it was a different time as my mom would say it was a different time then well the agreement we had to sign was three columns 14 inch long paper it's a single page contract they don't exist in the wild anymore it basically said I the user I'm going to take this car from Chrysler Chrysler is insuring it but I will do my best to take care of it and if it breaks down I'll do the following things I'll put gas in it I'll drive it at the end of the program I'll turn it back in one page the public is easy to sell to if it sounds good you know I mean that's who wouldn't say hell I'd like to try a jet car I mean I would have done it back in the day oh that sounds kind of cool I'd love to I would love to partake in that we were out to sell an idea we wanted to show them what Chrysler engineering can do we're excited to get the product out there and at the same time we're figuring what are we doing you know we're giving people a new type of driving technology how will they treat or mistreat it yeah there was concern like with any brand new experiment but most of us Engineers we're quite confident that it would be safe and interesting and drivable George convinced the powers that be that having a fleet account I said giving them to people to use would really be a wonderful promotional thing for Chrysler you know how could you beat it Chrysler said well if we do this we want people to recognize the cars Gea and Italy did all their show car work we had a relationship and it was natural that Geo would build the bodies by the early 1960s Elwood Engel came over from the Ford Motor Company as our lead designer it was really his vision that became the 1963-64 turbine cars with our designers Charles Michigan was the guy that designed this car Charles worked for Elwood Engel Elwood Engel had to sign off on everything now the overall shape of the car that was a Thunderbird redone you can tell it does look like a T-Bird I wouldn't know the guy who had done the original Thunderbird had come to Chrysler by that time and this is one of the first projects that he was in charge of my first impression was it's a damn good looking car and I thought perfect for what they're going to use them for they picked a color turbine bronze that would stand out it's not terribly loud but it's distinctive and so when you see that color on a car it's a Chrysler turbine car this is no typical dream car it is deliberately designed to have current stunning appeal and usefulness it had a lot of turban cues in it it looks like it's powered by something other than a gas engine especially from the rear it looked like the rear of a fighter plane it's quite imposing that car has got the most beautiful rear bumper of any car on the road far none and that's just one item on the car you know there's so many other cool things about the car people see the tail lights and they think automatically oh that's the exhaust which it looks like it would be they think it is powered by a jet and they expect you know Flames out the back the biggest thing that people assumed was part of the jetpack that was the center console that tubular console that runs down the center most people will be oh that's got to be connecting something from the front to the rear and no you go look in the back and it there's an ashtray there they have that turbine Motif tucked everywhere on that car the bar that holds the rear view mirror to the windshield the hubcaps the bezels around the headlights all have got cooling fins they did style it to make it look space-age but it's not outlandish it's actually quite restrained for the late 50s and early 60s it has sort of a dignified Blue Book all vehicles were hand built in Italy they're all painted there and trimmed there they're doing very very slow building one at a time basically old world Craftsmen the bodies that came from Italy they're well over 250 000 in today's money so it was a huge investment and that was really kind of baked into the marketing budget to make this stand out the vehicles from Italy were shipped directly to the Greenfield playing for the installation of the turbine engine [Music] thank you there were seven generations created for the turbine the one that's used in the Gear cars is the fourth generation is each generation engine came along the fuel consumption improved quite dramatically in every one the original Power turbine had fixed nozzles that direct the stream into the turbine blades that limited Us in terms of what we could do with flexibility of the output the biggest leap in Turbo technology was with the fourth generation the variable geometry that this engine has that nozzle being able to change position essentially gives you an infinite selection of engines anything you did like that improve the efficiency how do you make it run it's still not melt the parts the more efficient it was this gets it up here a hydraulic actuator would reposition these nozzle veins depending on what you were doing if you had to accelerate to the floor they would go to the fixed position for max power take your foot all the way off the gas they actually would reverse the flow and try to drive the power trim in the other direction to give you some engine braking and every place in between there depending on what speed you were going and trying to go these nozzles would have a setting that took quite a lot of work but that gave us a big leg up on part load efficiency and versatility also the other engines had a big single regenerator on the top the fourth generation had dual regenerators