Automotive gas turbines should not be confused with pure jet engines which propel airplanes by the thrust of expelled gas. While the operating principle is the same, a car’s turbine, like a piston engine, rotates a shaft geared to the vehicle’s driveline.
Turbine pioneer Dr. Sanford Moss of General Electric began experimenting with gas turbines early in the twentieth century. There were already wind, water and steam turbines but energising a turbine by burning the fuel directly was new.
In the 1920s Dr. Moss turned his attention to related exhaust actuated turbine-driven superchargers, called turbochargers, that enabled aircraft piston engines to maintain sea level performance at high altitudes. For Moss’s success he became known as the “Father of Turbocharging.”