The Motor City was crazy about gas turbine engines in the 1950s. Here’s an enthusiastic example from the Ford engineering staff: a prototype ’55 Thunderbird with turbine power.
As we’ve chonicled here at Mac’s Motor City Garage, in the ’50s the Detroit Three were extremely bullish on the future of the gas turbine engine. General Motors launched its ambitious Firebird turbine dream car program, while Chrysler was developing a series of prototypes that culiminated in the beautiful 1963 Turbine Ghia. Ford’s turbine ambitions, meanwhile, would eventually focus on commercial truck and military applications, but first came some interesting experiments, including this ’55 Thunderbird powered by a Boeing T50 turboshaft engine.
Known internally at the aircraft maker as the 502 series, Boeing’s small gas turbine powerplants were used in a broad variety of applications, from helicopters to boats to submarine-hunting drones for the U.S. Navy. The 502-8C version chosen by Ford weighed around 330 lbs, was rated at 175 hp, and it was adapted to a ’55 Thunderbird in December of 1955. Total cost of the project was $188,000, according to an internal Ford engineering document. To avoid the need for a bulky and elaborate exhaust system, the Ford engineers simply routed the outlets straight through the front fenders, as shown here.
As noted in the report, the advantages of the turbine included “good power/weight ratio, good medium-speed acceleration, no vibration and relatively little routine engine maintenance.” That was on the plus side. However, the negative aspects included “serious acceleration lag on start-up…the undesirability of front exhaust and numerous other characteristics that represented problem areas.” As we know, the Motor City’s work on gas turbine engines for passenger car use never did prove out, but it produced some interesting experiments for us to ponder today.
The fascination with gas turbines must have been based in part on a presumption that fuel was going to be cheap forever.
Gas turbine technology was brand new and no one after the war knew what the actual winner would be.
There was a great deal of interest due to turbines being much smoother running, having fewer moving parts, and believe it or not, being able to run on a variety of fuels.
But turbine engines simply aren’t as efficient as piston engines when run at varying speeds, as they are in a car. Add in emissions that are dirtier than piston engines and more difficult to clean up, and the advantages fade quickly. Interestingly, there was talk of a constant-speed turbine engine powering a hybrid vehicle back in the late 2000s, but I don’t think much came of it.
Actually those turbine engines were clean burning. I remember seeing a Chrysler turbine in a local auto dealer. They fired it up inside the closed showroom to demonstrate it. They were clean burning because turbines burn continuously as opposed to a piston engine that is constant series of explosions.
Man I’d hate to brush my leg up against one of those exhaust ports after a hard run, although Chrysler seemed to have solved the exhaust temperature hazard by the time they released their experimental turbine cars to certain members of the public between 1963 and 1966.
Guessing that T Bird got scraped, Its a shame it never got to a private collector where it could be shown to the public