The 20-plus year development of Chrysler’s turbine engine-powered cars is fascinating. Our man Steve Lehto even wrote an entire book on the subject. But not many remnants of the program are left, so if you want a piece of weird engine history, this Chrysler turbine engine for sale on eBay may be your only shot.
An eBay seller named thekoolone1 is parting with what he or she believes is a seventh generation Chrysler turbine engine that was put into a Chrysler LeBaron in the 1970s. The current bid, as of this writing, is $4,461.
Turbine engines in cars are a great idea and also a terrible one. Sure, they’re expensive, inefficient, big, and don’t like to idle. But they’re also lightweight, easy to work on, smooth and best of all, they can run on a variety of fuels like diesel, peanut oil and tequila.
All of these positive traits had Chrysler engineers, headed by George Huebner Jr., trying to develop a turbine-powered car for over two decades.
Turbine engines are quirky and cool, so it’s too bad the public only got to get behind the wheel of a sweet few Chrysler turbine cars. Most of those were destroyed a few years later, leaving very few traces of the legendary turbine-car program.
That’s what makes this apparent eBay turbine engine so special—it’s incredibly rare and it’s part of one of Mopar’s most interesting chapters in their history.
The one for sale is still mated to a transmission, and looks to still be outfitted with thermocouples and other instrumentation. It is located just outside of Detroit in Southfield, Michigan, so if you’re a big Mopar fan looking for one of the coolest powertrains in the entire history of automobiles, get ready to head down to Southeast Michigan.
h/t to barnfinds