[Chrysler300] Re: Turbine Car

[Jamie Hyde <jamie.hyde@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As a young boy of seven, I got to ride in the Turbine car that came to the Rochester NY area. The head photographer for all the underwater photography development work at the Eastman Kodak company was Neil Montanus. Neil's son Dan, and I were friends in grammar school, Neil was a car guy and for years we went to the Rochester Auto show with him as he got free VIP tickets. Turned out that Neil knew the family who got one of the Turbine cars west of our city and arranged to have it come to Penfield NY for his son and I to ride in. I sat behind the driver seat and do not recall much about the ride other than the large tunnel down the center of the car and the neat sound it made when he took off. I think I played with the power windows switches on the ride. As a kid you know nothing about turbine engines and we both thought it was like a jet because of the sound it made. I know we were looking behind us on the test drive to see if the cars trailing us were feeling the effects of the turbines exhaust and would be blown off the road. When we got back to Dan's house we both scurried upstairs and grabbed the plastic car models that we were currently working on, and returned them to the idling turbine car in the driveway, as Neil spoke to the driver. We held our models under the twin exhaust pipes thinking that they would melt with the exhaust, and of course they did not. I remember in the driveway, holding the models under the pipes, that the exhaust was warm, not really hot, and had an odor like the charcoal grill after you light it, so they must have been burning kerosene or something of that order in it.

At our recent 2013 spring 300 meet I went to the ST Louis museum of transportation specifically to see one of the very few operational Turbine cars in existence. After talking to the docent in charge, and sharing my turbine car story with him, he allowed me beyond the ropes protecting the car. I was allowed to stand next to it, if I promised not to touch it. The car was supposed to have been moved last month but it would not start. The museums caretaker of the car, Mike (he keeps the keys in his pocket) was currently at Jay Leno's, as they were fabricating several spare relays for the cars.  This is the reason that the ST Louis car would not start. Jay works Mike, and also worked with Frank Kleptz before he passed, to assist them in keeping the cars running. I was told by the docent that Jay, got a spare engine for Franks car, and traveled to Franks museum in Indiana, to help make him make it operational. The St Louis car is the same one that many of our 300 club members got to ride in during the spring 1994 meet in ST. Louis. Please see Mr. Merritt's You Tube Channel with club member Dave Schwandt's narration showing the lucky riders, exiting and entering the car. The ST. Louis car did not run at first, when it was delivered to the museum, as it had no engine. Several years later when the car was on already on display the staff was doing an examination of the Museums assets when they discovered a crate in storage with the words "Chrysler" stenciled on the box. As you can guess when they opened the crate, they discovered a brand new, never ran, spare turbine engine. They still have that box, and rotate it into the turbine car display when they change it.

http://youtu.be/Lry-kRC8v98

At my local Rochester Mopar monthly meeting June 6th I gave a trip report of our spring 300 meet in St. Louis and mentioned the Turbine car I had just seen, and my story about riding in the car as a young boy. One of our club members who at the time was a young man working at a Chrysler Plymouth dealership in our  area had the honor of servicing that very car I rode in. The club member told us that Chrysler had arranged to have local dealerships service the cars under the direction of a Turbine maintenance team member. He told me all he did was check fluid levels in the rear end,  transmission, power steering ect. and greased the front end components. It need nothing else done. I asked if he was allowed to drive it onto the lift and he did not recall doing it.

Jamie Hyde
585-465-0067 Cell



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