I’m pretty sure it was the Chrysler Turboflite that gave birth to the expression “What were they thinking?” Have you ever seen such unrestrained ugliness? The picture above makes it look like a table top with headlights and the latest in Lazy Susan’s. But that single picture doesn’t do justice to the designers “art.”
There you go. Shocking, isn’t it? The jacked up canopy, the open front wheels and that spoiler.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Maybe it looked better in color. Well, you tell me.
Even parquet flooring, a nice bit of curtain and a spotlight can’t distract your eye from those front wheels and that laughable radiator grille. And can you imagine how dangerous those front wheels would be? Maybe they planned this thing for an amphibious life. I can certainly think of things I would do with 20,000ft of water and this thing.
Even the “subtle” touches on this car were bizarre. For example, take a look at the rear view.
Do you see those exhaust pipes? Is there anything more corny and ugly that trying to thread the exhaust pipe of a car though the rear bumper? I saw the same sort of effect on a BMW recently. Of course, that had the whole Bangled look to it in the hope that you would notice the rectangular exhaust pipes, and I must say, it was a ploy that nearly worked.
And take a good look inside the Turboflite. At the base of the center console there appears to be an enormous dial of some sort. I suspect its a barometer, though quite why you’d want it by your feet beats me. Maybe they thought it added a touch of class.
There’s one final oddity about this car. Take a look at the pictures below. Look carefully. Can you spot the difference?
Do you see it? The amazing thing is … the tires in the second picture are WHITE. They not only changed the tires, but chose a different color as well. Can you imagine being at the meeting where someone actually decided that white tires were what this thing needed to really set it off? Someone actually spent time thinking about it. And it wasn’t like it’d done 50,000 miles and needed a new set. No, no, no. This was a concept car, a show car, it never went anywhere. They took off a perfectly serviceable set of black tires and fitted shiny new white tires because they thought it would LOOK BETTER. I can’t stop laughing at the idea that the bunch at the white tire meeting must have spent time stood around this monstrosity congratulating themselves on their sense of style.
But that’s my (jaundiced) opinion. Let loose on the beauty of white tires. Tell me how I fail to see the amazing utility of the jacked up canopy for keeping families dry in rainy old Seattle. Or fill me in on what that curious dial at the bottom of the center console might have been. Please.
Cheers
That’s just messed up, Nigel. So many people out of work, and someone actually got paid to do that. Wow! Thanks for sharing, Nigel.
Hi Piper, good to see you.
I hope I didn’t mislead you, the Turboflite was created in the sixties, but I’m sure there were people out of work then, and someone (probably a lot of someones) got paid to produce this automotive gargoyle.
Some companies get into a rut where they produce rubbish but can’t face admitting it, so they just keep going with the same old rubbish. Seems to be a recurrent theme in the auto world.
Thanks for the comment 🙂
Cheers!
Wow, That “Turbofilte” looks like a Doomsday-mobile looking for a corner to fall off of. It gives us a hint of how hard Chrysler worked for so many years to shove themselves off of an economic cliff. I wish your blog had been available during the infamous 1979 Chrysler tax payer funded bail out. Had Jimmy carter had a look at that car he might have fathomed the depths of Chrysler’s insanity.
This is a great web page.
Hi Jay.
LOL. Jimmy C probably did everything he could to look in the other direction. Bail outs, well meaning support and the like was what eventually killed the British car industry. The auto makers were divorced from the capitalist process, the need to make things people wanted to buy. They insulated themselves from the public, fed their belief in their own greatness, and got killed when the Japanese came along with reliable cars that they wanted to continuously improve. Chrysler kept going with the weird stuff though, have a look at Bob Lutz’s Voyager 3.
Cheers!
Well friends, there’s a reason the Turboflite looks that way. It was a concept that predated the Chrysler Turbine! They wanted it to be futuristic, outrageous, to show this was no common car; after all it was supposed to be powered by the second generation of their turbine engine.
I guess that’s what you get when you ask some designers to do whatever they like. maybe they were among the first LSD testers?
Hi Alexander.
They certainly managed to generate some “outrage” with this design. It tries hard to be different and stand out, but most of the differences make me ask, why? You might be onto something questioning the drug testing, maybe designers of concept cars should be drugs tested before their vehicles are put on display!
Cheers!