Thursday 30th January 2003

Turbine Power

Forget fuel cells, let's talk turbines!

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[v8thunder]

Lotus attempted a turbine-powered Indycar racer back in the late '60s as well. P.S. Does anyone else reckon that Rover P4 conversion at the top looks like a Citroen DS?

[jamesc]

Surely you mean "Graham Hill"?? I know Graham Bell has driven most cars; but a team mate to Sir Jackie Stewart; I don't think so.

James

[roop]

The sad thing about Rover's turbine experiment is that after they gave up they sold the design and manufacturing rights of their powerplant to Allison. A verion of the engine with fairly limited modifications has been used in the very popular Bell JetRanger helicopter ever since. Bet Rover wish they hadn't let it go so cheap now...!

On another note, my high school had one of the few Rover Turbine engines left on display. Very small and compact unit it was too.

[gbgaffer]

I remember watching Graham Hill driving at Brands Hatch in a gas turbine powered Lotus, quite weird, as he had to spool up the engine v. early through the corners so that he was on power at the exit. Can't remember what the race was but IIRC it was 'unlimited' so you had CanAm cars racing single seaters. Great fun

[gnomesmith]

The problem with the Rover Le Mans car lay with the heat exchangers required to give it a reasonable fuel consumption which were fragile and unreliable. The ceramics available today would have made the car far more effective and who knows what it would have led to.

Rover were a Rolls Royce sub contractor producing Rolls Gas Turbines for the Meteor fighter, no surprise then that they started their own programme which eventually led to Leyland trucks powered by gas turbine.

The Lotus Turbine car raced in F1 not just Indy racing, if only we had that sort of technical diversity in GP racing today. Perhaps more people would be able to stay awake on sunday afternoons.

My particular favorite was the Howmett GT Turbine wooshing around Brands Hatch.

>> Edited by gnomesmith on Thursday 30th January 13:44

[grahambell]

jamesc said: Surely you mean "Graham Hill"?? I know Graham Bell has driven most cars; but a team mate to Sir Jackie Stewart; I don't think so.

James

Yes, come on Ted, I know I'm knocking on a bit but I'm not old enough to have raced at Le Mans in 1965! Sadly I'm not fast enough either...

[ErnestM]

In '63 Chrysler Corporation built over 50 gas turbine-powered cars. They put them out on loan to members of the public for three months to gain feedback. It's incredible to think that forty years ago there were motorists going shopping in jet powered cars with rev counters showing a max rpm of 60,000. Exhaust temperatures could read 2800 degrees Celcius!

They had a TV show on over this side of the pond with this car not too long ago. There are only nine left. Five are in the Chrysler museum. It didn't half sound the business. Very interesting concept. I'll see if I can rummage up a media file for evryone to hear the turbine...

ErnestM

[plotloss]

Wasnt the GT90 a turbine car?

Had some fundamental design issue or summat though?

Matt.

[ErnestM]

plotloss said: Wasnt the GT90 a turbine car?

Had some fundamental design issue or summat though?

Matt.

I think that they were looking in that direction. Of course then along came the new Mr. Ford and made us settle for the Ford GT.

ErnestM

[ErnestM]

Okay, here we go.

This page will lead you to a quicktime embedded movie (about 10 seconds or so) But if you listen carefully, you can hear the turbine engine:
www.myclassiccar.com/MCCTV/026112/026112high.html

For more information about the Chrysler Turbine click here (includes a picture of the engine):
www.myclassiccar.com/MCCTV/026112/63crysler.html

Enjoy
ErnestM

[danmangt40]

the gt90 was NOT a turbine car. It had the earliest version of the V12 that is now under the hoods of the DB7-Vantage and Vanquish. It had 4 turbos, and was rated at something like 720 hp. It had a very triangular opening in the rear that was plated with the same material NASA uses to keep the orbiters from burning up on reentry. Apparently there were some heat issues, but it was not a turbine.

[HarryW]

An uninteresting piece of trivia; the Rover GT engines were still in use as emergency fire pumps in the Navy until not very long ago . Believe me you wouldn't want one in a car next to you, having seen them let go of their blades at full load before now . There might even be some still going.

Harry

[gnomesmith]

danmangt40 said: It had a very triangular opening in the rear that was plated with the same material NASA uses to keep the orbiters from burning up on reentry. Apparently there were some heat issues

Unfortunate timing!