Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared on Hot Rod. Visit HotRod.com for more stories like this one.
Why buy another junkyard LS when this seventh-generation Chrysler turbine engine is available on eBay? After the venerable 1963 Chrysler Turbine, Chrysler developed their turbine engine well into the late 1970s, revising the gas turbine into a more responsive, fuel efficient, and production-ready package.
This gas turbine engine appears to be a seventh-generation Chrysler turbine engine, produced around 1977 until 1983, when the Chrysler turbine program was killed off. These later units were production-intent, and featured in the 1977 LeBaron Turbine coupe concept (with soft Corinthian leather!), and in several plain clothes, mid-sized Chrysler sedans. The seventh-generation engines produced around 125 hp, and saw fuel economy in the mid-20s in EPA testing.
The seller claims that just seven of these last-generation engines were built, with three of them going into test cars like the LeBaron. The seller suspects this particular unit was a test engine, and it still has test leads stemming from what appear to be temperature probes across the various chambers and turbine sections. As of this writing, the current auction price is at $9,100. Currently, the engine is in Southfield, Michigan.
Turbine engines work much like jet engines (which are also called turbojets). Basically, fuel and air is burned in a combustion chamber, spinning an exhaust-side turbine wheel, which is coupled to a compressor wheel on a common shaft, much like in a turbocharger. When fuel and air are burned in the combustion chamber, the exhaust turbine is spun by the “thrust,” which spins the compressor, forcing more into the intake, and repeating the process. However, unlike a turbojet, the “thrust” created is not what actually drives the car. A separate turbine is placed inline in the exhaust side, which is spun by the “thrust” created by the exhaust gasses. This second turbine wheel’s rotation is routed through a gear-reduction box, before reaching the output shaft and accessory drive ahead of the transmission.
Despite the wild promises of early turbine cars, there were a few issues preventing them from dropping into dealerships in the 1980s. Small items, like start up time, throttle response, and fuel efficiency were being polished up for production, but many of same EPA regulations that killed off the muscle car era were also the noose for gas turbines. Emissions were quite high compared to a gas engine, especially at low rpm and idle speeds, and when Lee Iacocca of Chrysler came to the U.S. government in 1979, asking for $1.5-billion, the government made cancelling the gas turbine development a condition of the loan.
Iacocca took the loan, and nailed the turbine in its coffin with tax payer dollars, ending decades of development. Simply put, Chrysler, along with the U.S. government, quickly decided to end the cost-prohibitive development and future production plans in order to pull the company out of dire straits. The result, for the record, was the K-Car platform – the antithesis of everything that the turbine car program represented – a low-tech, soulless, cheap implement of mass production.
Despite the anti-climactic demise of the program in 1983, the seventh-generation turbine engine benefited from about 20 years of rapid development. Earlier in the 1970s, the EPA had been working closely with Chrysler to solve many of the emissions and drivability issues, developing water injection systems, variable geometry compressor inlets, and using ceramic materials in the regenerator wheels. In EPA testing, the sixth- and seventh-generation turbine engines were able to return 22-25 mpg in testing.
When Chrysler began experimenting with gasoline turbine engines in automobiles in the late-1950s, America was just cresting the height of the jet age. Turbojets and turbines began to promise the future of power generation: lightweight, power dense, low maintenance, and low vibration. Plus, it could burn practically any liquid fuel, such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, kerosene, and even good ol’ tequila.
Largely, gas turbine engines lived up to those expectations, and Chrysler’s popular turbine car program gave the public a taste of the future, with the “beta” drivers logging over 1-million miles with little drama. Other manufacturers, including General Motors, Ford, Rover, Volkswagen, Fiat, Toyota, and even Nissan, experimented in gas turbines in an array of applications that stretched from long-distance truck driving to the banks of Indianapolis. To learn more about the history of the gas turbine engine in production and racing, check out “Turbine Cars: Past, Present, and Future.”
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