on it they put the regenerators on either side that created more efficient engine had a lower height so it could go in the lower engine compartment as far as I know this is definitely the biggest build of test vehicles ever if we got a body there's nothing there but the body they're all bolted down to a big big box they came in pretty good shape and create the thing and wheel it over to our start of our little assembly line then we had to make it into a car the line wasn't that long we only hit about six stations or so we would build it and and test it and make all the engine adjustments that were relevant we would test them in the Southfield Freeway and we'd run them pretty fast and then we turn it over to the service people they'd drive it away they built 55 of the Gia turbines the first one that came over were the ones that ended up in the lab the Lab Rats one was bronze without a vinyl roof one of them was white with a white interior with bronze inserts there were actually only 47 that were being let out to use it because George hubner had one that was his personal car and two cars were assigned to the New York World's Fair you could get tickets like a ride in an amusement park stand in line and get a ride in the turbine car and you do a couple laps around this track they gave like 14 000 rides over two years and people I've heard have traveled hundreds of miles just to get to see those cars April 17 1964. I made my dad take me to that you know I'm we went and I had the turban car driving around in a pit my father's God's sake what the hell how long do I look at this car it's going in circles the hell can we walk around no papa want to watch what the hell you're watching it's a car going in circles my father just so Furious he just thought that was like the craziest thing he'd ever seen but it was just so different I mean the hit show was The Jetsons which was about the future meet George Jensen and here was a car ooh like the Jetson car and when you're 12 or 13 years old oh my God that's like the coolest thing in the world when you're driving this vehicle a couple things will pop out to you one is that the engine temperature is about 1400 degrees there's a temperature gauge up here which goes up to 2000 degrees you get up that high you burned up the engine it's got a really unique instrument cluster if you look at the tachometer basically it idles around 20 000 RPM and it red lines at 60 000 RPM this is all air filter housing you'd probably five times as much air through this engine as an equivalent person engine ignition switch is here this is the gear shift selector and you push it down to put it in part it has to be there for the engine to crank other than that it's no different than any other car just a plain old AM radio at least it has one too parking brake they were talking about names the typhoon was the name that was kicked around for a while in fact one of the prototypes this had typhoon on it but by the time I got there they had settled on turbine everybody knew it as the Chrysler turbine you can't have a Ford turbine now because it's recognized with us a new beginning in automotive power but also the start of the first public evaluation program under controlled test conditions ever attempted no automobile company has ever undertaken to place a new and revolutionary type of vehicle in the hands of motorists for the purpose of studying consumer reaction over a wide range of driving conditions it is another Chrysler first where we announced that we were going to have this user program it really peaked at people's interests the reaction of the public was simply overwhelming nearly 25 000 unsolicited requests for a turbine car it looks like from a marketing Viewpoint they were hoping to get the cars into the hands of people who would drive them be seen with them but not be seen in a way that would make them look bad they don't want the cars being raced crashed being drunk driven or anything like that General people all walks of life had these vehicles there was no socio-economic class we were looking at male female race gender it didn't matter as long as we had a broad section the temperature and the elevation mattered a lot so we were getting test data back on how the engine performed at high altitudes low humidity all those things were factored in and so it was really marketing and Engineering at its height the program itself was a huge public relationship first maybe a dozen deliveries or major press shows Lynn Townsend was into it up to his years he the first delivery he delivered the car you know we are now ready to introduce Mr and Mrs vlaja Bob's people would show up it was a high-class promotion [Music] my dad was user number 160. we knew that we were chosen to be a user back in February of 65 when I found out we were getting it I was alone no no so then just out of the blue I said is this about the turbine car anyway yes and he hung up and I just went ballistic cars were my life even before we got the Sherman car so for me it was like the utmost cool thing that could happen because I get to drive a turban car the Sunday before we got the car they ran an article in the paper there were two cars given out on the day we got ours you know of course the Press was all there they gave us the keys probably 10 times it was a big PR event each driver was given an orientation it was everything people expected of a car you've got you know two pedals you've got automatic transmission power steering power brakes they did have to put warning signs all