Revisiting the Future with the 1963 Chrysler Turbine Car From the Archive: Chrysler's turbine-powered prototypes envisioned a future that never came to pass. From the May 1989 issue of Car and Driver. Some guys claim they can see the future, and I like to squint though the sights at it myself every so often. But this little adventure is going to be backward, sort of like going around to the muzzle end and peering up the barrel, trying to figure why we heard the bang and then nothing came out. Jet-Power and Cool Concepts The old Chrysler Corporation was going to build cars with gas-turbine engines just as soon as...well, pretty damn soon. What started out—in the minds of a few engineers stimulated by World War II inventiveness—as a brainstorm that just might work became a drive-it-around prototype in October of 1953: Chrysler began testing a stock-bodied 1954 Plymouth powered by a turbine. As the decade went by, more and more turbine prototypes whirred out of the Chrysler Engineering Department and onto the streets of America, where they were captured on film and pictured in every newspaper, mechanics' magazine, and car book in the country. General Motors and Ford had turbines, too, but Chrysler seemed to be out front, closest to the day when we'd all be whirring around in jet-age cars devoid of cooling systems, mufflers, pistons, valves, carburetors, and the need for gasoline. They'd run on kerosene or diesel fuel or, gee, even vodka if you were into party tricks. Chrysler publicists, at a press gala, went so far as to pour in a few precious ounces of fancy French perfume. All it did was give the exhaust that come-hither scent, according to the reviews.