From: "'Noel Hastalis' via Chrysler 300 Club International" <chrysler-300-club-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2026 14:11:59 -0500 (CDT)
Reporting on Iola's 54th Anniversary Car Event this past Thurs-Sat -
A great show, highlighted by seeing and hearing the '63 Chrysler Turbine Car owned by Stahl's Motors and Music Experience Museum that we visited during our Sept '21 Auburn Hills Meet. Al Rogers, well known author of many Collectible Automobile and Old Cars Weekly articles, was firing up the Turbine plant, describing the car's features and answering questions nonstop all 3 days.
As I mentioned in my Facebook post yesterday - photo attached -
Incredible to sit behind the wheel of this Turbine Car. Left Instrument Pod - Ammeter on left; Turbine Inlet Temperature on top reads to 2000F but regenerator will fail at 1800F (think Jay Leno's widely known failure); Oil Pressure on right. Center Instrument Pod - Speedometer on outer ring with Fuel gauge in center. At Iola, this beauty was running 105 Octane jet fuel. Right Instrument Pod - Tachometer on outer ring - note the markings are in 'Thousands of RPMs' ('30' at the top is 30,000 RPM!!), with a clock in the center.
It's the only all-original survivor - power plant, body, top, interior - of the 9 Turbine Cars that weren't crushed by Chrysler - 46 were crushed to avoid the snooping of its competitors as well as potential mechanical issues and liabilities. The higher pitched sound wasn't uncomfortable for humans, but did drive some dogs & cats nutty. Stahl's 1 of 2 spare turbines was loaned to the engineering team restoring Jay Leno's failed turbine to reverse engineer the melted regenerator, which they did using more modern materials. Normal operating temp is up to about 1400F, while Jay's melted down at about the dangerously high 1800F, The modified1-speed TorqueFlite had Forward, Idle, Reverse. Idle was used when not moving to disable all other functions, keeping the operating temp in safe range. For more Turbine info in the Old Cars Weekly article, click on the QR-code in my second attached photo.
As always, it was enjoyable visiting George Collar's and Bob Brown's G&B Motors showroom, featuring 11 Forward Look convertibles. I'll be sharing a video of this museum for Bob to upload to our website.
Visited with 300 Club members Brian Frank, with his brothers and nephew David and Bruce's '58 Adventurer; Herb Grube with his Polar Blue 300-F; Chris and Beth Cutts with their beautiful beige? & charcoal '58 Royal coupe; Russ Thill with his modified '57 NYer coupe modified to 590 hp with Pistol Grip 4-speed shifter; Mike Meier was there (but I didn't connect with him); the Nitz Family with their '55 Firedome Sportsman in heather rose & white; and my F. Henry and Matt Banach, Terry and Chloe Berg and Jay Hackleman stopped by.
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