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