Jay Leno and his 1963 Chrysler Turbine car

[butchsuppe]

Jay showed up at the CPW fall fling with his 1 in only 3 Turbine car. This was only the second time in my life I've seen one running. It sounded like a vaccum cleaner. While there a met the owner of GLHS #45 who got pics of it. I had to run my --- off the get his attention as he was leaving. I've seen the car at the Van Nuys cruise drive by and wanted to meet the owner. Well I met him and his Bro and cousin, invited them to join us at the SoCal SDAC meeting. Trouble is I forgot his name already. Show was smaller than normal but was good non the less. I couldn't talk Jay into lifing the hood as he didn't even stop or get out of the car. The show was pretty much over when he showed up.

[johnl]

Wish I'd been there!

[scrampage1]

Made the 4 1/2 hour drive from Fresno to attend the Fall Fling XIV Mopar Car Show in Van Nuys.

Sorry I missed the 1964/65 Chrysler Ghia Turbine Car.

Maybe I'll catch it next year.

At least I got to see and hear the Chrysler Air Raid siren. A rare piece of history.

Ray
Central California

[Turbo Uno]

Hi Butch!!
My brother Eric is the owner of the #45 GLHS Charger, I (Jason) was riding shot gun and my cousin Juan was in the back seat. It was great getting to know you and the other Turbo Mopar members who were in attendance because we really never get to talk to folks who are into these cars and have some knowledge on them as well! We were getting used to the same old odd looks from people wondering "whatta' heck is that car?" "Shelby glhs?" I'm going to try and make it out to the next meeting the SoCal have every month at AppleBees and check out their cars, I've been a Turbo Mopar owner for 10 years now and I've never attended a meeting. Yeah shame on me

Today really was a great day! Here are only a few of the pics I managed to take.

1987 Dodge Conquest 2.6 Turbo engine (pretty nice looking car too!)



I was told that Carrol Shelby had something to do with these trucks design wise.


Our Cars


Jay Leno showing up late to the show in his 1963 Turbine car! This thing sounds like a crazy vacuum cleaner!!! Va-wooooosssshhhhhh

[j4278h]

That is the exact same color turbine car that sits at the local Gilmore Car Museum. Or at least it did all of last year.

[BadAssPerformance]

Cool story Butch!

Nic pictures Uno!

That is the exact same color turbine car that sits at the local Gilmore Car Museum. Or at least it did all of last year.

So the blue one at the WPC museum is the 3rd one? or are there more

[j4278h]

there was 50 produced for real world testing. No idea how many are left.

[butchsuppe]

^^^^ Jay said there were only 3 left, thanks for posting all the pics Jason and I'm sorry for forgeting your names. I'm really good at that.

[scrampage1]

There were (55) 1963 Chrysler Turbine cars produced for the 203 motorists that signed up for the experimental user program.

(46) were immediately destroyed when the user program ended.

The destruction of the cars was merely keeping in line with the automobile industry's practice of not selling non-production or prototype cars to the public.

Now there were only (9) Turbine cars left.

(6) of the turbine cars had their engines deactivated. I believe their idea of deactivation was removing the engine from the car. The (6) Turbine engines and (6) Turbine cars were donated to (12) various car museums. I recall seeing one of those engines in a static display some years ago at The Auto Collections car museum in the Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino at Las Vegas, NV. I also seem to recall that the owner of Domino's Pizza had either a Turbine engine or just the Turbine car.

The remaining (3) were left intact and kept by Chrysler for historical reasons. (2) of those 3 belong to the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Detroit, MI. When coming back from the SDAC in Canada, I made tracks for the WPC Museum. I encountered numerous delays due to road construction and traffic. I got there just as they closed. But, I could see one of the Turbine cars on display through the window.

Only (2) Turbine cars are in the hands of private collectors.

Frank Kleptz of Terre Haute, IN, has a Turbine car with no engine. His car was one that was originally donated to Harrah's Car Museum in Reno, NV.

So, Jay Leno got one of the original (3) complete Turbine cars retained by Chrysler.

Ray
Central California

[Chief]

^^^^ Jay said there were only 3 left, thanks for posting all the pics Jason and I'm sorry for forgeting your names. I'm really good at that.

Butch...I really would have loved to have seen that, I wish you had any type of camera to get some good shots of it, that would have been great.

Chief

[Turbo Uno]

^
^
We didn't get a chance to take better pics because Jay really never stopped the car. Some of the left over car show fellas that were hanging out were literally running beside it just to see it up close.

thanks for posting all the pics Jason and I'm sorry for forgeting your names. I'm really good at that.

Hey no worries! I'm sure it was all the excitement of the day and plus you ran for the first time in 20 years! You were pretty quick!!

scrampage1 (Raymond), it was great talking to you and Dennis Cote

[Clay]

There are only 3 running turbine cars left.

1) in a museum in St. Louis (last I knew)

2) Frank Kleptz here in Terre Haute has one, and for the longest time it was the only one privately owned that ran. He got it running about 8 years ago or so, and also has a NIB turbine for it.

3) Jay Leno got his running recently with help from Frank Kleptz.

[Chief]

Clay...do you have any pix of Frank Kleptz' car?

[Clay]

No current pics. I have pics of it *somewhere* from 15 or more years ago on actual film

[scrampage1]

So, Chrysler kept (3) complete running Turbine cars from 1963.

The Walter P. Chrysler Museum got (2) and Jay Leno bought (1).

That means that the owner of the Turbine car from Terre Haute, IN, bought a Turbine car with no engine, and then bought a Turbine engine, and got it operational. **Unless, he got one of the other (2) Turbine cars from the WPC Museum.**

I had heard years ago that someone had done that. This must've been the guy.

So, that makes (4) running Chrysler Turbine cars.

Ray
Central California

[jj07]

Local guy to me has an odd car collection that not many know about. He gave me a tour once and one of the things just laying around in one of his huge barns was a motor from the chrysler turbine car. simply amazing, and the guy is getting up there in age and was labeling all the diffrent things he had since he was planing on passing it to his 2 daughters that knew nothing about any of it.

[BadAssPerformance]

Local guy to me has an odd car collection that not many know about. He gave me a tour once and one of the things just laying around in one of his huge barns was a motor from the chrysler turbine car. simply amazing, and the guy is getting up there in age and was labeling all the diffrent things he had since he was planing on passing it to his 2 daughters that knew nothing about any of it.

No way, thats an awesome find! Cash money to a collector there!