over it not to put leaded fuel in the tank Chrysler said you can run on anything that burns as long as it's not leaded fuel lighted gasoline had tendency a coat the lead onto the wheel and then cause the blades to overheat and start to disintegrate most people at the time ran it on diesel my dad and I studied that engineering but they gave us we studied a history book we studied everything on the car that we could find it was exciting it made you the coolest dad on the Block if you were chosen for the program it was a celebrity and because it was a celebrity we became celebrity this is the fabulous Chrysler turbine car and this is Mr Alden Olson of the city of Duluth who has the use of this car for a three-month period you've got about a month left Mr Olson what kind of luck have you had with the car very good luck I've enjoyed it very much it's been fabulous car it was nothing like everybody's ever seen on the public roads before here's somebody driving they must be special the excitement was just phenomenal in fact they gave every employee the use of the vehicle for a week and I drove it in my neighborhood everybody went crazy I spoke to people who told me they were hiding the car because they wanted to have some alone time everywhere it went caused a commotion they got it right with us I think we were users that were good PR for the Chrysler and the car performed out in the mountain area how did it perform out there just like you haven't got a just like stepping on nothing it really takes off and goes that the hills didn't bother at one bit by the way they tell these families oh anybody in your family's license can drive it so if you send it to a guy his wife can drive it his 16 year old kid can drive it most of the time we travel I drive half of the way and he'd Drive half of the way so I put I figure between four and five thousand miles on our car to have had that car for a couple months when you're a kid just got your driver's license some other kids got a Corvette you've got a turbine car for a 16 year old kid it was a huge event we weren't really under a schedule because we knew every time we stopped for fuel it was going to be the same thing over and over again people would come out of the woodwork and say oh that's a turban car let's see the motor can we hear it start we never got tired of us on people just were impressed by the car the feel the sound acceleration because if you made a jump start that thing would snap your head back through the action of the variable nozzles the driver is assured the same control he can get and the best conventional passenger car foreign [Music] at a time when we prize differences highly the local Dodge dealer was our go-to if we had a problem we went to him he would contact the coordinator if somebody you know was in an accident or something broke straight to the dealership people like Bill Carey would go down and assess the situation [Music] Bill Carey was really important because when a vehicle was sent to a certain city bill would go to that dealership there and teach those mechanics how to keep these vehicles running my title was supervisor of turbine service I had an office in a big chart on the law 50 strings on it where all those 50 cars were at any minute six regional service reps who I trained and they took care of ninety percent of the stuff if it was something unusual that they had never run into then I would go the telephone to ring at two o'clock in the morning and somebody say out in California uh you know one of the cars was acting up and I'd have to get out of bed to go I did a lot of a lot of travel the thing was to get the car back on the road as fast as we possibly could to minimize the downtime I love tinkering with the damn things you know we learned the areas where problems could occur and they did occur there was definitely a learning curve and mostly it was the startup procedure The Scouting procedure wasn't well thought out didn't anticipate people doing bad things to it you give the vehicle to 200 people and people are people they were so excited they would shift it into gear before it was up to idle and in many cases the engine over temperature they toasted a couple of engines every car had at least one engine replacement some of many you know there was a stock of engines ready to go crated you could swap it back out relatively easy it happened often enough that a pair of us could change an engine in an hour the last 10 cars had a totally modified starting electronic control system and sequence so that you couldn't do that and that's how all projects get evolved you learn by your mistakes people would have them for 90 days somebody in the field whether Bill carrier somebody else checked the engine over but then let's go to the next person's hands and let's get more data more feedback and more PR [Music] so I'm 200 families across the country will drive the car free of charge for a period of three months and report to Chrysler on their own reactions the kind of Market evaluation which as far as we've been able to determine is entirely new to the automobile industry [Music] one thing is certain with a two-year public test program off and running the Chrysler Corporation turbine car will be in the public press and in the public mind almost continuously [Music] so much free publicity Chrysler got in the 60s and 70s I mean don't forget this thing starred in a movie but I made up my mind and then I met the level is said I don't know how they pulled it off but George Jr apparently got somebody