Concept cars

Cool thread.

The first picture is of the Chrysler Turbine Car of 1964 (IIRC). There were 57 of these cars built by Ghia (later absorbed by Ford) of Italy. 50 of the cars were put in a program where Average Joes and Janes were given the cars to use as everyday transportation. The Joes and Janes recorded their impressions of their experiences with the car. They surrendered their logs and cars, the latter would be put in someone else's hands.

The deal with the cars is that they were brought into the country without any import taxes paid. The laws then gave you two years to pay up or ship out (or crush up).

IMO, this car was not a concept car as much as it was a feasibility study. Could regular people satisfactorily operate a gas turbine powered car? Would a gas turbine engine work well in an uncontrolled environment?

There were no engine failures during the time the program ran. The engine ran on anything that would flow through a pipe and burn.