It was 8˚F outside and the sun was already down; appropriate environs for a car frozen in time. This #ChryslerAirflow was somebody’s project long ago, but it’s been abandoned for at least 30 years. The public hated it, but the Airflow was a hugely influential car 85 years ago, a time as distant from today as the wind tunnels and clean drafting tables that created it are to this wooded dumping ground. - The idea for the car stemmed from a fleet of planes that Chrysler engineer Carl Breer saw while on vacation in the summer of 1927. The planes of 1927 were far more streamlined than those of the WW1 era, when Breer himself had worked on on the Liberty Aero engine. Why couldn’t cars, still not far removed from “horseless carriages,” be as sleek as planes? It was a question that would dominate automotive styling for the next 30 years. - Chrysler’s “three musketeers” of engineering - Breer, Owen Skelton, and Fred Zeder, were not aerodynamicsts, so they hired an expert, Bill Earnshaw - a friend of the Wright Brothers who helped them set up multiple wind tunnels and test their ideas. But the Airflow was more than just aerodynamics. Breer re-thought much of the packaging, lengthening the wheelbase, widening the passenger compartment, and created a “bridge and truss” unibody. Not a true unibody, it was a frame-plus-cage structure to which exterior panels were welded. - The Airflow debuted in New York on Jan. 6, 1934. Beyond being a polarizing design, Chrysler had rushed it into production - the new techniques needed to build it meant long waits and, sometimes, quality ills. Buyers who stuck with it got excellent speed and comfort; but the Airflow’s style-by-engineer looks and unproven construction put off many. The car was a market disaster, with DeSoto sales falling 31% in 1934 and fewer than 12,000 Chrysler Airflows being built for the year. It was, however, cool enough to spawn multiple imitators, particularly the Volvo PV36, Toyoda AA, and Peugeot 402. - The Airflow was withdrawn after 1937 after a hasty 1935 restyle aided by Norman Bel Geddes. Years later they became highly prized cars, but hard to restore thanks to low numbers and a complex, rust-prone structure. https://www.instagram.com/p/BtTseqsAuAm/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=15h68tdx7u92a
