turbine engined chargers that never were..

[Brock Samson]

  "Plans to market 500 1966 Dodge Chargers with turbine engines were scrapped, as impending smog regulations would've made it tough for the turbine to meet nitrogen oxide emissions."

from this article:
http://www.motortrend.com/classic/features/c12_0603_1964_chrysler_turbine_car/interior_exterior.html

[mikepmcs]

smog regs in 64??

[Brock Samson]

if you have any references to the charger turbines I would be MOST interested in what you have found! 


http://www.turbinecar.com/MPSmith/mpsmith2.htm

[Brock Samson]

more of the mock up 1965... the charger was ready by then though with the conventional powertrains.

[Brock Samson]

So, what about the turbine?

The man who probably knows more about automotive turbines than anyone in the world is George J. Huebner Jr., research director for Chrysler Corporation and a turbine buff since he began tinkering with its development in 1939.

"Those test cars were powered by the fourth generation engine' says Huebner. "Before the driving program ended, a fifth engine had been developed and we had started work on the sixth design to be used for research purposes only."

"It was about that time that ecology, a word then relatively unfamiliar to the public, began to rival the Vietnam War for page one attention. California, particularly, took legislative steps to clean up its atmosphere.

"It quickly became apparent that we were up against a situation that would require everything we could throw at it:' Huebner continued. "That was the prob1cm of oxides of nitrogen (NOx), a major component of Los Angeles smog. It was a case of all hands to the pump to check NOx emissions on the conventional piston engine. Experts in this area were hard to come by and our most able engineers were in the turbine project. They moved over and explored catalysts and exhaust manifold reactor systems to reduce chemical emissions on our internal combustion engines. meanwhile, turbine work stopped except for some experiments with its combustion and metallurgy."

So, Mrs. Vlaha, that's what happened to the turbine car."


from this article from the early '70s..
http://www.turbinecar.com/76huebner.htm

[Brock Samson]

another interesting link..

http://www.turbinecar.com/Engel.htm

[Red Ram]

That's why we have full length consoles...to protect us 66 drivers  from the turbine heat!

[The70RT]

I see T-Bird Turd written all over it

[Red Ram]

I think it is the same guy who designed that style of T-Bird...?

[Brock Samson]

http://www.turbinecharger.com/?id=info

[Ghoste]

Elwood Engel is the guy you're thinking of but I'm not sure how much he had to do with the Charger.  I think that was pretty much Carl Camerons baby wasn't it?  Engel was Cameron's boss of course and the Charger was supposed to compete with the T-bird and Riviera in the beginning so some similiarities would be expected.

[Brock Samson]

 i also found this quote in Hemmings Nov. 2006 Issue in an article by Mike McNessor page 88 in the article: Turbine Car Tribute.

"The next step was a plan to build 500 turbine-powered cars, using a design that eventually became the 1966 Dodge Charger, as an on ramp to production, but an increasingly strict goverment pollution regulations forced Chrysler to concentrate on making it's bread and butter  piston engine compliant, thus the firey turbine was put on the back burner."


And so they built five generations of turbines but none was ever in a Charger.
too bad, so i guess we got catalictic converters instead. 
so there's another good reason to hate treehuggers, they nixed the jet engined Charger! 

[Charger_Fan]

I've got a DVD that a friend gave me of someone driving a turbine car. It sure sounds trippy when it's running.

[road/track]

Okay,
this is not recommended for the faint-hearted
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKumqcKuv1g&NR

[mikepmcs]

  

[Brock Samson]

They had it up to 150-200 approx h.p. with a sound everyone wondered at! was very light and hot right now too.    they didn'y come with A/C .           
yep it's a cryin shame..

Charger came thru alright though... 

[cheap]

I am surprised that they didnt keep some for nostalgia purposes,,, to remember what was...........

[Brock Samson]

there's three left i think, one is on display at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum if the Gerrman's haven't crushed it yet... 

[Ghoste]

The 50 turbine Darts were all made overseas and to have kept them would have incurred enormous duty costs.  Most of them were crushed as they had outlived their usefulness and the money Chrysler would have spent on keeping them was earmarked for more important developments like Race Hemis and Charger Daytonas.  (okay, so I made that last part up, but no one can prove the money wasn't used for those)

[greatwn73]

There's one at the Henry Ford Museum.

[Ghoste]

There is another one at one of the other Detroit Museums and there is one in a private collection.  I think there are actually five left altogether.

[Brock Samson]

  I've discovered a reference to a 1966 Turbine powered Charger here...   


  "Yet even as the Turbine Cars were being passed around, Chrysler was moving ahead, testing a fifth-generation engine (A-875) in a 1964 Plymouth. But that would prove short-lived, for a sixth-generation design was ready by 1966.


Fitted to a Dodge Charger fastback and Coronet 500 hardtop, this offered improved engine braking, plus a novel split accessory drive by which ancillaries like the power steering pump were driven directly from the power turbine; the compressor turbine continued running the fuel pump and other engine-related systems.

Chrysler had actually planned to build 500 turbine-powered Coronets for retail sale, but nixed the idea because of imminent new government emissions standards. Still, that one 1966 hardtop hung around Chrysler Engineering until 1972, when the turbine tale took a somewhat surprising turn."


   contained in this article..
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/chrysler-turbine-concept-cars3.htm

[moparstuart]

here is one that runs and drives , at the transportation museum in st louis . The body was designed by ghia the italian coach builder, so was the t-birds of that era. Thats why they look so much alike . 

[Brock Samson]

yes it's been stated several times...

"There was a big change at Chrysler Corporation in 1961 first, "Tex" Colbert was replaced with Lynn Townsend as President and Virgil Exner was outcast and Elwood P. Engel came from Ford to take over the V.P. of design for cars at Chrysler.  The 1962 and 1963 cars were started by Exner and modified by Engel – they were the biggest design flops in Chrysler's styling history.  Some blame Engel for removing the fins from the Exner design but let's face it – they were not very good looking cars – I speak as one who defended a 1962 Plymouth Fury (my first car) as being good looking and I knew it was ugly.

While at Ford, Engel was responsible for the 1961 Lincoln and liked the "Chiseled" look with sharp creases.  The fact that that look is not seen on the Turbine car suggests that there may have been other design considerations which made it look more like the Thunderbird.  We see Engel had complete design authority when we get to the 1965 full sized cars that had a lot of creases and looked very "Chiseled".  He also designed the 1964 Imperial (separate company from Chrysler then) as one of the best looking "Imps" ever."
So yes, Engel also was responsible for the Lincoln Continental which is why it looks like the Chysler Imp...

My point is that the Charger was originally designed to be TURBINE POWERED and there are a great many clues
but today was the first time i found reference to a Sixth generation turbine being actually installed in a 1966 Charger Body, so forget your /6s, your mod top Daytonas, your stick shifts with A/C,.. this has to be the absolute

Holy Grail of Chargers...

[SFRT]

butt ugly and 200 hp? no wonder they trashed em all.