Audi, Toyota, Porsche : three big constructors will do battle with their respective hybrid technologies at the 2014 Le Mans 24 Hours. Twenty years earlier, Chrysler had studied the possibilties...

In 1992, Chrysler launched a revolutionary program with an aim to reach the 24 Hours of Le Mans by 1995. The Patriot was powered by two gas turbines working sequentially: the first spinning at 50,000 rpm, the second at 100,000 rpm. The gas, in liquid form, was stored in refrigerated reservoirs. Transformed in electricity, the energy produced by the two turbo-alternators fed an engine clocking more than 500 horsepower.

And that's not all : the surplus energy created by the alternators, as well as the kinetic energy recovered from braking, spun an inertia wheel weighing 60 kilos. Enclosed in an air-tight chamber, the disc turned at 60,000 rpm and gave an 80hp power boost under acceleration.

Original and ambitious, the project made headlines at the Detroit Auto Show in 1994 and at the White House before being abandoned. Twenty years later, the concept of an inertia wheel is used by Audi to recuperate kinetic energy on its LM P1.

Andy Wallace driving the Chrysler Patriot.	The car is still on display at the Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills.
The turbine : using liquid gas !	Bill Clinton admires the Chrysler Patriot.

Julien HERGAULT / ACO