"Land Rover and leading electrical machine company SR Drives, is to produce the world’s first commercially viable - and environmentally friendly - gas turbine generator designed specifically for automotive applications. The common turbocharger for gasoline or diesel engines is also a turbine derivative. The first serious investigation of using a gas turbine in cars was in 1946 when two engineers, Robert Kafka and Robert Engerstein of Carney Associates, a New York engineering firm, came up with the concept where a unique compact turbine engine design would provide power for a rear wheel drive car. After an article appeared in ""Popular"
"several gas turbine powered concept cars, such as the Century gas turbine hybrid in 1975, the Sports 800 Gas Turbine Hybrid in 1979 and the GTV in 1985. No production vehicles were made. The GT24 engine was exhibited in 1977 without a vehicle. In the early 1990s, Volvo introduced the Volvo Environmental Concept Car(ECC) which was a gas turbine powered hybrid car. In 1993 General Motors introduced the first commercial gas turbine powered hybrid vehicle—as a limited production run of the EV-1 series hybrid. A Williams International 40 kW turbine drove an alternator which powered the battery-electric powertrain. The turbine"
"relation purposes. Starting in 1954 with a modified Plymouth, the American car manufacturer Chrysler demonstrated several prototype gas turbine-powered cars from the early 1950s through the early 1980s. Chrysler built fifty Chrysler Turbine Cars in 1963 and conducted the only consumer trial of gas turbine-powered cars. Each of their turbines employed a unique rotating recuperator, referred to as a regenerator that increased efficiency. In 1954 FIAT unveiled a concept car with a turbine engine, called Fiat Turbina. This vehicle, looking like an aircraft with wheels, used a unique combination of both jet thrust and the engine driving the wheels. Speeds"
"is on display at the London Science Museum. A French turbine powered car, the Socema-Gregoire, was displayed at the October 1952 Paris Auto Show. It was designed by the French engineer Jean-Albert Grégoire. The first turbine-powered car built in the US was the GM Firebird I which began evaluations in 1953. While photos of the Firebird I may suggest that the jet turbine's thrust propelled the car like an aircraft, the turbine actually drove the rear wheels. The Firebird 1 was never meant as a commercial passenger car and was solely built for testing & evaluation as well as public"
"available instantly in winter, no engine stalling with sudden overload, engine operates without vibration, oil consumption is negligible, reduced engine weight, exhaust gases are cool and less pollutant, and most importantly, a wide range of combustible fuels may be employed as a replacement for petroleum gasoline. The first successful test of a gas turbine engine in a car (CR1) took place in 1954 at Chrysler's testing grounds. In 1956, the first successful cross-country trip using a turbine-engined car took place. Further engineering work resulted in the second generation (CR2), which improved fuel economy and increased horsepower. In 1961, a third-generation"
"Fiat Turbina The Fiat Turbina was a gas turbine-powered concept car built by Italian car manufacturer Fiat in 1954. Fiat was the second car manufacturer, after Rover, to introduce a car propelled by a gas turbine—Fiat touted the Turbina as ""the first turbine car built in Continental Europe"". The project took a long period of planning, studies began in 1948 and ended with a first track test on 14 April 1954 on the rooftop track of the Lingotto factory. The car was first publicly shown on 23 April 1954 at the Turin-Caselle Airport, where it made some demonstration runs with"
"became the first car powered by a gas turbine engine to be built in the United States. Never intended for production, the car was purely a design exercise to determine the feasibility of turbine-powered road cars. The car's body, which was made of plastic reinforced by fiberglass, was designed by Harley J. Earl, while its Whirlfire Turbo-Power engine was developed by Charles L. McCuen and the GM Research Laboratories Division. Driving the rear wheels of the car via a conventional transmission, the engine was able to produce at 13,000 rpm. Its successor, Firebird II, debuted at General Motors Motorama in"
"Bell and Spen King away from Rolls-Royce to assist Maurice Wilks in the development of automotive gas turbines. By 1949, the team developed a turbine that ran at 55,000 rpm, produced more than , and could run on petrol, paraffin, or diesel oil. Rover's early turbine engines consumed fuel at a rate much greater than piston engines, equivalent to . Although fuel consumption was later reduced by using a heat exchanger, it was never as low as that of contemporary piston engines. In March 1950, Rover showed the JET1 prototype, the first car powered with a gas turbine engine, to"
