While Ford did have its own turbine program, largely focused on powering heavy-duty trucks, it was General Motors and Chrysler that put significant and long-term investments into the engine technology for automotive use, often touting it as an engine that would power the cars of the future. Chrysler arguably came closest to implementing turbines in production cars with the 1964 Ghia-bodied Turbine cars that a select few in the public got to experience first-hand before most of the cars were subsequently scrapped, and the company spent far longer investigating turbines with multiple generations of its engine design spanning several decades. But let's not forget that GM had its own multi-generation turbine program in the Fifties, that it too looked into using turbines to power big rigs, and that GM returned to turbines in the Eighties and Nineties.

But which automaker really sold the public on the potential for turbines? To decide that question, let's look at how they both showcased their turbine programs. The body of literature between the two certainly far exceeds one promotional video from each, but that's just what we're going to highlight here today, starting with GM's introduction of its bubble topped and befinned Firebird III gas turbine-powered concept car from 1958.

Then from just a few years later, Chrysler's pronunciation that "tomorrow is today" with the Turbine:

Which is the most convincing and makes you wonder why we all weren't driving gas turbine-powered cars over the last half-century?