March 29, 2011 • 26 mins
With a sleek, innovative design, there's no question that the Chrysler Airflow was ahead of its time. So why isn't it around today? In this episode, Scott and Ben explore the history of the iconic Chrysler Airflow. Tune in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how Stuff works dot com. Everybody, welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott Benjaman and my name is
Ben Bowling. And what are we talking about today? Scott? Well, Ben,
we got a listener suggestion. We know how we love floats?
(00:22):
Are mail we do? This is one that came in.
We might have read this one in Nuts and Bolts
or something like that. I know we've we've talked about this,
but um, this one comes from David from Port Washington, Wisconsin.
And David asked, have you consider doing a show in
the Chrysler Airflow cars revolutionary step in car design and
is full of fun facts from its original the original
(00:42):
stunt of a reverse mounted body, which I'll tell you
about in a moment, to the influence of the aerodynamics.
The air Flows legacy lives now. Thank you, David. First off,
but you put a couple of spoilers in there, man, No,
he did. Those are some cool things that we want
to talk about. True, you wanna you wanna hit Should
we just talk about this reverse because that's interesting and
(01:05):
that that's what got the world talking right? Yeah? Okay,
So the Chrysler Airflow made by the Chrysler Corporation. Uh,
it ran from what thirty four thirty four to thirty
seven thirty seven, And so before they did a lot
of advertising and marketing stuff for the Airflow before it
actually came out, and Chrysler did a marketing thing where
(01:30):
they reverse the axles and the steering gears of the
car so this car could be driven backwards. And they
did that, they drove it backwards through Detroit and it
caused quite a flepped and I mean people were people
were a buzz a twitter, right, yes, they but but
not everyone was cool with it, uh, because it's so strange,
(01:52):
you know, like, what are they up to? What? What
are they gonna do? Right? What's this all about? It?
They're really gonna make a car that drives backwards. That's
the idea, right, that's the that's the so you know,
if you look at cars of that era, it kind
of makes sense when you look at what they ended
up developing in the Airflow because they've got this really
unusual design. And everybody should just right now take a
(02:13):
quick look at the Chrysler Airflow online. Specifically the Airflow
that's the one that was kind of this real groundbreaking
aerodynamic design that has this this waterfall, uh they called
a waterfall. I believe the grill they went right in
the front bumper, all all the way up like midhood
right about the engine almost were normally a lot of
the cars of the day had you remember those real
(02:34):
upright radiators very I think they call them skyscraper radiators
or something like that. They were, they were vertical, they
were not smooth. Yeah, I think about like the old
Rolls Royce um um radiator that you know, the very big, shiny,
straight up and down chrome radiator um. And a lot
of the cars had that, you know, they had or
very flat front ends. Uh. This one was very very
(02:56):
aerodynamic and uh and as you'll find out, a lot
of this stuff was way ahead of its time and
uh so much so that they had to invent several
concepts in the course of inventing this vehicle. Right. Um,
I'm gonna say a word that's probably familiar to everybody. Streamlining. Yes, streamlining,
(03:16):
it's right. This is a very streamlined body. Just take
a look at all of them, really and you'll find
streamline design. You know where I came from. Ben take
will take a while I guess you you might already
know this. There's some anecdotes. I'm not sure. Are you
talking about the word or the concept? No? No, the concept? Okay,
I've I've heard. Can I give you a couple that
I've heard? Sure, I'm talking about the air flow concept.
I'm sorry now, not the overall airdonnetic concept. But go ahead.
(03:39):
Oh okay, Well, I think Carl Breer is the guy
who came up with the concept. He's the designer the
the the airflow. Correct, I'm not getting you know, oh no, no,
But you know this may be a surprise to you.
I found I dug this up from somewhere I don't
remember where's guests who was employed to help them with
the aerodynamic design of the airflow, because this is kind
(04:00):
of unusual at the time. Do you know, go ahead
hit us? Yeah please? Orville Right? Correct? Correct? Correct? Who
was an aviation expert of course, half of the Right
brothers pair. Um, you know developed flight in what nineteen
o three, the first first to fly I should say
nineteen three, And um, they actually employed Orville Right to
(04:22):
help in the design of what would eventually become the
nineteen thirty two tryfon. Is that right, Trifon. I don't
know how to say the word t r i fo
and it's Trifon. Okay, that's fine. But it was a
it was a prototype car that they developed, a nineteen two.