in Hollywood to get on board with the idea that you guys need to make a car movie The Teenagers will dig and we'll put a turbine car in and there's like a five minute commercial in the middle of this movie say this is going to replace the piston engine now coming in under our camera and fifth position is Casey Owens turban car this is a revolutionary machine a concept which may one day shake up the entire automobile industry George Thatcher was the guy that drove the car judge was the mechanic in the research lab and a very competent guy he spent six months out in California in a movie set with that car [Music] the turbine engine will be the coming thing as the result of your big win today I sure hope so Casey what are your plans can you tell us about them I'm giving up auto racing what do you plan to do I'm going back to school Michigan Tech Center [Music] The other thing that Chrysler did was they took these cars on college tours at Michigan Tech or at Harvard and they'd show off the turbine car to try to get students to say hey look you want a high-tech job as an engineer come work for Chrysler look what we're doing [Music] really the whole company became on board with the Turman program and getting these things out taking them to shopping malls and dealerships getting thousands and thousands of people through them now the main exhibit of course features the turban car but current model displays get equal prominence it was a halo car people went to the Chrysler dealership to see the turbine car and they bought the Dodge Coronet or they bought the Chrysler or the Valiant or the Imperial whatever it might be [Music] looking at some of the sales figures Chrysler had a pretty good couple of years after that and they owed that to the interest of the turbine car [Music] other companies and groups working on Urban Development said we're not going to get the recognition they're getting we're not going to get the Press Ford eventually dropped their program and so did GM [Music] industry-wide it became Chrysler's doing this nobody's catching up there was no doubt that Chrysler was the turbine company [Music] we had three months of fantastic time in our life the summer that we had the car they had a slot car track in Duluth everybody knew me that the slot car track because I was a guy that had the turbine slot car we probably put close to 13 and a half or fourteen thousand miles on it I think we were the biggest user [Music] you know we figured okay if we're going to count this thing we're going to drive it so we drove it [Music] I would go out in the garage many nights a week after my dad came home turned the key on and just look at the script on the data set electroluminescent lighting was just so beautiful three months later that was it boom it's gone we're just the average Joe citizens again you know we were given an opportunity to show people something that they've never seen before that's a beautiful thing for me personally it made a big difference in my life I was kind of a loner and I didn't like sports I liked cars so I was kind of the geek of the day and I changed after being with the turban program I was more outgoing I had more confidence my dad was a very pupil person and I became a people person after using the car for the three months so yeah it changed my life overwhelming sentiment that I heard from people who drove these cars was I would have loved to keep the car if I could [Music] they lent the cars to 203 different families who logged over a million miles [Music] [Applause] [Music] these people were actually part of the engineering program whether they knew it or now they were accumulating miles they were giving their feedback [Music] about a week later two guys from Chrysler came to our house they wanted us to know what was really happening with the cars when they're out in the real world there was a summary put together with all the data comments from the owners generally speaking the people who had the cars loved them they were getting unsolicited offers from public saying I will buy one of those cars I don't care what the price is it's extremely positive they liked the fact that on cold mornings you didn't need to wait for the heater to warm up which back then could be a while we had 1200 degrees available to us to put through a heat exchanger it was almost instant defrosting on a car in cold weather one of the things that they learned from a lot of the customers is that about 60 liked the noise a lot of people did not they thought it was annoying and irritating we think it's classic at this time and it's part of the personality of the vehicle that was you know wow I'm different I'm driving through my neighborhood and everybody knows I'm ready something Chrysler proved they can make a jet-powered car foolproof enough to where the average American can drive it without destroying it that's what's remarkable about it now we've got 55 cars here in Detroit the program's over we can't keep all these vehicles and we can't just sell these cars because we couldn't have it on a used car lot rusting out somewhere not being taken care of Corporation didn't want them ending up in people's hands with hemis in them and this kind of stuff that would diminish the reputation of the program it was just they wanted to keep it pure and that's typical of the automobile industry it's a Chrysler contacted museums around the country and said if you guys want one of these cars in your Museum we'll let you have it at the time it was still warm for being used it was a