![]() ![]() Watch Also: Jay Leno’s Shelby GT500-Powered ’68 Ford Bronco Restomod Will Eat 2021 Broncos For Breakfast It ultimately launched the Chrysler Airflow in 1934 offering it through 1937, and while it didn’t sell all that well, it did bring about a dramatic change in the design of automobiles back in the day. In 1934, the new Airflow looked like a giant jellybean.As Jay Leno discusses in his most recent YouTube video, Chrysler was experimenting with the most streamlined shape for a car back in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The 1933 Chrysler Imperial resembled a Duesenberg or a Packard. To them this round thing looked like something from another planet. The Airflow was a complete change from its predecessor, and the styling was so extreme that people were really shocked. Which just goes to show that it's hard to sell something before its time. They designed a new hood and a conventional grille for the 1935 models to make them look more like the other cars on the road, but it was all for naught, and production ended in 1937 after only four years. Chrysler sold only 11,292 Airflows in 1934, and just 67 were CX Custom Imperial eight-passenger limos like mine. There's an Airflow club that's very active. Prices were quite reasonable, and still are to this day. And you know it's aerodynamic, because there's virtually no wind noise.įor years, nobody wanted Airflows. Like the Duesenberg, it's one of the few cars from the '30s that you can drive 70 mph on the freeway and not feel rushed or pushed. You lift off the gas at 38 mph and step on the clutch, and fourth gear automatically engages. It came with a 323.5-cid, 130-bhp straight Eight and automatic overdrive. My Imperial Airflow is wonderful to drive-more like a car from the 1940s or early 1950s than the '30s, due to its smooth ride. Chrysler, which did anything it could to get prospective buyers to go for a convincing test drive, called it the Floating Ride. The chassis was designed with long, soft leaf springs that provide an incredibly comfortable ride. The front-engine layout locates all occupants optimally between the front and rear axles. It had such wide, upright seats that Chrysler had to produce them on a special assembly line. The passenger compartment has so many art deco touches, it looks like you're sitting in the Chrysler Building in New York. You can get a lot of air flowing through this car and stay quite cool. The vent and side windows open, and at the flip of a switch the entire frame goes down. Before air conditioning, carmakers tried to get lots of air circulating through the cabin. Other innovations included wraparound windshields on the top-line CWs, but they were hard to install and many broke on the assembly line. The body had 40 times the rigidity of previous Chryslers a strong tubular frame meant you were essentially driving in a steel cage. Its steering column goes right into the dashboard-not between the clutch and brake pedals-so the shaft doesn't interfere with the driver's feet. The Airflow had many other safety features. It had survived a crash that would probably have demolished other cars of the era, which still used wood in their bodies. When it landed, the reinforced roof hadn't collapsed, all the doors still opened, and a guy got in it and drove it away. ![]() In contrast, Chrysler produced a widely viewed promotional film that showed an Airflow being pushed over the side of a cliff. Or the famous "He Drives a Duesenberg" ad, where they never even showed the car and instead featured an obviously wealthy man seated in a private library. The illustrated ad, titled "Somewhere West of Laramie," mentions little about the Jordan's mechanical attributes, but describes how a stylish cowgirl-who's taming a bucking horse-would find kinship with the Playboy. ![]() They were poetic, like the 1923 ad for the Jordan Playboy that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post. Most auto ads in that era were not instructional. In consultation with aviation pioneer Orville Wright, he conducted wind-tunnel tests that showed the average car in the 1930s was 30 percent more aerodynamic going backward.īesides its streamlined shape, the new Airflow tried to sell safety, but auto safety just didn't sell cars back then. Breer spent six years researching and developing the revolutionary car. The Airflow owes its existence to Carl Breer, one of Chrysler's most celebrated engineers (the others were Fred Zeder and Owen Skelton). Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play ![]()
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