And again this is after just a lot of aerodynamic
work in a wind tunnel. And if you recall, the
Right brothers used a a very small version of a
(04:45):
wind tunnel to develop their their flying machines. They're there
theory of flight. I guess you know what would work,
what wing design would work? And um, you know, after
from this nineteen two what was it, Trifon, sure came
the you know, the the eventual well, the production version,
which was the ninety four Chrysler Airflow. Now here's the thing.
(05:08):
People at the time, this seems so crazy to have
an expert on aerodynamics for flight. Yes, basically working with
people who are building a car. Now, why does this
seem weird? That's because the typical um, I guess, the
typical body of a car at the time had nothing
(05:30):
to do with the like the way the airstream looked. No, no,
exactly the air flow. Excuse me, yeah, I remember in
seven was it we had we talked about Harley Earl
and his development of LaSalle and that was more for
a style function and it wasn't really uh we're not
talking about aerodynamics at that point. He's just making things
so that they're not so um um utilitarian. Yeah, he's
(05:52):
making things with a little bit of aesthetic value. Exactly.
They looked beautiful, but they weren't necessarily aerodynamic by any
if you look at the lassals of the day and
you know, everything from GM and the early part of
the thirties, not as they're dynamic as what you would
find in this airflow. And this was really like you
keep saying this, but it's groundbreaking at the time. Talk
(06:12):
to imagine now, because that's what we that's what we
live with every day. So they started uh doing these
unusual things too, as we said, to uh make them
more aerodynamically efficient. And this is one of those ideas
now you know. We also we also have podcasts called
Stuff Genius, which is about inventors, and people who know
(06:36):
about that podcast know that every so often, so one
has an idea that is it seems so common sense
once it's out there. You know, why don't we if
we have these vehicles going so fast, why don't we
make it easier for them to go faster, make the
engine work less, have less drag. It's one of those
things where you thinkties, shouldn't someone have thought of this before?
(07:01):
Well they had, yes, And you know where right laid
on airplanes, airplanes of the day had already had, uh
kind of a streamlined design that Carl Brewer he he
was actually inspired by airlines of the day. He one day,
as the story goes, if this is true or not,
I don't know, but he was inspired by um an
(07:21):
Army Air Corps plane that was flying overhead in about
nine I think is what they said sometime in that era,
and um, he thought, well, why can't we just apply
some of those aerodynamic principles to automobile design because we
haven't done that. I mean, that's what makes airplanes fly,
really is that they're air fishing in the air. They're
not boxes up there, They're not they're not square like
our cars were at the day of the day. They
(07:43):
weren't really they were pushing a lot of air. Um,
why couldn't we get that into our car designs? And
what they found best at worked best was this kind
of and this is still true. This is like a
modified tear drop design is what they ended up deciding
was the best aerodynamic design. Makes perfect sense, it right.
