Frank Kurtis early-style turbine-powered championship car

[Ace-Garageguy]

[Len Woodruff]

Never heard of this one. What year was it? Looks like a 56 Ford in the background.

[Ace-Garageguy]

How about this one? My current understanding is that it started life as a turbine car too, a mid-engine design from 1954.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy

[Ace-Garageguy]

Never heard of this one. What year was it? Looks like a 56 Ford in the background.

I THINK the turbine is a jet-engine starting motor of around 150hp, installed by the "hobby shop" at an Air Force base Kurtis gave the old car to.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy

[Art Anderson]

No, the Rounds Rocket was not first built as a turbine car. I don't believe it was even built by Kurtis-Kraft, although it may well have used some Kurtis components. It was built for the 1949 Indianapolis 500 Mile Race.

It was a 1949 attempt at a rear engine car for Indianapolis (not the first one, that honor went to a home-built rear engine car powered by a Marmon V16 engine, appearing at Indianapolis in either 1937 or 1938, the second was the Harry Miller constructed Mobilgas rear engined 4WD car which entered Indianapolis in 1939, as a team of two cars. One of those was destroyed in a fire in Gasoline Alley which took out one entire row of garages on the morning of May 30, 1941, the survivor being entered as the Tucker Torpedo Spl at Indy in 1948)..

The Rounds Rocket pracitced at Indianapolis in 1949, made an attempt to qualify, but was too slow to make the field--apparently it was quite heav--and was powered by a 274 cid Meyer-Drake Offenhauser 4cyl engine.

Art

[Art Anderson]

I THINK the turbine is a jet-engine starting motor of around 150hp, installed by the "hobby shop" at an Air Force base Kurtis gave the old car to.

You are pretty correct. The chassis and bodywork were a Kurtis 4000 dirt track AAA (American Automobile Association) Championship car built in either 1953 or 54.

This car still exists, restored, as part of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall Of Fame Collection, but I've not seen it on the display floor of the Museum in probably 25 years or more.

Art