Autos: The Big Test

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Uncomfortable Shift. The Chrysler team brought the turbine's shriek under control with sound deadeners and mufflers. To cut fuel consumption down to that of a piston car (about 16 miles per gal.) and to lower the white-hot temperatures of the exhaust gases, Huebner devised a set of ingenious disk-shaped heat exchangers or regenerators, that are pierced with thousands of holes. The disks rotate first through the exhaust gases, absorb up to 90% of the exhaust heat, and thus cool the gases so that there is no longer any danger that they will fry the neighbors' dog or melt an asphalt driveway. Then they rotate into the path of the incoming air and discharge the heat from the exhaust gases, raising the incoming air temperature to 1,025°F. so that it takes less fuel to bring the air temperature to the 1,700°F. necessary to drive the turbines. Huebner has managed to get almost instant acceleration by putting a ring of variable blades beyond the compressor turbine that direct the gases in a sharper stream onto the power turbine when the driver steps on the gas. By reversing the blades to counter the power turbine's spin, Chrysler's engine can brake the car just as a piston engine can.

Chrysler is careful about its claims for the future. It is uncomfortably aware of what a major shift to gas-turbine engines would do to the auto industry's vast investment in the piston engine and to the oil industry's stake in high-octane fuels, is also mindful of difficulties yet unforeseen in widespread use of the turbines. But there is already plenty of evidence that the public is willing to give the new engines a try. Before the car has even been officially shown, Chrysler has received more than 4,000 letters from motorists pleading for a chance to drive one of the test cars.