I clearly remember going with my dad to Tri-County mall here in Cincinnati to enter in a lottery to get a chance to drive a Chrysler turbine car. I believe the test period was 30-60 days and there were about 50-60 turbine cars placed into service for "regular folks" to drive. The idea was to follow up with a survey and see how the cars did in "real world" conditions. There was an article in either Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazine with a summary of the various driver's experiences. The cars were built as a short run contract with Ghia in Italy. Chrysler had a history of using Ghia for show car/prototype/limited production projects. If I recall, the test was generally pretty successful; very few mechanical problems reported by the drivers. The cars could run on about anything, diesel, kerosene, jet fuel or common heating fuel oil. Highway fuel consumption was OK but city driving economy was poor.

Here's a link to www.allpar.com turbine car page; more info than you ever thought possible !

http://www.allpar.com/mopar/turbine.html

Enjoy, it's a pretty remarkable story...

Cincinnati Slim