K. Hyde, by the mid-1950s Chrysler "led the way in terms of gas turbine research" (although General Motors and Rover also built operational turbine cars after World War II). After improving their turbine design, most notably by engineering a regenerator to resolve an issue with heat exchange, the Chrysler team's efforts reached early maturity when they mated a turbine to an otherwise-stock 1954 Plymouth Belvedere. Heating and cooling and emissions and exhaust were among the principal engineering challenges which faced the turbine engine. Chrysler tested the Belvedere, claiming that its turbine engine contained 20% fewer parts and weighed less than comparable, conventional piston engines. On June 16, 1954, the company publicly unveiled the turbine-powered Belvedere at its Chelsea Proving Grounds in Chelsea, Michigan, in front of over 500 reporters. Chrysler unveiled its next turbine car, a 1956 Plymouth, on March 23, 1956; Huebner drove it on a four-day trip from New York City to Los Angeles. Although the car was shadowed by a 14-person convoy of mechanics with fuel and spare parts, it only required two minor repairs on the trip (neither of which were engine-related). The coast-to-coast journey's success led Chrysler to double the size of its turbine program and move it from the Highland Park Chrysler Plant, to a larger facility on Greenfield Road in Detroit. The program began generating several patent applications in 1957, due largely to the contributions of metallurgist Amedee Roy and engineer Giovanni Savonuzzi. The next iteration of the Chrysler turbine engine (the second-generation engine) was placed into a 1959 Plymouth, which averaged on a trip from Detroit to Woodbridge, New Jersey. This mileage was substantially higher than the achieved with the first-generation turbine on the 1956 New York-to-Los Angeles journey. After Chrysler named former accountant Lynn Townsend its new president in 1961, the company unveiled its next, third-generation turbine engine on February 28; the CR2A was the first Chrysler turbine engine to be officially named. Unlike its more experimental predecessors, the CR2A was designed with an eye on costs and production methods. While the engine was under development in May 1960, Huebner said that it would serve as its own torque converter, generate , have an acceleration lag of 1.5 seconds (compared with nine seconds for its predecessor), and weighed less than a comparably sized piston engine. Third-generation turbines were mated to a variety of vehicles, including a 2.5-ton 1960 Dodge truck and