"and repairing the engine. In front of an expectant crowd, the car was fired up and moved under its own power for the first time since 1956. It's now conserved as a part of Renault's Historical Cars Collection. Renault Étoile Filante The Renault ""Étoile Filante"" (""Shooting Star"") was Renault's only attempt at both creating a gas turbine-powered car and setting a land speed record for such cars. In 1954 the French aeronautical turbine's manufacturer, Turbomeca, proposed that Renault make a gas turbine car, both to exalt the benefits of the technology and to try to break the speed record for"
"use a mechanical transmission to deliver the power output of gas turbines to the wheels. Owing to the difference in their speeds, this is technically challenging and so a mechanical transmission did not appear until ten years after the first electric transmissions. The first gas turbine-mechanical locomotive in the world, Class 040-GA-1 of 1,000 hp was built by Renault in 1952 and had a Pescara free-piston engine as a gas generator. It was followed by two further locomotives, Class 060-GA-1 of 2,400 hp in 1959–61. The Pescara gas generator in 040-GA-1 consisted of a horizontal, single cylinder, two-stroke diesel engine"
"came to fruition, although the three Firebirds did ultimately become the namesake of the Pontiac Firebird pony cars that debuted in 1967. In 1954, Fiat introduced its own experimental turbine-engined prototype, the Turbina. The car was powered by a two-stage turbine that powered the wheels through a geared reduction unit, while its body was streamlined based on the results of wind tunnel testing. The Turbina's engine enabled it to achieve a top speed of as well as to produce at 22,000 rpm. Introduced to the public in 1963, the Chrysler Turbine Car was powered by a turbine that produced and"
"at 22,000 rpm, and the estimated top speed was approximately . The bodywork had undergone wind tunnel testing at the Politecnico di Torino facilities. The Turbina held the record for lowest drag coefficient on an automobile (0.14) for 30 years. The concept was shelved due to high fuel usage and problems with overheating. Today the Fiat Turbina is on display at the Automobile Museum of Turin. Fiat Turbina The Fiat Turbina was a gas turbine-powered concept car built by Italian car manufacturer Fiat in 1954. Fiat was the second car manufacturer, after Rover, to introduce a car propelled by a"
"of were claimed. The original General Motors Firebird was a series of concept cars developed for the 1953, 1956 and 1959 Motorama auto shows, powered by gas turbines. As a result of the U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, research was funded to developing automotive gas turbine technology. Design concepts and vehicles were conducted by Chrysler, General Motors, Ford (in collaboration with AiResearch), and American Motors (in conjunction with Williams Research). Long-term tests were conducted evaluate comparable cost efficiency. Several AMC Hornets were powered by a small Williams regenerative gas turbines weighing and producing at 4450 rpm. Toyota demonstrated"
"Luxury car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz had been producing mechanically fuel-injected cars since the early 1950s, while the first mainstream family car to feature fuel injection was the Volkswagen Golf GTI in 1976. Ford's first fuel-injected car was the Ford Capri RS 2600 in 1970. General Motors launched its first fuel-injected car in 1957 as an option available for the first generation Corvette. Saab switched to fuel injection across its whole range from 1982. The carburetor works on Bernoulli's principle: the faster air moves, the lower its static pressure, and the higher its dynamic pressure. The throttle (accelerator) linkage does not directly"
"to develop their own gas turbine sports car in 1968, the Howmet TX, which ran several American and European events, including two wins, and also participated in the 1968 24 Hours of Le Mans. The cars used Continental gas turbines, which eventually set six FIA land speed records for turbine-powered cars. For open wheel racing, 1967's revolutionary STP-Paxton Turbocar fielded by racing and entrepreneurial legend Andy Granatelli and driven by Parnelli Jones nearly won the Indianapolis 500; the Pratt & Whitney ST6B-62 powered turbine car was almost a lap ahead of the second place car when a gearbox bearing failed"
"so that both gas and automotive versions of the company existed simultaneously. In 1922 AGA became part of Stinnes-trust. AGA continued to be active after 1945 in West Berlin. Those data are based on the commercial register in the Berlin Landesarchiv. The first car, the Typ A of 1919, had a 1418 cc four-cylinder engine driving the rear wheels through a three-speed manual transmission. The later Typ C followed in 1921 with the same configuration, and its engine gave a maximum of as did the Typ A. The Typ C extended the wheelbase from to , increased the engine's power"
"Chrysler Turbine Car The Chrysler Turbine Car is an automobile powered by a turbine engine which was produced by Chrysler from 1963 to 1964. Its body was made by the Italian design studio Ghia, and Chrysler completed its assembly in Detroit. The Chrysler turbine engine program that produced the Turbine Car began during the late 1930s, and created multiple prototypes that successfully completed numerous long-distance trips in the 1950s and early 1960s. The A-831 engines that powered the Ghia-designed Turbine Car could operate on many different fuels, required less maintenance, and lasted longer than conventional piston engines, although they were"
