1934                          Chrysler Airflow

 

 

Chrysler’s radical Airflow is one of the most important cars of all time, at once an incredible engineering success and a crushing commercial failure. Although its architecture, in which the entire passenger compartment was moved forward into the wheelbase, had been pioneered by Gabriel Voisin, the Airflow was the first mass-production example and the first to move the engine forward over the front axle, not behind it. The body was steel-framed and rigidly attached to the chassis, and the overall shape was rounded in front to mimic the aerodynamic qualities of ‘streamlined’ locomotives of the time.

 

Applied to both Chrysler and its sister marque De Soto, the Airflow look was not a success with the American public, but it enthralled engineers all over the world, who eagerly copied both the architecture and the appearance. The Airflow concept was picked up by Toyota for its first car, and by Peugeot, Volvo, Fiat and Berlier for production. The VW Beetle is an almost line-for-line copy – apart from the frontal air intakes – of the De Soto coupe.

 

As it varied so much from the style of the time, potential buyers were reluctant to adopt the Airflow line, which eschewed the long, high engine cover that connoted power and speed. That the airflow was late into production allowed competitors to mount a whispering campaign that “something was wrong”, and a half-hearted restyle for 1935, with a weak imitation of a long bonnet grafted on, did nothing to help sales. Chrysler built Airflows for only four years during the lowest point of the Great Depression, and the car’s failure probably put automotive aerodynamics back forty years. The contemporary Lincoln Zephyr had its own VW-like nose altered before production began and enjoyed impressive sales. The Airflow remains the ultimate case study of what happens when good design is mixed with bad styling.

 

 

These extracts are taken from Auto Legends: Classics of Style and Design by Michel Zumbrunn, text by Robert Cumberford which was published in October by Merrell