Gas turbine Land Rover and leading electrical machine company SR Drives, is to produce the world’s first commercially viable - and environmentally friendly - gas turbine generator designed specifically for automotive applications. The common turbocharger for gasoline or diesel engines is also a turbine derivative. The first serious investigation of using a gas turbine in cars was in 1946 when two engineers, Robert Kafka and Robert Engerstein of Carney Associates, a New York engineering firm, came up with the concept where a unique compact turbine engine design would provide power for a rear wheel drive car. After an article appeared in "Popular
Gas turbine relation purposes. Starting in 1954 with a modified Plymouth, the American car manufacturer Chrysler demonstrated several prototype gas turbine-powered cars from the early 1950s through the early 1980s. Chrysler built fifty Chrysler Turbine Cars in 1963 and conducted the only consumer trial of gas turbine-powered cars. Each of their turbines employed a unique rotating recuperator, referred to as a regenerator that increased efficiency. In 1954 FIAT unveiled a concept car with a turbine engine, called Fiat Turbina. This vehicle, looking like an aircraft with wheels, used a unique combination of both jet thrust and the engine driving the wheels. Speeds