"the wheels. A gas turbine locomotive was patented in 1861 by Marc Antoine Francois Mennons (British patent no. 1633). There is no evidence that the locomotive was actually built but the design includes the essential features of gas turbine locomotives built in the 20th century, including compressor, combustion chamber, turbine and air pre-heater. In 1952, Renault delivered a prototype four-axle 1150 hp gas-turbine-mechanical locomotive fitted with the Pescara ""free turbine"" gas- and compressed-air producing system, rather than a co-axial multi-stage compressor integral to the turbine. This model was succeeded by a pair of six-axle 2400 hp locomotives with two turbines"
"Maserati Biturbo, introduced in 1981 and featuring an aluminium 90-degree SOHC V6, was the first production car with a twin-turbo charged engine. Other examples of V formation engines with parallel twin-turbos include Mitsubishi's 6A12TT, 6A13TT and 6G72TT; Nissan's VG30DETT and VR38DETT; and Audi's 1997-2002 S4 (B5), 1997-2005 A6, and 2003-2017 RS6. While a parallel twin-turbo set-up theoretically has less turbo lag than a single turbocharger set up, this is not always the case due to many factors. Marginally reduced combined inertial resistance, simplified exhaust plumbing, and the simultaneous spooling of both turbos means that there can still be a noticeable"
"prize was to be awarded for the first gas turbine car to complete 3,600 km over the 24 hours, an average speed of 93 mph. A crucial step in this plan was a chance meeting between William Martin-Hurst, MD of Rover, and Sir Alfred Owen of Rover's component supplier Rubery Owen, but more relevantly also of the Formula 1 constructors BRM. BRM supplied the chassis of Richie Ginther's crash-damaged car from the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix. A custom open-top spyder body was then built in aluminium, with the turbine mid-mounted ahead of a single-speed transaxle. The first test runs were"
"Howmet TX The Howmet TX (Turbine eXperimental) was an American sports prototype racing car designed in 1968 to test the competitive use of a gas turbine engine in sports car racing. Planned by racing driver Ray Heppenstall, the TX combined a chassis built by McKee Engineering, turbine engines leased from Continental Aviation & Engineering, and financial backing and materials from the Howmet Corporation. Although not the first attempt at using a turbine powerplant in auto racing, the Howmet TX was the first and is still the only turbine to win a race, earning two Sports Car Club of America (SCCA)"
"temperature and pressure. With the help of a continuously variable transmission, the car accelerated in 11 seconds. The maximum range was , and fuel economy was in gasoline equivalent. The series hybrid prototype had a gas turbine engine APU placed in the trunk. A single-stage, single-shaft, recuperated gas turbine unit with a high-speed permanent-magnet AC generator was provided by Williams International; it weighed , measured in diameter by long and was running between 100,000 and 140,000 rpm. The turbine could run on a number of high-octane alternative fuels, from octane-boosted gasoline to compressed natural gas. The APU started automatically when"
"the Firebird XP-21, later referred to as the Firebird I, which was essentially a jet airplane on wheels. It was the first gas turbine-powered car tested in the United States. The design is entirely impractical, with a bubble-topped canopy over a single-seat cockpit, a bullet-shaped fuselage made entirely of fiberglass, short wings, and a vertical tail fin. It has a Whirlfire Turbo Power gas turbine engine, which has two speeds, and expels jet exhaust at some . The entire weight of the car is , with a 100-inch wheelbase. At first, Conklin was the only person qualified to drive the"
"turbo; and allowed a bigger 3.5 L formula. These seasons were still dominated by turbocharged engines, the Honda RA167E V6 supplying Nelson Piquet winning the 1987 Formula One season on a Williams also winning the constructors championship, followed by TAG-Porsche P01 V6 in McLaren then Honda again with the previous RA166E for Lotus then Ferrari's own 033D V6. The rest of the grid was powered by the Ford GBA V6 turbo with Benetton, then the only naturally aspirated engine, the DFV-derived Ford Cosworth DFZ 3.5 L V8 outputting in Tyrrell, Lola, AGS, March and Coloni. The BMW M12/13 inline four"
"a mere 569 cc (Simca Cinq) and the largest upwards of 8,000 cc (SRT Viper GTS-R). Supercharging was an early innovation for increasing output, first being raced in , while turbocharging would not appear until . The first car to enter without an engine run by pistons would be in , when Rover partnered with British Racing Motors to run a gas turbine with mixed success, repeating again in . The American Howmet Corporation would attempt to run a turbine again in with even less success. Although the engines offered great power, they were hot and fuel-inefficient. Another non-piston engine"
