In 1963, Chrysler unveiled a machine so advanced it felt like a fragment of a future that hadn’t arrived yet. The Chrysler Turbine Car, sleek, bronze, and humming with the soft whine of a jet engine, was the most ambitious automotive experiment an American manufacturer had attempted. Instead of pistons and crankshafts, it carried a twin-spool turbine engine capable of running on everything from gasoline to perfume to tequila. And for two brief years, ordinary families selected for Chrysler’s national test program drove them through American suburbs, filling neighborhoods with the strange, aerospace-like hiss of turbine power.
In total, Chrysler built 55 Turbine Cars: five engineering prototypes and fifty Ghia-bodied production models for public testing. At the end of the program, when the data was collected, the experiment concluded, and the U.S. regulatory environment shifted, most of the cars were ordered destroyed. Turbine research was considered proprietary, and Chrysler worried foreign automakers would tear down the engines, reverse-engineer the blades, or test materials that were then considered military-adjacent technology.
Nine cars escaped destruction. Three remained with Chrysler. One went to the Smithsonian. Others were distributed to major museums and collectors. Those nine survive today, fully documented, accounted for, photographed, and revered. The rest, Chrysler has always said, were scrapped and melted.
But there is a problem with that story. A very large one.
In collector circles, historians noticed that Chrysler’s destruction paperwork doesn't come close to matching the numbers. Of the fifty Ghia-bodied turbine cars, archival VIN lists show that only a handful have complete destruction records, far fewer than the forty-six Chrysler says were crushed. For decades, researchers and turbine enthusiasts have pointed out the discrepancy: dozens of VINs appear in factory logs, test-program records, and internal memos, yet no corresponding scrap certificate exists for many of them.
This has fueled one of the most persistent automotive legends in American car history, the mystery of the “Missing 46.”
The story begins in 1966, after the test program formally ended and most of the cars were recalled. Chrysler contracted with a Detroit-area scrapyard to dismantle them. Photographs of several cars being crushed exist, including publicity shots showing the bronze bodies folded like cardboard. But internal accounts from employees tell a less consistent story. Some engineers insisted not every car was delivered for destruction. Others recalled heated debates over whether certain units, particularly high-performing test mules, should be preserved, hidden, or quietly transferred to trusted hands.
Then there are the sightings. Beginning in the 1970s and continuing sporadically into the 2000s, collectors have reported glimpses of turbine cars in private warehouses, airplane hangars, and sealed garages owned by families with deep Detroit ties. More than once, car historians have described tracking rumors of a complete Turbine Car hidden behind false walls or stored in climate-controlled anonymity. Every time Chrysler was asked about these sightings, the company responded the same way: impossible. Everything not officially preserved was destroyed.
Yet a closer look at the VIN trail complicates that dismissal. The fifty production cars were individually logged by Chrysler and by U.S. Customs when they returned from Ghia in Italy. Those records still exist. But when researchers compare Chrysler’s official destruction logs to third-party documentation, nearly four dozen of those VINs lack any trace of a scrap record. No destruction date. No certificate. No yard confirmation. No chain of custody. Nothing.
Some explain the discrepancy as clerical inconsistency, paperwork lost, misfiled, or incomplete. Others argue Chrysler intentionally obscured the destruction records to prevent data leaks. But long-time automotive archivists point out something harder to ignore: several turbine engines and components surfaced in the collector world in the 1980s and 1990s, originating from unknown sources. A handful of private sellers admitted their parts came from “cars someone saved.” None ever identified which.
Adding fuel to the fire, one former Chrysler employee told a historian in the 1990s that at least a few Turbine Cars “went out the back door” before the crushers arrived. Another claimed certain executives couldn't bear to see all of them destroyed and quietly arranged private storage, possibly intended for eventual museum donation that never occurred.
No claim has ever been verified. No lost car has ever been publicly documented. But the VIN gaps remain.
Today, the nine surviving Turbine Cars are housed in museums or carefully curated collections, restored to a metallic glow and run occasionally for demonstrations. But the legend of the Missing 46 persists because the records don’t reconcile, eyewitness stories conflict, and collectors swear more cars existed long after Chrysler said they were destroyed.
Maybe the missing VINs represent nothing more than bad paperwork. Or maybe a handful of the most advanced experimental cars ever built quietly survived, hidden away by people who understood how extraordinary they were. If even one Turbine Car escaped destruction, it would be the automotive equivalent of discovering a lost moon landing prototype tucked inside a barn.
For now, the official line stands: only nine remain. Everything else is myth. But in the shadowed corners of car culture, among archivists, engineers, and old Detroit families, the question lingers like turbine exhaust, what really happened to the missing 46?
Editor’s Note: This article is based on Chrysler archival data, VIN records published in collector registries, eyewitness accounts from former employees, and decades of research documented by automotive historians. While the missing VINs are real, claims of surviving hidden cars are unverified and presented as part of the historical controversy.
Sources & Further Reading:
– Chrysler archival VIN and production records (1963–1966)
– National Museum of American History: Chrysler Turbine Car history
– Accounts from automotive historians in Hemmings, Car and Driver, and specialty registries
– Interviews with former Chrysler engineers and test-program participants
– Public museum documentation of the nine surviving Turbine Cars
(One of many stories shared by Headcount Coffee — where mystery, history, and late-night reading meet.)
