TURBINES ON TEST

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30453, 29 May 1964, Page 9

TURBINES ON TEST

'J’HE first Americans to drive the Chrysler turbine cars in three-month consumer tests are described as being “highly enthusiastic—without exception”. All of them say that they would like to keep the cars indefinitely. Out of 25,000 eager applicants, only five people received free turbine cars. The first car in the test programme, -delivered to a 25-year-oJd computer engineer in Chicago last October, is undergoing a painstaking check by engineers at the Detroit factory. Later, it will be handed over to another driver for a further three months.

Each of the 50 turbine cars being produced for the test programme will go to four drivers for three months each, so that the whole fleet will be driven by 200 users and their friends.

During the tests, Chrysler pays for servicing and insurance. The driver only has to buy fuel. The “typical” motorists selected for this market-valu-ation programme are being asked, according to Chrysler, “to give us some of the answers we need before we decide where we go from here with the turbine car.”

From its experien- so far, the Chrysler Company thinks that the turbine has many advantages over the piston engine. But it says that it is not yet in a position to say without qualification that the turbine is the automotive engine of the future.—Reuter.