"just three laps from the finish line. The next year the STP Lotus 56 turbine car won the Indianapolis 500 pole position even though new rules restricted the air intake dramatically. In 1971 Lotus principal Colin Chapman introduced the Lotus 56B F1 car, powered by a Pratt & Whitney STN 6/76 gas turbine. Chapman had a reputation of building radical championship-winning cars, but had to abandon the project because there were too many problems with turbo lag. The arrival of the Capstone Microturbine has led to several hybrid bus designs, starting with HEV-1 by AVS of Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1999,"
"prices rising exponentially in the 1970s this concept was abandoned. Rover, Chrysler, and Toyota also built prototypes of turbine powered cars, Chrysler building a short prototype series of them for real-world evaluation. Driving comfort was good, but overall economy lacked due to reasons mentioned above. This is also why gas turbines can be used for permanent and peak power electric plants. In this application they are only run at or close to full power where they are efficient or shut down when not needed. Gas turbines do have advantage in power density - gas turbines are used as the engines"
"Renault Étoile Filante The Renault ""Étoile Filante"" (""Shooting Star"") was Renault's only attempt at both creating a gas turbine-powered car and setting a land speed record for such cars. In 1954 the French aeronautical turbine's manufacturer, Turbomeca, proposed that Renault make a gas turbine car, both to exalt the benefits of the technology and to try to break the speed record for gas turbine cars. Renault created the car, and tested it in a wind tunnel between 1954 and 1955. In 1956, Jean Hébert and a Renault Team went off to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah for speed tests."
"Bristol Proteus The Bristol Proteus was the Bristol Aeroplane Company's first mass-produced gas turbine engine design, a turboprop that delivered just over 4,000 hp (3,000 kW). The Proteus was a reverse-flow gas turbine. Because the second turbine drove no compressor stages, but only the propeller, this engine was classified as a free-turbine. It powered the Bristol Britannia airliner, small naval patrol craft, hovercraft and electrical generating sets. It was also used to power a land-speed record car, the Bluebird-Proteus CN7. After the merger of Bristol with Armstrong Siddeley the engine became the Bristol Siddeley Proteus, and later the Rolls-Royce Proteus."
"the company. Howmet agreed to fund the project, lending their name to the car. Heppenstall began the project by purchasing a Cooper Monaco sports car, but later decided it was not the best choice for a turbine and the car was sold off. Bob McKee, owner of McKee Engineering, was then contracted by Heppenstall to build two cars brand new. The first space frame chassis was actually built from an older McKee car initially built for the Can Am series in 1966, but adapted to house the turbine engine. The second car #GTP2 was built from scratch, allowing it to"
"Chrysler turbine engines The Chrysler turbine engine is a series of gas turbine engines developed by Chrysler intended to be used in road vehicles. Research into designing and building a functional gas turbine engine began before the United States entered World War II, with experimental and test engines first being operated in 1954. George Huebner and his group of research engineers were convinced that the engine was a viable project. It had challenges like fuel consumption had to be in the same range as standard reciprocating engines, components needed to be reduced in size and increased in efficiency, noise had"
"faced the turbine engine. Chrysler tested the Belvedere, claiming that its turbine engine contained 20 percent fewer parts and weighed less than comparable, conventional piston engines. On June 16, 1954, the company publicly unveiled the turbine-powered Belvedere at its Chelsea Proving Grounds in Chelsea, Michigan, in front of over 500 reporters. Chrysler unveiled its next turbine car, a 1956 Plymouth, on March 23, 1956; Huebner drove it on a four-day trip from New York City to Los Angeles. Although the car was shadowed by a 14-person convoy of mechanics with fuel and spare parts, it only required two minor repairs"
"auto company of Chrysler's size. While Chrysler's work with turbine engines never paid off in the retail automobile sector, the experiments proved fruitful with the incorporation of a Honeywell AGT1500 into a slightly different product, the M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank, developed in the late 1970s by Chrysler Defense (which was later sold to General Dynamics). Chrysler turbine engines The Chrysler turbine engine is a series of gas turbine engines developed by Chrysler intended to be used in road vehicles. Research into designing and building a functional gas turbine engine began before the United States entered World War II, with"