We've talked about this tear drop design anytimes, especially in
(08:04):
three wheel vehicles. I believe we talked about that. The
tadpole configuration uses uh tear drop design often you know,
wire at the front, tapered at the rear. UM. And
you'll see that in a lot of cars. Even It's
funny you even notice on even some SUVs they've had
a tapered back end. Now, um, which is kind of
taken advantage of that just a little bit in the
airflow that goes over top of it. But um, overall
(08:26):
the goal is less resistance. And here's the thing everybody
they did it. The airflow has been called UM. I
guess one of the terms I I read was engineer's car. Yeah, yeah,
because this um, because this concept is you know, again
we're trying to illustrate how strange and knew this idea
(08:48):
was to take lessons learned from aircraft and apply them
to the ground. But this is the kind of thing
that engineers should just love, right, UM, And let's talk
about some of the some of the things that were different,
not to not to go too deep. But for instance,
you know, we've talked about the waterfall uh feature. We
also talked about the or have we have we talked
(09:11):
about the unibody construction. No, we haven't yet. One of
the things that was really unique about this we we
mentioned is the this this sort of a unibody design, right,
it is in that it did have it. It had
a framework to it. It was a steel framework, and
that's kind of unique because up until that point the
cars had a you know, steel frame, but a lot
of it was would. Um, you know, the supporting Yeah,
(09:34):
the panels and also the the underlying you know, they
had steel bodies on them maybe, but the the cross
members underneath the body were steel. Would and you know,
in some cases even some of the wood I'm sorry,
some of the frame members were would. Uh. Now, this
one had a full steel body, so there was no
wood at all. I mean at the time, you got
to remember that GM Ford and even other Chryslers were
still using wood in there and their framing of the car,
(09:57):
and so this one was all steel. So that was
something new. Um. Another thing that they used, Um, this
is the first US car to use board warners. Automatic
overdrive overdrive transmission. So this is kind of a unique
use of that really. UM also had the the windshield
was more of a a V design instead of just
(10:20):
a flat panel. Yes, because they had those big flat
sheets of glass that we're in the front for so long. UM,
and now they've got kind of a like you said,
a V design where it's a segmented it's broken in
half right in the middle. Again, more damn aerodynamic because
they can angle that backwards. Um. What they call it
a flying V or something like that. I'm trying to
think of the term that they used. Raked V maybe, yes, yeah,
(10:43):
raked V rake v okay, kind of goes along with
the arching grill, kind of goes along with the arching
grill that so anyways, Uh. They also used um fender
skirts for aerodynamic advantage. And we still see fender skirts,
you know. We saw them for style purposes in some
of the bigger cars Lincolns and things like that long
time ago. Um, we're starting to see that again in
(11:03):
some of the hybrid cars. Some of the Finnish scriptsies
for aerodynamic advantage. And that's what this car is all about.
It's really a h and what it comes down to
is that the Chrysler Airflow was a like a stylish, roomy, aerodynamic,
economic um option for somebody who's buying a new car
at the time. Let's take it down a little bit, Scott,
(11:26):
because people are starting to put it together, right. I
think people are starting to say, hey, Scott, then this,
if this car is so is so awesome. If this
is as well as you say it is, how come
it only ran from seven? Yeah? There was some some
bad press. Can we get some bad press music? All right? Yeah?
(11:51):
Rest music? Yeah? Interesting. I'm gonna be gonna have to
listen to this one to see what that was exactly.
You know, here's the thing that now it wasn't is
Chrysler building this at the time either. There was also
De Soto version UM, and they built six cylinder versions
where the Chrysler air Flow version was eight cylinders UM,
and they had five different wheelbase base lengths all way
(12:11):
up to this this monster that was a hundred forty
five inch wheelbase. That's pretty big. Um. A lot of
really unique things are going on in this vehicle. But
here's the crazy thing. The public was really slow to
accept it. I think right at first they loved it
and then they kind of trailed off because, Um, you know,
I got a note here. I want to I want
to mention something here because one of the articles that
(12:32):
I read mentions a GM smear campaign on the airflow.
You know what. I I touched on that my research,
but I didn't go deep on it. Yeah, it says
the details for me. Yeah, I'll read from this here,
and I think, is this this is from one of
our articles right here. We have several on the Chrysler
air flow. As matter of fact, Um, let's see. Unfortunately,
(12:53):
the massive cost an effort of retooling delayed air flow
sales until January four, whereas you know they would normally
release the prior you know, mid year, prior to the
year that it actually comes from the model year, Um,
June for the custom Imperials then, says jealous competitors, mainly
General Motors, began running a smear advertising campaign that claimed
the cars were unsafe. Yeah. I know, so this is
(13:15):
even before the cars really getting, um, really getting out
there and getting some public interest drawn into it. Um,
they're they're really kind of tainting the viewpoint of the
public before it's even available. So, um, that really really
hurt them bad right from the beginning. And um, you know,
then they got to deal with criticism about the design
and about the way things are just it's it's different,
(13:37):
it's all around different. And uh so they went back
and they changed things. In ninety five, they went back
and they changed things again, and nineteen thirty six, they
changed things in nineteen seven, and eventually they just had
to give it up. The sales were just lagging, just terribly.