new car who puts a new car in a museum I think they were disappointed the social museums took up the offer the cars got shipped out to the museums that accepted them the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles got one which they often will end the Peterson Museum one went to Harrah's in Nevada one went to Smithsonian one went to St Louis Museum of Transportation one went the Detroit Historical Society and one went to the Henry Ford in the past all of their show cars had either gone into their own archives into museums or they would destroy them and that's a common thing believe it or not that car companies do with prototypes so six cars went to museums Chrysler kept three and the others were destroyed those cars were taken to a scrap yard in Romulus Michigan in the shadow of Detroit Metro Airport the saddest part of this program was I spent an entire day watching them pick them up take them pickaxe alcohol in the field tank let the fuel run all over the ground underneath the car set it back down and set fire to it [Music] you watch it all burn up and then pick it up in the pile and crush it you accept things and you do what you got to do but it was tough I didn't I didn't enjoy that day I mean we've been out there showing it off and suddenly it comes home and we've got to dispose of town it was hard on a lot of people a lot of Engineers a lot of people involved in the program but it's kind of cost of doing business in the Auto World [Music] it was a sad day when they crunched all of the cars that's got to be one of the most painful things for me to watch because I know one of them is our car but you know that's the reason why corporations do exactly that the company was looking at the liability aspect number one this is called Haunted capitalism here it's just a matter of business you can't sell something ahead of its time in its time it's just not going to work the program went on after the 60s it stopped being a promotional gimmick it became serious engineering all the way but there was definitely a changing attitude towards what people wanted out of a car the novelty of the turbine car the newness the jet age was really being replaced by speed and power the muscle car new leader of the Dodge Rebellion muscle enough to catch anything on the road there were still versions test beds test Vehicles put out there running you know most of the engines went into Dodge vehicles coronets Aspens and then a Chrysler Baron the engines that came after this the guys have much better performance I mean they really would move in the 1970s the EPA came around looking for people to bid on alternative power sources for cars so for six years we worked under a government contract and that's when we got introduced to government terms reports meetings it was another world and we didn't like it but we did it because it was the only way out I was on the gas turbine program from 1952 until it ended in 1981. at one time Lynn Townsend credited the Chrysler turbine 50 car program with being one of the things that pulled Chrysler back out of its ups and downs so we were pleased with that but eventually the facts caught up with us I'll tell you the the cost we never ever could get it down to any reasonable level for the New York City comparison it was like 300 or something this was always more a lot more so this went back and forth back and forth and I I never saw anything that was anywhere near a uh equal level with a Epiphany possibly make it worthwhile if you were all sudden getting 40 50 60 miles a gallon but it really it was still getting close to when you get in a 318 engine and then the emissions were not ever reached with the hopes that we could have them to me it was a gradual understanding of the Hill that we were trying to climb and probably weren't going to get to the top it was a difficult time foreign the company just couldn't see that type of investment to go forward if you look at the automotive turbine from Chrysler you'd say well that's a program it started here and ended here but not really because the technology and what they learned from it did carry through into other things all these years they worked on this it didn't work for a general public but that engine does work on a limited basis for a government project a lot of the work we did was instrumental in developing the M1 Abrams tank the main battle tank that the US Army uses is powered by a huge turbine engine that was developed by guys who worked on this program [Music] they had quite a few running engines after the program St Louis took their display engine put it in their car got theirs running so St Louis Cards does run there was a time where Chrysler had three running turbine cars heras sold their car and Tom Monahan bought it Tom Monahan had the car for a little while but it was not running and it was bought by a guy named Frank kletz who's a well-known car collector in Indiana and Frank kleps had the car in his collection for a while somewhere along the line he was talking to Jay Leno Jay said that's a really cool car he got there too bad it doesn't run and Jay was friends with Bob Lutz at Chrysler at the time I called Bob bletz and I said I got a friend with a Chrysler terrific now we got an extra engine take it she gave me I gave her the clips Frank got the car running with that engine and Frank clapped at a running turbine car and then I got a turban card yeah yeah and Chrysler was entering bankruptcy I just called the bank and I said I'll give you this much money really it's one of