The Chrysler Turbine Car
The 1963 Chrysler Turbine Car was a child of its time, when the motto was " higher, faster, further! ".
After all, at roughly the same time, even the youngest children were enthusiastically watching the British science fiction series "Thunderbirds" and NASA still had the status of a modern technology religion.
As the smallest of Detroit's “Big Three,” Chrysler lagged behind GM and Ford at the time, as they were significantly more modern and offered a crisp, appealing portfolio. So there was some catching up to do in Auburn Hills, and that's how the idea was born to take an unusual step: a car with a gas turbine engine that was extremely smooth-running, produced fewer emissions overall (apart from the NOx emissions of a small town) and was also an omnivore on the road.
Whether gasoline, diesel, kerosene, or turpentine: the turbine could be operated with any flammable liquid!
Adolfo López Mateos, the then-President of Mexico, even drove one of the first cars that ran on tequila !
A small series of 50 “production” vehicles plus five prototypes was produced, which were distributed to “real” customers at the end of 1963 for testing purposes in everyday use. The bodies were built according to the design of Chrysler's design department under Elwood Engel at Ghia in Italy, before being married with the futuristic powertrain in the USA. The technology was so unusual that the design had to be just as breathtaking. A spectacular appearance in a dreamlike, groundbreaking design. Chrysler's accompanying media presence at the time was just as successful as Elon Musk's recent Tesla Cyber-Truck ...
After hundreds of thousands of test miles, and following consultation with volunteer testers, the conclusion was reached that this car was unsaleable due to the turbine's long start-up time, operational problems in fluctuating ambient temperatures, exorbitant fuel consumption, and the noise level of a vacuum cleaner. The idea was quickly abandoned. With the exception of a few examples, all Turbine Cars were scrapped. Incidentally, the American late-night talk show host and legendary car collector Jay Leno owns one of the few surviving examples.
Although the car is still considered a milestone in automotive technology and design history, it never went into mass production due to a lack of everyday usability and therefore never received a mass-market successor.
​
What does all this have to do with electric mobility and synthetic fuels?
​
On the one hand, the turbine could actually be operated with XtL fuel without any problems, which would give the Turbine Car a significantly improved carbon footprint, posthumously speaking. On the other hand—and this is the real point—the Turbine Car shows how innovation works: an idea is put into practice, tested, and then either pursued further or discarded. In this respect, Chrysler did everything right by making the cool design of the future visible, but not pursuing the technology further.
​
The Turbine Car is the blueprint of how realism prevents one from losing sight of strategy when the practicality of a concept does not deliver what was promised. This applies to pricing, everyday usability, and the actual climate and environmental protection aspects. The few advantages, such as quiet operation, are cannibalized by losses elsewhere.
​
A similar approach is the push to establish electric mobility as a stand-alone alternative to the combustion engine in the market without also considering other technical solutions or treating the existing potential of combustion engines equally.
​
Today, e-mobility is significantly more established and advanced than the development of the turbine car was at the time. However, this does not automatically mean that, from a global perspective, it is the only drive solution that offers effective benefits for widespread defossilization.
It is never too late to turn to pragmatic, technology-neutral action. After all, transport and traffic, like all other applications, must be geared towards sustainability in the future.
However, sustainability has three pillars:
ecological, economic, and social. Only the triad of all these factors creates the basis for a functioning, sustainable solution.
​​​​