There's kind of a there's definitely a timing issue there
because of the delays. You know, we we've learned historically
(14:00):
that when you're coming out with a new vehicle. Really
this goes to technology in general, consumers do not care
for delays. In the longer you delay something, the higher
expectations rise. That's true. And here's the other thing, is
like when you delay and something like this and you've
already you've already revealed what your vehicle is. Yeah, it
was revealed you know early, Um, and then then there
(14:20):
was delayed. Of course, it's unpopular with the public initially
because of everything that's gone on and just the radical design, right, um,
relatively unpopular, should say, um. But then you've also got
to deal with the competition that's catching up with you
because they've got an advantage. Then at that point to
say like, let's adapt, let's let's try to do what
they're doing with this, you know, because they've they've got
this right and this right. Let's let's change this and
(14:42):
this so they can kind of leap frog off of
the earlier progress of Chrysler correct and all. And let's
also not forget that production numbers didn't go that high. No, No,
they eventually didn't. Didn't even get you have numbers for us.
I've got well, okay, i've got a number, like uh,
(15:03):
let's see the I've got an ending number, and I've
got a beginning number. I've got some book ends. Um,
so production doesn't the peak of production doesn't even go
past like seven thousand. It's like six thousand and change
for cars for uh ninety four, and it's in May,
(15:24):
so it's already kind of late in the years. Sure,
it's five months in Yeah. Yeah, and uh, they don't
really have the supply that you kind of that you
need to get it into the dealer's show rooms, which
is where you want those cars, right, Yeah, you have
to make them available for them to buy them. Right,
and and even just to just to have one for
a piece of Hey look at me. You know it
(15:45):
sounds elementary, but you really do have to put the
product in front of the consumer. Otherwise they're not going
to purchase something based on a brochure. Yeah, it just
went and n that I gonna jump online and find
all about it, right right, right, You've got to go
down to the show room and I'll use some shoe
rubber or shoe leather. However the term was I think
a shoe leather and uh, and check it out. And
(16:07):
I've got my book in number from ninety seven when
they had when they okay, so people know, Um, by
ninety seven, the Airflow was just one model, and it
was it was either you can get a two door
or four door. Again, this is down from five right, yeah,
down from five models Chrysler and de Soto to you
(16:29):
and uh, there's a little more than forty units. Really. Yeah,
that's too bad. It is bad because it's um, it's
so strange that this would go down like this and
I actually have something while we're I want to just
get the bad press stuff out of the way immediately
so we can move on to some cool stuff. But
(16:50):
I've got some of the stats on this thing that
may would be interested in. Okay, can I do my
bad news thing? Alright? So according to Time magazine and
the list of the worst cars, yes, sir, really number seven,
number seven, number seven. Okay, I think that's a little unfair.
(17:10):
Do you want to hear what they said? What did
they say? All right? They said that they said that
the idea of its worseness or it's badness comes from
the bad timing. Um, because they admit that, you know,
decades later, this, uh, these innovations, the engineering innovations would
have been really well received, but since it was ninety four,
(17:34):
this newness, this strangeness, apparently kind of bothered consumers. And
uh also there because of the newer engineering techniques, there
were some defects in the in the especially in the
first generation. I've heard this, Yeah, yeah, and which is
to be expected with any kind of new technology. Yeah.
(17:56):
I mean so like you're talking about a few thousand
vehicles that have major flaw was in them from the
initial initial built right right, Yeah, it wasn't a little
thing like knobs that would fall off. Go ahead, what
it's like engine fault? Like in time magazine, they say
engine falling out type. Yeah, that's okay. I heard this too.
And this is the son of UM Carl Brewer. Yeah,
(18:17):
Fred Beer, Fred Brewer. He said that. He admitted later
that yeah, the first two or three thousand off the
SLUMBI line. I think he said, yeah, yeah, I had
a fault that. Yeah, they meant the amounts could just
snap right off if you Yeah, he's like, if you
hit uh, you know, eighty miles an hour or so,
I think as the number he gives. But that's unfortunate.
That's tough. That that is enough to get you up
(18:39):
to to UM number seven. But here's the crazy part, friend,
this is this is still they still call this an
influential car in it in that the ar dynamics that
it introduced, some of the some of the design characteristics
you know that they're talking about here, some of the ideas. Well,
you know, one other thing is um, well this is
a big one. The wheel. But remember I mentioned that
it's a roomy um kind of a stylish roomy car.
(19:02):
The room nous in this car comes from the way
that they configured the where the wheels were in the vehicle.
