Because of the successful development background of the automotive gas turbine engine and because of its inherently clean combustion system, there has been a growing interest in mass producing automotive gas turbines starting in the late 70's or early 80's. Because of its simplicity, its smaller number of parts and fewer machined surfaces, some have predicted that gas turbine engines will be lower in cost in mass production quantities than the piston engine, particularly when consideration is given to the cost of emissions control equipment that must be added to the conventional engine. Quantitative information, however, has not been available concerning the manufacturing cost of automotive gas turbine engines, nor have questions been answered as to the cost of owning and operating turbine powered cars. This economic analysis was conducted to determine values for these unknowns relative to current production piston engines and to define areas requiring additional development efforts.