Im trying to find a good picture of the plymouth turbine car for 1960. They had special emblems, trim, and hubcaps that were not on the standard production cars. I have had a weird hubcap that i couldnt place for years, i found a small pic of this car and it looks to be an exact match. If you have a larger, more detailed shot of this car is would be a world of help to me. I think i have a new favorite hubcap!
I'm not aware of any 1960 Plymouth turbine, though it's possible they were used as engineering mules for the '63 Chrysler Turbine Car drivetrain. But the '63 is not based on any regular production Chrysler, either.
Interesting that when you click on the Google link they have the same car listed as a 55, 63, 64, etc... WTF
I was able to see and hear one of those cars run and drive around the show grounds at the big swap meet in Indy one year. That was the neatest damn thing I have ever seen!! It was the 1963 version.
Thats the one. They started doing the turbine thing in '55. The t-bird one is the most famous and possibly the only one still around. They experimented with turbine cars all the way up until like '79. There was even a turbine powered '60 Dodge 2.5 ton stake bed truck.
Got a couple pics. I found a picture of the car in a book that i have, you can see enough detail to see that it's the same. If anyone has any other pic/info that would be great though. I havent cleaned it up or anything, but its on my bedroom wall now. I almost gave this thing away with some other hubcaps, it was just in with the millions of others i seem to always have laying around. Now i just need the rest of the car!!
Chryselr built several different Turbine cars, starting in 1954 and ending in 1981. The 1963 cars are simply the most famous of them. Plus, far more were built in 1962-63 for the public testing program. Betcha didn't know the M-1 Abrahms tank turbine engine was originally built by Chrysler? In fact, the whole tank was built by Chrysler, but they sold the tank division to General Dynamics as part of the 1979 government bailout of Chrysler.
You can go on u-tube and watch them crush the turbine cars when they were done with them,so sad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKumqcKuv1g
Thats the only Turbine Chrysler I remember. Saw it at the 64 NY worlds fair. God I'm getting old. Pat
I believe that hubcap is a '70 Mercury full size cap, you can check out pictures of it on Hubcaps.org
Everything you want to know on the history of the Chrysler Turbine cars, from start to finish... http://www.allpar.com/mopar/turbine.html
Haha, pretty close. http://www.hubcaps.org/mercurypass.html At least it stimulated some good conversation.
Here is some more info that i got from Mark Olsen at www.turbinecar.com. I did find out that up until the Ghia cars were produced (55 were made), and the pair of dodge darts. There was only 1 of each version made. After the turboflite show car, they used production models except for "minor exterior styling modifications" "The bladed wheel motif of the grill and wheel covers reflected the appearance of vital components of the gas turbine." Here are pics of the cars up until the famous '63 version. Chrysler continued to built them until 1980, but after the '63 version they are O/T. So why would you want to see those? There was also a turbine installed in a '60 Dodge 2.5 ton truck, but i dont have a good pic of it.
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