those I wasn't looking at it as a future investment I I just liked it I thought it was fascinating Bankers they didn't look at them as kinetic artwork or or pieces of Americana or it was just an old car you really want to pay this for that yeah oh okay so now Jay Leno's got a turban car also Frank kleps unfortunately passed away his son got the collection and then his son sold off the collection when it was announced that the car was being sold it just blew up the automobile world with people you know saying oh my God drop what you're doing there's a turban for sale his car was purchased by the Stahl Museum in Michigan [Music] Ted and Mary Stahl are the founders of stahl's Automotive Foundation Ted had sent me an email with about seven cars in it the turban was on the top of the list and I don't even remember what the other cars were to our surprise he sent back and said we got it so we were very excited about that it's our mission is mainly to educate young people and help develop a passion for these cars like we all have we set up the cars in a somewhat chronological order so that you can basically walk through time it's an experience that you will not forget you have to come here and see it and hear it to believe it because we also have our automated musical instruments we have a world that's your theater organ that plays throughout people don't expect that when they come here [Music] the Chrysler turbine draws such a crowd people come here just to see that car and we'd just love to share it to expose the stories about the car and the turbine program to the average public it's just it's a it's an honor when we first purchased the car bill Carey called me and basically said don't start the car until I get there I know how to treat them and I will show you how to treat them right I spend as much time as I can around them I mean I it's like my own kid you know he's really been an educator of the tournament program for the last 50 years so we have people that know how to work on these cars and keep them running for the Next Generation the next bill Carey is our first line of defense he came out here and started at the car Force showed us what to do what not to do we run it on Aviation kerosene once you get behind the wheel being able to hear the car and see it operate it's a once in a lifetime opportunity probably will be one of the highlights in my career the driver immediately senses an absence of engine vibration and a cockpit feel that is accentuated by the aircraft type instrumentation and the console control station the teenager of tomorrow may someday impress his girlfriend by laying down 25 feet of vapor [Music] he drove mine a lot drove it to The Tonight Show [Music] I use it all the time I use it as a regular car until I melted it down [Music] with a Turman engine your toaster regenerator your toaster wheel you just don't make another one right off the bat because the tooling no longer exists pick up the phone and I hear Jay Leno's voice on the other side and I I literally thought I was being pranked by somebody and so I called my brother I go Steve Jay's on the phone he left me a message something about his energy oh yeah I forgot to tell you he toasted his attention he needs your help bad and I called him back and uh that's when he started telling me what had happened well right now the engine is apart because you don't understand I've got Parts laying all over my shop I just called BS on him I go you don't have Parts laying all over your shop because I do so he started snapping pictures and he showed me the turban and all the blades are burned off I go that's no problem we make those all day long it's just a different configuration we can do that and then he showed me a picture of the regenerator core with the big chunks missing and everything and I went whoa that's serious right there that is the hard part it is a masterpiece of manufacturing I'm just totally amazed at how they put that together I helped Rick tear into the one that got destroyed and we were trying to theorize how they raised it together it's mostly a lost art [Music] thank you [Music] documentation does not exist on the engine because the company the close of the program told us that we had to destroy all of the parts and drawings foreign [Music] we had taken the project on and it was astronomical but it's doable I love a project like that [Music] I was all about working on old stuff you always learn something and you realize some of the problem solving they figured out the simplest and most elegant way to accomplish the goal whereas with some of the newer technology they might be able to figure out a way to do what they wanted to do but it's not always as simple and robust [Music] oh there's millions of dollars worth of Machinery here Space Age the latest greatest Cutting Edge stuff and it's all available to the Project Blue Jay team [Music] so now we've got guys working on a volunteer basis to help us rebuild this crisis termination so I'm very excited about this project it's pretty cool they're trying to do it they're all doing it with volunteer Health at Williams people stay on they have to work our engine technicians we've got some of the best in the world working at Williams International but when you're taking apart an antique turbine engine it's a little different than taking apart what we're used to nowadays the design and build Parts when you don't have any drawings no specifications no nothing is Pretty Tough Rick gave me a call and said they was going to put together