And this is big because up to this point. You know,
the engine was tucked kind of farther back, um, and
they put the they put the engine where was over
the wheels they put the engine, Uh, I think over
the wheels and the passengers has result end up being
(19:22):
like almost on the rear axle, right, And if you
look at the car, the wheels are very very I mean,
it's what do they call that cab forward design? I
think it's what they call it, where the wheels are
at the very far corners of the vehicle and the passengers.
Up until this point, a lot of cars said the
passengers sitting right on top of the rear axle, which
is not a smooth ride. No, it's not. That's the
probably the worst place. It's so bumpy. Um. So you
(19:43):
get this long, long wheel base, and we mentioned the
wheel base that you know, the lengthiest one was for
the custom Imperial, and the Customer Imperial had a very smooth,
smooth ride because, um, all the passengers were sitting within
the wheel base of the car. And strange as it sounds,
that was unusual for the day. That's one of those
other Uh, why didn't someone think of this earlier? That's
(20:05):
a forehead slap moment, right, I mean, like, what why
didn't I put myself in between the wheels? Why why
wouldn't it be a lot smoother than sitting right on
top of the reax? So? Um, strange. I got a
couple of numbers here, it might be questioned in Yeah,
I want to hear the numbers. Take us up. Now.
You may think like, Okay, all these aerodynamics going on,
this must be a speedy car, right, one would assume
you would think so. But I remember this is ninety
(20:27):
so um, you're not talking about a blazing performance car.
All the other world race cars that were fast during
the day. Um, this one had an inline eight engine,
which you know this is the Chrysler version apparently that
I've got these stats for um in line eight because
the DeSotos were six cylinders, UM one and two horse
powers all that thing had. And when you look at
the size of an uh rather an airflow, boy, that's
(20:50):
a pretty big car. That's really surprising. Yeah, it's a
pretty big car. I don't know what the torqu rading
was or anything like that. I don't have it, but
um zero to sixty time, Ben, if you're interested, I'm
interested in nineteen and a half seconds. It took a
long time to get up to speed. That's well, there's
a lot of weight to move with not that much horsepower.
That's true. That's what we would say. This is a
big car. Zero to sixty. I don't know how that
(21:11):
compares with other cars of the day. I'd have to
I'd have to really dig for that. Nineteen and a
half seconds zero to sixty. That's not blazing by any mean.
That's you gotta really watch traffic to decide top speed.
Here's the here's a good one. Top speed. You mentioned
the Mounts break eight tough speed is only eighty eight
miles per hour in this fantastically aerodynamic car. But you
(21:31):
know what, there's good news in that. What's that? That's
just fast enough to get back to the future. That
is just oh finally, man, these Libyan terrorists are breathe
it down my neck? Isn't that funny? Okay? Yeah, I
thought you might find interest in that. So eighty eight
miles per If you don't know what that means, look
it up. Um. Okay, one other quick thing before I'm
I'm all wrapped up here. Oh two things. Um, the
original list price I've got here around twety five dollars
(21:55):
is what a Chrysler air flow cost in the day. Um.
It's set seven need to speed records. Now, given that
the numbers that I just read you you would be
hard to believe that, but I guess yeah, I don't
know what the records were. Would have to look up
each one individually and find out why that's the case,
because that's not a fast to speed or is there
to sixty? Um? But today, if you were to get
(22:16):
the same vehicle, you know, and and moderately restored or
nicely restored, you can talk anywhere from fifty thousand to
eighty thousand. But you can find you know, barn finds,
you find, you can find Junkyard versions I'm sure for
a couple of thousand dollars. So you know, the price
is very dramatically But again dollars is the price of
a new air flow. UM. I would guess nineteen thirty
four would be the price they're giving us here. UM.
(22:39):
And the last thing I want to mention, if somebody
wants to see one of these in action, do you
have any more to go before this? Oh? No, I
was okay, you look like you made add something to say,
But I always have looks like I have something to say,
I've got I've got some other got something smart to say,
some smart alley can say no, no late on me.
