boeing powered '32 built in '62.

Just came across this item on www.prewarcar.com . Built by Leonard Williams in 1962. So it must be a steel body then. It,s in a museum now.

 

I've heard it run! It was at Harold Lemays.Don't know where it is now?

 

It appeared at the Amelia Island Concours a couple of weeks ago.

 

Had a gas turbine engine with an in/out box and only Harold LeMay and one of his pals were able to drive it as the throttle speed made the car speed and idleing down was a bit hard. It is an original steel body and you are correct, it was built by Leonard Williams.

 

Sounded like a 747 landing as it pulled into a rod run. And don't stand near the exhuast!!!!!.........OLDBEET

 

wow thats pretty cool. im glad to here it is making the rounds rather than just sitting in a museum somewhere.

 

It was featured in Car Life and one of the Pop Sci type mags, at least, in '62. It was surprisingly close to stock--they removed a simple Olds and '39 box, and bolted some sort of reduction box on the engine to the '32 torque tube. It had no reverse, and any pedestrian who wandered into the exhaust path would have met a deeply disturbing fate. It drew extra attention because there was lots of hype building about this same time on the Chrysler turbine cars. I think the builder was a Boeing engineer, and engine was from a small helicopter application.

 

I met one of the two guys who built it,in the early ninties he didn't know what happened to it, then I read that he was reunited a few years later at Lemays..... did you know that Morey Boogie also worked at Boeing then, inventor of the Boogie board

 

Very neat! Something I always wanted to build was a turbine car. I wonder how long you could drive on a tank of fuel? Seems like a very small turbine for 62!

 

Last I saw, it was in the Petersen Museum in the Bruce Meyer gallery. Of course that was three years ago. It belongs to the LeMay Collection, which is slowly building a physical building in Tacoma, WA.

 

I wonder that too. But really I'd like to know if it flies! That is, is this puppy any quicker than it would be with a pushrod motor?

 

I have actually seen this car run at an early nostalgia drag race in Bremerton Wa. Sounds wicked. Not very fast but I bet it would have some top end at B-ville. I am going to try and have this car on display at this years HOTROD-A-RAMA.

 

Read an artical about it maybe ten years ago and it still had mechanical brakes. Could be the reason for the slow speeds...
Heard it run at the open house a few years ago, didn't think to see if the brakes have been updated.

 

First time I ever seen it, that ******* pulled in and I was looking in the sky. Then I realized it was the roadster and Harold steped out wearing BOWLING shoes, scarded me for life in a good way. CAUTION:HOT EXHAUST!

 

Curbspeed!
Call LeMay's office in Tacoma and ask for Barbara. She is Harold's daughter and used to do all the ***le work on the collection. I'm sure one of the boys are running it now but she is a solid contact. Tell her that Mike Shelley told you to call.

 

It was featured in the July '62 Hot Rod. The engine, out of a 1953 Army L-19 liason plane, cost Williams $500 from a surplus yard in New York.

Mutt

 

I'm sure like most trubines, it has no bottom end, so in a 1/4 mile drag race, a regular mill would spank it. But make it a full mile race, and I bet it would leave the regular motor rod driver wondering what the hell.

One problem is that that turbine apparently shoots a plume of paint-peelingly hot exhaust out of its pipe about 25 feet to the side, or at least that's what I've heard. That'd be a **** sitting at a light in traffic, huh?

 

Sorry to dig up an old thread. Just found this article and thought it would fit good here.

 

Neat post! I was thinking about this car the other day. I was fortunate enough to get a tour of a part of Lemay's collection about 6 years ago and this car was there.
Neat.

jw