![]() They quickly replaced the huge waterfall grilles with more conventional looks, but sales stayed low. Orders for the Airflow began to drop like dead flies.Ĭhrysler still sold traditional cars, but DeSoto, with only Airflows, saw its sale plummet by 47% (partly due to the higher price required). They instituted a snarling, vicious rumor campaign against the Chrysler car. The ride was markedly improved, in fact, at the time it was considered just sensational! General Motors had nothing in the works to answer the Airflow. Technically, it was the car that all cars of the future would be based upon. This, with the unique styling, was its downfall, as Curtis Redgap wrote: The Chrysler and DeSoto Airflow were unveiled at the 1934 New York auto show, before production cars were available. The unit had full-sized speakers, four-point tone control, and automatic volume control.ĭue to its high expense, a new innovation - the curved safety windshield - was used only on the luxury Chrysler CW, a nine-passenger sedan which also had the first power partition window. It included a superheterodyne circuit designed for automotive use, and operated with the engine off or on (though, being tube-based, it would drain the battery fairly rapidly). some of the loads were carried locally by the frame before distribution to the body.Īn advanced option was a Philco radio in the dashboard, for $55. Some of the disadvantages of the Airflow were the long expensive body the extra length for shipping bodies the difficulty in making yearly front end changes, the expensive service cost in front and repair the lack of definiteness in structure i.e. It also had a very long body extending to the front of the car, with the hood sides reinforced to carry the load from the spring ends. The Airflow car, which was one of the most rigid cars that has ever been built, was equipped with a light frame to assemble the chassis units. It depends on how one defines “the car.” An internal Chrysler report later noted: The frame surrounds you with a bridgework of steel,” so that you are indeed riding in the car. Under the hyperbole, Carl Breer and his research team did go back to scientific principles, and every one of their changes was based on theory-driven experiment - including the new spring lengths and rates.Īs for the odd boast, “It is the first ride-inside motor car” - that’s explained by the words, “the body and frame are one. They designed front springs much longer than ever before, and they discovered ways to produce a rate of spring action which is most natural and restful to human nerves. studied the “periodicity” (or rate) of spring movement. the action of the front springs is entirely independent of the rear. The engine is over the front axle, the rear seat is 20 inches forward of the rear axle, the passengers ride at the center of balance, suspended between the two axles. It was stiffer than body-on-frame cars of the period.Īll the important weights in the car have been redistributed. The Airflow even eschewed the ladder frame, using a semi-unit-body form, with a frame that ran up the fender line, crossed the cowl, and went around the door openings the body panels were fitted to it. Pushing the wheels to both ends of the car dramatically improved both cornering and ride, as they would in the 1990s “cab forward” cars. The Airflow’s obvious aerodynamic work caught the attention of many writers, but the less obvious work on vibration frequencies and ride were often overlooked. The cabin was moved forward, to evade vibrations and keep passengers from sitting directly over the rear axle. The group discovered that some cars had less drag going backwards - so the Airflow gained a tapered rear, to avoid having a vacuum dragging it back along with a curved front. They started aerodynamic testing with a small wind tunnel for small models, and moved on to a larger wind tunnel in Highland Park, Michigan. ![]() In his usual “research, then develop” fashion, using expertise from other companies as needed, Breer contacted Ohio engineer Bill Earnshaw, who brought in Wright, the aviation company. For one thing, as cars passed 80 mph in top speed, aerodynamics became more important. It is the first real motor car since the invention of the automobile.”Ĭarl Breer, who headed Chrysler’s R&D at the time, realized that the typical automobile shape was no longer well adapted to the cars’ purpose. the first really spacious car.the first Floating Ride car.the first car ever to be built that literally ignores the kind of road it runs on. In 1934, Chrysler brochures boasted, “It is the first ride-inside motor car. Well ahead of its time, the Chrysler Airflow (also sold by DeSoto and Imperial with the same name), was a major engineering feat. DeSoto and Chrysler Airflow car The Chrysler Airflow: Engineering Success, Sales Failure
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