All right, here's here's the thing. If you go to YouTube,
(22:59):
which I loved to do, and of course, you know,
digging around for this, I found a YouTube video that
I always do, Chrysler Airflow Economy Run. Search Chrysler Airflow
Economy Run. Okay, you'll find this video. It's a short
ved it's like two and a half minutes long. So
just take a look. It's a trip that it's kind
of a publicity stunt. They took it from l A
all the way to New York, and it was a
long trip to I mean they went over every type
(23:21):
of road surface you can imagine, you know, gravel roads,
nice smooth paved roads. Uh, they hit high altitudes, it
was you know, low depths, it was. It was regular
transcontinal trip. Right. They stayed around fifty miles per hour
the whole time. It's a it's a three thousand, seventy
two mile trip that they took. Okay, so it's not
a straight line right across it. The roads of the day, Um,
(23:43):
the average get this eighteen miles per gallon was the average,
and that was what they called an economy run. And
how great you know this is doing eighteen miles per
gallon and yeah, this is one of these big aerodynamic
advanced vehicles of the day. So again you have to
look back and find out what, you know, what what
they would get mpg? Uh what made that so good?
I don't know, but um, it consumed so um in
(24:05):
the in the engine. It consumed two and a half
quarts of quote mobile oil that they used on the trip.
And get this, the entire cost of the trip been.
The entire cost everything that including the oil that they
consumed and the U and the gas. Get get the cost.
Guess the cost right there? Thirty five dollars. Thirty five
(24:30):
dollars coast to coast. That's what it cost. In that
is probably the most wronging I've ever been on a guest,
Isn't that something? So? I mean, it's a it's an
interesting short little video, but you get some running footage
of the the airflowing action, and uh, I think it's
worth it. You get to see um, you know, Walter P.
Chrysler congratulating the guy that drove it at the end,
you know, shaking his hand and saying job and there
(24:51):
it's an interesting black and white film. Okay, because I
was gonna ask about the year. If so, it's an original,
it's not a restored version. No, this is this is
this is an origin. All this this happened has a
publicity is done al right, So that probably wraps it
up for us today when you say, Scott, I'm done
all right, Well David, um, I'm done as well. And
(25:11):
we hope we did. You're proud man. Uh. We think
that the airflow kind of proves uh something you hear
a lot in in many other fields, the idea of
the critics Darling disease, right, you know, Mark Twain said,
a classic is a is a book that everybody loves,
nobody reads. And the airflow was not too well received
(25:33):
by the American public. But now, how many cars are
you gonna see in a given day that in some
way have have used this concept of streamline? Countless? And
you know what their air airflow clubs all around the US, um,
you know, the gatherings of people that that are excited
about the airflow still and you'll find online group discussions
(25:54):
and forums and everything. So you know, it's still out there.
And on that note, there are other cars that are
still out there, and we'd like to hear which ones
you want us to talk about in an upcoming episode,
So you know the drill by. Now we're all on Facebook,
we're up on Twitter. We've got this awesome blog, got website.
You may have heard about how stuff works dot com,
(26:15):
where you can find interesting articles on the airflow that
we've mentioned before. And if you want to tell us
more about a topic you'd like to hear of an
upcoming episode, please just send us an email at our
stuff at how stuff works dot com For more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
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(26:36):
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Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how Stuff works dot com. Everybody, welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott Benjaman and my name is
Ben Bowling. And what are we talking about today? Scott? Well, Ben,
we got a listener suggestion. We know how we love floats?
(00:22):
Are mail we do? This is one that came in.
We might have read this one in Nuts and Bolts
or something like that. I know we've we've talked about this,
but um, this one comes from David from Port Washington, Wisconsin.
And David asked, have you consider doing a show in
the Chrysler Airflow cars revolutionary step in car design and
is full of fun facts from its original the original
(00:42):
stunt of a reverse mounted body, which I'll tell you
about in a moment, to the influence of the aerodynamics.
The air Flows legacy lives now. Thank you, David. First off,
but you put a couple of spoilers in there, man, No,
he did. Those are some cool things that we want
to talk about. True, you wanna you wanna hit Should
we just talk about this reverse because that's interesting and
(01:05):
that that's what got the world talking right? Yeah? Okay,
So the Chrysler Airflow made by the Chrysler Corporation. Uh,
it ran from what thirty four thirty four to thirty
seven thirty seven, And so before they did a lot
of advertising and marketing stuff for the Airflow before it
actually came out, and Chrysler did a marketing thing where
(01:30):
they reverse the axles and the steering gears of the
car so this car could be driven backwards. And they
did that, they drove it backwards through Detroit and it
caused quite a flepped and I mean people were people
were a buzz a twitter, right, yes, they but but
not everyone was cool with it, uh, because it's so strange,
(01:52):
you know, like, what are they up to? What? What
are they gonna do? Right? What's this all about? It?