this voluntary group and the first thing that I did was reach out to the other 20 or 30 some odd people who I have contact with and told them here's a project are you interested in getting involved the relief to have a guy from Chrysler and I went okay this is starting to come into Focus we can do this you know and then he goes and I got a couple other guys too we want to help we want to volunteer too we just want to help save one of these things and I was just like wow and then you find out who they are I mean Jerry he's the test cell guy he built the engine he knew all about it Bill Carey he's on the cover of my brother's book you know he's the guy who went out and fixed them in the field and you go okay that's pretty good right there you can't get much better than that then you get into the project you realize the regenerator cores are the hardest part of the whole thing and then all of a sudden Ted pops up and I go Ted what did you do back in the project because I built 80 to 90 percent of all the regenerator course and I just went welcome to the team [Music] everybody's little notebook on how they accomplished things died with them or got the story yeah and that's too bad a lot of good stuff got got lost so basically I'm here working from memory and what little personal notes I'm in as a put together but it's been some 60 years Jerry when he comes in here he can answer questions that I wouldn't have thought of even asking and they're all right off top of his head still I fully respect those guys because I see how difficult it is for us to reproduce some of these parts with all the latest greatest technology we have now and you go how did they even do this back then they didn't have computers they had slide rules they did it with paper and pencil for them to be able to create this back in 1953 in the car that we're talking about is 63 is just amazing they've got Machinery that I drool to have back then back in the 60s yeah and they're doing great things and it if anybody is going to restore this I think they have the best bet because of their background number one and they've got to go attitude organization you know everybody is money well [Music] they get to work on something that they had a passion for back then they worked there for decades on this project the rug got yanked out from underneath them and all of a sudden it's boom right up front and center again I mean they never would have dreamed that something like this would have happened I think it's great faith has some funny things yes yeah yeah well I just hope they can gain enough experience and get it up and running before we die [Music] we are going to get this thing running again we'll have the engine running on the test stand first make sure it's all broken in then we'll put in the car we'll do a break-in period in there and after that Jay's got to start giving rides it's important to preserve stuff like this you know there's so few of these left if you just let one go at a time it doesn't take very long before there's none that are working anymore [Music] it's really important to this car be documented so that future Generations understand the amount of time the amount of passion that was going into making these vehicles work to me it shows the people what can be done if you apply yourself and stick to it you an accomplishment you know you human creativity that is there it is there's an example of it not that long ago the guy sent me an email and he said your dad let me drive that car and I've never forgotten it you know another kind of thing touched my heart so many people have their memories about it and it just stirs up such a positive emotion you want to get around one now uh I miss him yeah I had a love for that car I mean that's an awful strong word but I actually love that car people back in the 60s related to the tournament program and I think that relationship deserves to be preserved a remarkable new means of automotive power a striking example of Chryslers engineering leadership Chrysler as a company we should be very proud of where our forefathers were going in the work that they did George hubner was an engineer and I've jokingly called him a showman he's actually a dreamer you went back to 1953 and 54 and you saw the guys shoehorning the first one into a car you'd never imagine it would get as far as it did in the length of time that it did foreign I wish everybody could talk to the guys that put their heart and soul into these vehicles the people that I met and worked with they were really quite a product the group was creative as hell and fun loving every day was a challenge every day was something different it was a little bit of engineering a lot of research some black magic and hard sweat I want to thank everybody that I worked with that are both alive and or passed on we'll meet up in a big turban sky [Music] even though the turbine car might look like it was a dead end of some sort I don't think it was nobody else tried to do anything quite as radical as this so I think it's good to acknowledge trying it shows the Ingenuity of a group of people who took something from a seed of a wartime aircraft and tried to put it into the American economy as a viable product the fact that it didn't quite get there is still important [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Hagerty Drivers Foundation

Views: 985,488

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Id: fOIrB1fwVPc

Length: 70min 9sec (4209 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 29 2023