"Fascinating." —Vanity Fair

"A delightful history." —Wall Street Journal

In 1964, Chrysler gave the world a glimpse of the future.
The automaker built a fleet of turbine cars—automobiles with jet engines—and lent them out to members of the public. The fleet logged over a million miles; the exercise was a raging success. If the cars had been mass produced, today we might have cars that run on any flammable liquid instead of petroleum-derived fuels. Yet Chrysler crushed and burned most of the cars two years later; the jet car’s brief glory was over. Where did it all go wrong?
Steve Lehto interviewed all the surviving members of the turbine car program, from the metallurgist who created the exotic metals for the interior of the engine to the test driver who drove it at Chrysler’s proving grounds for days on end. Lehto takes these firsthand accounts and weaves them into a fascinating story about the coolest car Detroit has ever produced.
In this expanded edition, Lehto describes working with Jay Leno to rebuild one of the last remaining turbine cars, a prize in Leno’s famed collection.

Foreword by Jay Leno

Introduction

1          The Promise of the Jet Age

2          Chrysler’s First “Jet” Car

3          The Fourth-Generation Engine: Chrysler’s Viable Automotive Powerplant

4          The Ghia Turbine Car

5          The User Program: The Ultimate Public Relations Event

6          The Globe-Trotting Ghia

7          Other Ghias in America

8          The User Experiment

9          Wrap-Up of the User Program

10        The Beginning of Chrysler’s Financial Decline

11        The Problem of Smog

12        Chrysler’s Financial Troubles

13        Other Manufacturers and the Turbine

14        The Death of the Turbine Program

15        The Survivors

16        Going for a Ride in Jay Leno’s Ghia

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index