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Old 08-21-2013, 08:01 PM
egrand egrand is offline
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Jay Leno's 63 Chrysler Turbine Car

http://youtu.be/b2A5ijU3Ivs

Jay Leno probably has the best automobile collection on the planet right now. For the last couple of years he has been doing videos about particular cars in his collection and putting them on his website. Now he's doing new ones and putting them on youtube.

This is on the 1963 Chrysler Turbine car. When Chrysler was going into bankruptcy in 2009; Leno privately, and for an undisclosed amount of money, bought one of three cars from the company's collection.

I have read the book Leno talks about in the video. It's an easy read and talks about the many years and loads of money Chrysler spent on the broader turbine project. Out of all of that, the company only sold one car..to Jay Leno.

This is the website for Mark Olson, who Leno talks about in the video. It gives a facinating look into how the Turbine program worked and how it personally impacted Mark and his family: http://www.turbinecar.com/turbine.htm

P.S. The very first person to get a turbine car in the program was an engineer at Motorola in Chicago.

Last edited by egrand; 08-21-2013 at 08:17 PM.
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Old 11-30-2013, 03:52 PM
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Hate to say this, but I can remember, as a very young child, seeing this car at not only the NY Worlds Fair, but parked outside the local post office!
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Old 11-30-2013, 04:26 PM
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Very cool indeed.
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Old 11-30-2013, 04:56 PM
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Typical of our short-sighted government that all but 3 of them had to be destroyed... I just about guarantee you that the needle-nosed, needle-D*cked bureaucrat assigned to watch 'em get crushed prolly got his jollies off...
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Old 11-30-2013, 05:19 PM
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I saw a pbs program on concept cars where half the episode was on these Chryslers. I've thought they were darn cool ever since. That bit about an Engineer from Admiral getting the first one is really interesting.

With all the rare cars he has, it figures Leno would have one.
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Last edited by Electronic M; 11-30-2013 at 05:25 PM.
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Old 11-30-2013, 05:24 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandy G View Post
Typical of our short-sighted government that all but 3 of them had to be destroyed... I just about guarantee you that the needle-nosed, needle-D*cked bureaucrat assigned to watch 'em get crushed prolly got his jollies off...
From what was said on the PBS program I watched, how it worked was that since Chrysler did not sell these cars and had the bodies imported that Chrysler had the choice either to destroy them or pay sizable import taxes on the cars. Obviously money talked and Chrysler chose to destroy most of them.
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Old 11-30-2013, 05:49 PM
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Yeah, I've heard that story all my life, too, & there's something that just kinda sounds "Fishy" about it... It sure looks like SOMETHING could have been worked out... Maybe Ford, GM, & AMC fought against it...
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Old 12-01-2013, 04:53 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TVTim View Post
Hate to say this, but I can remember, as a very young child, seeing this car at not only the NY Worlds Fair, but parked outside the local post office!
I saw one parked off by itself one Sunday morning just after "Sunday School" here in Dallas, at the then University Park Methodist Church. Several of us went over to ogle it, and probably checked to see if the doors were locked. 1963, I would have been 12 at the time.
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Old 12-01-2013, 07:32 PM
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Always thought they looked like what a 2-door Lincoln might have looked like in '63...Wonder if Elwood Engel, who was the guy behind the '61 T-Bird & Lincoln, had anything to do w/them ? Chrysler stole him from Ford, his 1st thing for them was the '64 Imperial, which looked a LOT like the '61-'63 Lincolns...Wonder why ?!? (grin) In any case I'm VERY glad a "Car Guy" like Jay has one..
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Old 12-01-2013, 07:55 PM
egrand egrand is offline
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Always thought they looked like what a 2-door Lincoln might have looked like in '63...Wonder if Elwood Engel, who was the guy behind the '61 T-Bird & Lincoln, had anything to do w/them ? Chrysler stole him from Ford, his 1st thing for them was the '64 Imperial, which looked a LOT like the '61-'63 Lincolns...Wonder why ?!? (grin) In any case I'm VERY glad a "Car Guy" like Jay has one..
Good eye Sandy! Yes, he and people in the Chrysler studio working under him. I don't think any single person has been given credit for it, so it was probably a group effort. A lot of Mopars starting showing up in '63 with the squared off look and wide C pillars similar to T-Birds and Connies.

You also bring up a good point that Chrysler didn't really have a personal luxury car like the Eldorado, Toronado, or Mark III. Not until they came out with the new Imperial in '81, but that was way too late in the game. Even with a Frank Sinatra edition and the Chairman himself pitching them on TV.

According to the book, Chrysler tried to give all the turbine cars away to museums and offered to pay the taxes for any that were kept. However, only a few museums took them and Ma Mopar didn't want to save that many for themselves, so they destroyed them. It's kinda like CBS not keeping or selling their early color prototype TV's. They weren't good enough to be sold, and they had no use for them afterwords.
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Old 12-01-2013, 08:29 PM
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To those that don't think the 1961 Lincoln DIDN'T have a big effect on styling back then, you only have to look at the '64 Imperial, & the '63 Cadillac... By '63, Cad had lost almost all of the "Fol-Der-Rol & Filigree" of their Fifties offerings.. The fins were down to mere NUBS of what they had been in '59, & would be BANISHED for good by '65,..They'd gone to an "Ear-Muff" design "C-pillar", pioneered by Lincoln & the T-Bird... The coolly sophisticated look of the early Sixties was epitomized by the Chrysler Turbine car, & the '61 Connie...Of course, I may be a WEE bit Prejudiced...(grin)
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Old 12-05-2013, 04:00 PM
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I watched the movie ! Thanks for posting !
J Lenno is a decent guy, and good presenter....
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