Chrysler Turbine Car - Design

Design

The bodies and interiors were crafted by Ghia in Italy. The mostly completed bodies were shipped to Chrysler's Greenfield Avenue turbine research center in Detroit for final assembly. Outsourcing this step may have saved some money for Chrysler, but between the expensive Ghia bodies and the cost of the engine, each car may have cost as much as $50,000 to build. This would be over $350,000 in 2012 dollars. A total of 50 "production" Turbine Cars were built between October 1963 and October 1964, plus five prototypes (three of which differed in roof/paint schemes). As each body was finished and shipped to Detroit, Chrysler employees installed the gas turbine engines, torqueflite transmissions, and electrical components to prepare the cars for use by the 203 motorists - 23 of them women - who were chosen to test them throughout the country.

The Turbine Car was a two-door hardtop coupe with four individual bucket seats, power steering, power brakes, and power windows. Its most prominent design features were two large horizontal taillights and nozzles (back-up lights) mounted inside a very heavy chrome sculptured bumper. Up front, the single headlamps were mounted in chrome nacelles with a turbine styling theme, creating a striking appearance. This theme was carried through to the center console and the hubcaps. Even the tires were specially made with small turbine vanes molded into the white sidewalls. It was finished in reddish-brown "Frostfire Metallic" paint, later renamed "Turbine Bronze" and made available on production automobiles. The roof was covered in black vinyl, and the interior featured bronze-colored "English calfskin" leather upholstery with plush-cut pile bronze-colored carpet. Front suspension was upper and lower wishbones with coil springs and shock absorbers.

The dashboard was lit using electroluminescent panels in the gauge pods and on a call-out strip across the dash. This system did not use bulbs; instead, an inverter and transformer raised the battery voltage to over 100 volts AC and passed that high voltage through special plastic layers, causing the gauges to glow with a blue-green light. Instead of a water temp. gauge, the Chrysler Turbine had a Turbine Inlet temp. gauge with numbers 500, 1,000, 1,500, and 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The car itself was designed in the Chrysler studios under the direction of Elwood Engel, who had worked for the Ford Motor Company before his move to Chrysler. The designer credited with the actual look of the car was Charles Mashigan, who designed a two-seat show car called the Typhoon, which was displayed at the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. Engel used many older Ford styling themes. The rear taillight/bumper assembly was copied directly (with revisions) from a 1958 Ford styling study called the "La Galaxie". He used none of the themes associated with his 1964 Imperial. As Engel incorporated many of the design themes from the 1961 Thunderbird, and because the car was a four seater of similar size and appointment, many enthusiasts call the Ghia Turbine the "Englebird."

Suspension did not follow Chrysler's ubiquitous torsion bar system, but rather featured contemporary designs using independent front suspension with a coil spring at each wheel. Rear suspension was more typical of Chrysler, with leaf springs and direct-acting shock absorbers.