Back in the 1960s, Chrysler made an automobile that ran on virtually any liquid combustible fuel.  Powering this car was a genuine turbine engine. It had one-fifth of the moving parts that a standard piston engine does and weighed a lot less.  This is an absolutely true story, a genuine, drivable multifuel automobile that was available over 60 years ago by Chrysler. 

In 1963, Chrysler built not just one of these remarkable cars but a fleet of 55 of them and lent them to the general public for testing. Any person who was lucky enough to have their name drawn from the 30,000 people who submitted applications was given one to drive for three months. The recommended fuel was diesel but users were told that they could run the car on home heating oil if it was available to them, or even on inexpensive kerosene.  Chrysler simply said "use them and let us know what you think". 

All 55 cars were used for 3 months and then the feedback came back. The problem was that gasoline in the 1960s cost about 30 cents and the turbine car didn't get the gas mileage of some of the existing piston engines. Many people looked at the multifuel capability of the car as nothing more than an interesting feature.  The consumer acceptance factor was low because "it got bad gas mileage". 

Just consider if these cars had made it into production? In theory, you would pull into a filling station and take a look at the various fuels available. You could then choose the cheapest one and refuel. Today, we might be a nation of a wide variety of transportation fuels (like Brazil is now) if the Chrysler turbine car was produced. 

By the way, guess what happened to the fleet of Chrysler turbines? Chrysler rounded the cars up and destroyed most of them a few survived. Guess what, Hollywood personality and car buff Jay Leno, has one of them.