UselessThe Chrysler Turbine Car · USA, 1963–1966
In 1963 Chrysler started lending gas-turbine cars to ordinary American drivers, free, for up to three months each. They ran on almost anything. Then most of them were destroyed.
Chrysler built 55 metallic bronze two-door hardtops powered by gas turbines, with bodies hand-built in Italy by Ghia. Five were prototypes; the other 50 were identical.
Instead of selling them, Chrysler lent them out. Users had a car for up to three months, paid only for fuel, kept it in good order and reported back.
Chrysler announced the plan on 14 May 1963. Within six weeks 30,000 people had written in asking to take part, and 203 drivers were chosen, 23 of them women.
The public programme ran from 29 October 1963 to January 1966. The 203 drivers lived in 133 cities and between them drove more than a million miles.
It went better than you might expect. No user had a major problem: no explosions, nothing burnt or singed, nobody stranded. At the end, most volunteers said they would buy a turbine car at a competitive price.
When the loans ended, Chrysler kept three cars, deactivated six for museums and sent the rest to a Detroit scrapyard; 46 were destroyed. Why is still argued over: import duty, say some, while Chrysler’s historian says it simply didn’t want prototypes on the road. The factual site’s tall tales page has the rest, Chanel No. 5 included.
The drivers loved the smoothness and the low maintenance. Their grumbles were about fuel mileage and sluggish acceleration, and turbines are slow to spool up and thirstiest at low and varying speeds, which, in Useless’s view, describes most family motoring.
It was also hugely expensive. George Huebner, Chrysler’s chief engineer of research, put each car at $50,000 to $55,000, and Chrysler’s historian Brandt Rosenbusch says the engine alone cost $10,000 or more to make, when a mid-range car cost about $3,000. Gearing up a plant for 100,000 a year, he says, simply wasn’t realistic.
The Smithsonian names poor fuel efficiency, high emissions and a peculiar lag when accelerating as what killed its chances of mass production.
Chrysler didn’t give up. Production plans lasted into 1973 and 1974, until the money ran out, and it kept going through seven generations of turbine. The last two cars were a 1978 LeBaron and a 1981 Dodge Mirada.
Stahls says the programme ended in 1979, largely over emissions rules and poor fuel economy, and as a condition of a government loan. The know-how found a home in the M1 Abrams tank, originally designed by Chrysler.
Of the nine survivors, Jay Leno bought one of Chrysler’s own in 2009. To show off the lack of vibration he has stood a glass of water on the engine cover; it barely ripples.
The department’s view: lending cars to the public was a brilliant way to find out what people really thought, and they told Chrysler plainly: lovely, smooth and thirsty.
Chrysler lent people a car for three months and asked for a report. Someone once lent me a stapler. I’m still working on the report.
— Useless, acting head of the Oops Department
This file is a short companion. The full, sourced history, with pictures, diagrams and every reference, is on its factual home:
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Checked 10 November 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell REALLYBYTE.