They're really gonna make a car that drives backwards. That's
the idea, right, that's the that's the so you know,
if you look at cars of that era, it kind
of makes sense when you look at what they ended
up developing in the Airflow because they've got this really
unusual design. And everybody should just right now take a
(02:13):
quick look at the Chrysler Airflow online. Specifically the Airflow
that's the one that was kind of this real groundbreaking
aerodynamic design that has this this waterfall, uh they called
a waterfall. I believe the grill they went right in
the front bumper, all all the way up like midhood
right about the engine almost were normally a lot of
the cars of the day had you remember those real
(02:34):
upright radiators very I think they call them skyscraper radiators
or something like that. They were, they were vertical, they
were not smooth. Yeah, I think about like the old
Rolls Royce um um radiator that you know, the very big, shiny,
straight up and down chrome radiator um. And a lot
of the cars had that, you know, they had or
very flat front ends. Uh. This one was very very
(02:56):
aerodynamic and uh and as you'll find out, a lot
of this stuff was way ahead of its time and
uh so much so that they had to invent several
concepts in the course of inventing this vehicle. Right. Um,
I'm gonna say a word that's probably familiar to everybody. Streamlining. Yes, streamlining,
(03:16):
it's right. This is a very streamlined body. Just take
a look at all of them, really and you'll find
streamline design. You know where I came from. Ben take
will take a while I guess you you might already
know this. There's some anecdotes. I'm not sure. Are you
talking about the word or the concept? No? No, the concept? Okay,
I've I've heard. Can I give you a couple that
I've heard? Sure, I'm talking about the air flow concept.
I'm sorry now, not the overall airdonnetic concept. But go ahead.
(03:39):
Oh okay, Well, I think Carl Breer is the guy
who came up with the concept. He's the designer the
the the airflow. Correct, I'm not getting you know, oh no, no,
But you know this may be a surprise to you.
I found I dug this up from somewhere I don't
remember where's guests who was employed to help them with
the aerodynamic design of the airflow, because this is kind
(04:00):
of unusual at the time. Do you know, go ahead
hit us? Yeah please? Orville Right? Correct? Correct? Correct? Who
was an aviation expert of course, half of the Right
brothers pair. Um, you know developed flight in what nineteen
o three, the first first to fly I should say
nineteen three, And um, they actually employed Orville Right to
(04:22):
help in the design of what would eventually become the
nineteen thirty two tryfon. Is that right, Trifon. I don't
know how to say the word t r i fo
and it's Trifon. Okay, that's fine. But it was a
it was a prototype car that they developed, a nineteen two.
And again this is after just a lot of aerodynamic
work in a wind tunnel. And if you recall, the
Right brothers used a a very small version of a
(04:45):
wind tunnel to develop their their flying machines. They're there
theory of flight. I guess you know what would work,
what wing design would work? And um, you know, after
from this nineteen two what was it, Trifon, sure came
the you know, the the eventual well, the production version,
which was the ninety four Chrysler Airflow. Now here's the thing.
(05:08):
People at the time, this seems so crazy to have
an expert on aerodynamics for flight. Yes, basically working with
people who are building a car. Now, why does this
seem weird? That's because the typical um, I guess, the
typical body of a car at the time had nothing
(05:30):
to do with the like the way the airstream looked. No, no,
exactly the air flow. Excuse me, yeah, I remember in
seven was it we had we talked about Harley Earl
and his development of LaSalle and that was more for
a style function and it wasn't really uh we're not
talking about aerodynamics at that point. He's just making things
so that they're not so um um utilitarian. Yeah, he's
(05:52):
making things with a little bit of aesthetic value. Exactly.
