The internet is good for a few things. One of them is causing familiar topics to bubble up time and again in different places. One of the common topics of discussion that always rears its head when guys start talking about hot rodding in the 1960s is Turbonique. The good thing is the topic always makes for great conversation. Most of the guy my dad’s age remember the company for the ads in hot rod and how they lusted after the parts. Few people ever actually saw Turbonique cars do anything but the spectacular ads, the promotional films, and the urban myths abounded, causing great hype that manifests itself still today. There is a THAT REALLY HAPPENED?! element to Turbonique that wll never, ever go away.

Turbonique was one of the most interesting, insane, and short lived companies in the history of hot rodding. Most of you probably have the basic idea of what the company sold, but for those of you who don’t, Turbonique sold rocket engines, self powered superchargers, and the truly demented “Turbo Drag Axle” which was a turbine driven off the rear end using the company’s Thermolene monopropellant.

Imagine a supercharger that was actually powered by its own fuel supply and ran independantly of the engine it was feeding. You’ll see it in action by watching the videos below. Totally nuts.

The company was based out of Orlando, Florida, and existed for a couple years before the owner, a guy named Gene Middlebrooks went to jail for mail fraud and the whole thing folded up. If you’ve scanned Hot Rod Magazine issues from the 1960s you have seen their ads and wild performance claims. As you’ll see in the videos below, the stuff actually worked and produced immense amounts of power. From our understanding, what got Middlebrooks in trouble was selling complete and finished Turbonique kits that were actually rough machined pieces that needed LOTS of work if they were ever going to work right. You can’t really do that…legally anyway.

We had no idea that video existed of this stuff in action. This is truly amazing stuff.