The Jet Age Dream on Wheels
Back in the early 1960s, Chrysler believed it had a ticket to the future: a car powered by a jet engine you could drive to the grocery store. Officially called the Chrysler Turbine Car, it was sleek, copper-colored, and built like space-age sculpture. The turbine engine didn’t need gasoline. It could run on diesel, kerosene, heating oil, tequila, or even Chanel No. 5 if you were glamorous and rich enough to waste perfume on commuting.
On paper, it had everything. No radiators to boil over. Fewer moving parts than a piston engine. A sound like a jet plane spooling up on your driveway. Chrysler handed out 50 of them to regular American families in 1963 and said, “Try this.”
The Problem That Wouldn’t Go Away
But for all its sci-fi promise, life with a turbine car wasn’t perfect. Acceleration was smooth but sluggish compared to a V8. Fuel economy wasn’t great. The engines ran hot, which gave city traffic a roasting. The exhaust could melt the bumper of the poor Chevy behind you at a stoplight. And there was that airplane-like whine, which drivers loved or hated with no middle ground.
The biggest hurdle wasn’t heat or noise, though—it was politics. Import tariffs made turbine engines expensive to produce in the U.S. On top of that, Chrysler was worried about competitors getting their hands on the tech. When the pilot program wrapped up, the company decided almost none of the 55 cars built should survive.
Why Chrysler Crushed Them
Chrysler had built 55 examples of the Turbine Car. Five were engineering mules, 50 went into the test program. After three years on loan, those cars came back. Of the 50, Chrysler quietly destroyed 46 with a crusher. Only nine escaped. The official explanation was cost. Each car would have needed extensive maintenance to keep running without factory support, and the government would have levied customs duties if the engines were considered imports. But behind that, it was also about keeping the tech secret. Better that the cars vanish than have GM, Ford, or even a clever backyard mechanic pull one apart.
The survivors were given to museums and a couple of lucky institutions. That’s how a piece of jet-age Americana stayed alive.
Where You Can See Them Today
Nine Turbine Cars lived on, and you can still find most of them:
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Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.) – Safely tucked in the national collection.
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Henry Ford Museum (Dearborn, Michigan) – Sitting among the icons that changed American roads.
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St. Louis Museum of Transportation (Missouri) – A favorite with turbine die-hards.
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Peterson Automotive Museum (Los Angeles) – Often displayed in rotating exhibits.
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Walter P. Chrysler Museum collection (Michigan) – Now under Stellantis, sometimes loaned to events.
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Private hands – A few ended up with collectors, including Jay Leno, who famously keeps his in running order.
Some are runners, others are static. Leno’s is one of the few you might actually see driving. When it fires up, it spools like a Learjet strapped to four wheels.
The Legacy That Never Took Off
Chrysler kept tinkering with turbines through the ’70s, but emissions laws, fuel crises, and budgets killed the program. By then, piston engines were cleaner, cheaper, and already everywhere. The turbine dream fizzled, and most of the copper cars were lost to scrap.
The Chrysler Turbine wasn’t perfect, but it was wild, brave, and unlike anything before or since.