Owning something rare can be relatively hassle-free if it’s simple and doesn’t move. One-off sculpture? Keep it stable, insured, and secure and it’ll be fine. Obscure stamp that fellow collectors would kill for? Make sure it’s stored carefully in the right conditions and you shouldn’t have a problem. But if you have something rare and mechanically complex, sooner or later you’ll have to get it fixed, which is no easy feat. As the video below shows, Jay Leno learned that with his Chrysler Turbine Car.
Fundamentally, the Chrysler Turbine Car is a relative singularity because it wasn’t sold to consumers. But it was tested by them on public roads. Chrysler produced a total of 55 cars, five of which were prototypes. At the conclusion of the program, which didn’t lead to turbine-powered Chryslers in dealership showrooms, the company destroyed all but nine of them. One of those survivors eventually made it into Leno’s garage. Like many old cars, it broke down – actually, the engine “melted down”, in Leno’s words. That’s when the car’s rarity became more of a drawback than a delight. Not just anyone can work on a turbine-powered car. The metals and tolerances require specialized machinery, tools, and expertise.
So Leno turned to Gregg Williams, president and CEO of Williams International, the company his father Sam started after he helped develop the Chrysler turbine engine. The younger Williams got the veritable band back together, recruiting about 60 of the original team members who worked on the turbine car – now in their 80s and 90s – to get the engine in Leno’s car running. “There were 22,000 octagon-shaped tiny holes that had to be drilled. They made special tools to make the parts to bend the corrugated metal in the turbine,” Leno says.
Out on the road, the Ghia-bodied Turbine Bronze hardtop runs with the same soft, smooth, vacuum cleaner-like sound as before. The Turbine Car may not have survived the public testing phase of development, but thanks to Chrysler’s preservation and the dedication of folks like Leno, Williams, and the original crew behind the Turbine Car, it continues to live on as an example of ambition, talent, and ingenuity.
Source: www.classiccars.com