They looked beautiful, but they weren't necessarily aerodynamic by any
if you look at the lassals of the day and
you know, everything from GM and the early part of
the thirties, not as they're dynamic as what you would
find in this airflow. And this was really like you
keep saying this, but it's groundbreaking at the time. Talk
(06:12):
to imagine now, because that's what we that's what we
live with every day. So they started uh doing these
unusual things too, as we said, to uh make them
more aerodynamically efficient. And this is one of those ideas
now you know. We also we also have podcasts called
Stuff Genius, which is about inventors, and people who know
(06:36):
about that podcast know that every so often, so one
has an idea that is it seems so common sense
once it's out there. You know, why don't we if
we have these vehicles going so fast, why don't we
make it easier for them to go faster, make the
engine work less, have less drag. It's one of those
things where you thinkties, shouldn't someone have thought of this before?
(07:01):
Well they had, yes, And you know where right laid
on airplanes, airplanes of the day had already had, uh
kind of a streamlined design that Carl Brewer he he
was actually inspired by airlines of the day. He one day,
as the story goes, if this is true or not,
I don't know, but he was inspired by um an
(07:21):
Army Air Corps plane that was flying overhead in about
nine I think is what they said sometime in that era,
and um, he thought, well, why can't we just apply
some of those aerodynamic principles to automobile design because we
haven't done that. I mean, that's what makes airplanes fly,
really is that they're air fishing in the air. They're
not boxes up there, They're not they're not square like
our cars were at the day of the day. They
(07:43):
weren't really they were pushing a lot of air. Um,
why couldn't we get that into our car designs? And
what they found best at worked best was this kind
of and this is still true. This is like a
modified tear drop design is what they ended up deciding
was the best aerodynamic design. Makes perfect sense, it right.
We've talked about this tear drop design anytimes, especially in
(08:04):
three wheel vehicles. I believe we talked about that. The
tadpole configuration uses uh tear drop design often you know,
wire at the front, tapered at the rear. UM. And
you'll see that in a lot of cars. Even It's
funny you even notice on even some SUVs they've had
a tapered back end. Now, um, which is kind of
taken advantage of that just a little bit in the
airflow that goes over top of it. But um, overall
(08:26):
the goal is less resistance. And here's the thing everybody
they did it. The airflow has been called UM. I
guess one of the terms I I read was engineer's car. Yeah, yeah,
because this um, because this concept is you know, again
we're trying to illustrate how strange and knew this idea
(08:48):
was to take lessons learned from aircraft and apply them
to the ground. But this is the kind of thing
that engineers should just love, right, UM, And let's talk
about some of the some of the things that were different,
not to not to go too deep. But for instance,
you know, we've talked about the waterfall uh feature. We
also talked about the or have we have we talked
(09:11):
about the unibody construction. No, we haven't yet. One of
the things that was really unique about this we we
mentioned is the this this sort of a unibody design, right,
it is in that it did have it. It had
a framework to it. It was a steel framework, and
that's kind of unique because up until that point the
cars had a you know, steel frame, but a lot
of it was would. Um, you know, the supporting Yeah,
(09:34):
the panels and also the the underlying you know, they
had steel bodies on them maybe, but the the cross
members underneath the body were steel. Would and you know,
in some cases even some of the wood I'm sorry,
some of the frame members were would. Uh. Now, this
one had a full steel body, so there was no
wood at all. I mean at the time, you got
to remember that GM Ford and even other Chryslers were
still using wood in there and their framing of the car,
(09:57):
and so this one was all steel. So that was
something new. Um. Another thing that they used, Um, this
is the first US car to use board warners. Automatic
overdrive overdrive transmission. So this is kind of a unique
use of that really. UM also had the the windshield
was more of a a V design instead of just
(10:20):
a flat panel. Yes, because they had those big flat
sheets of glass that we're in the front for so long. UM,
and now they've got kind of a like you said,
a V design where it's a segmented it's broken in
half right in the middle. Again, more damn aerodynamic because
they can angle that backwards. Um. What they call it
a flying V or something like that. I'm trying to
think of the term that they used. Raked V maybe, yes, yeah,
(10:43):
raked V rake v okay, kind of goes along with
the arching grill, kind of goes along with the arching
grill that so anyways, Uh. They also used um fender
skirts for aerodynamic advantage. And we still see fender skirts,
you know. We saw them for style purposes in some
of the bigger cars Lincolns and things like that long
time ago. Um, we're starting to see that again in
(11:03):
some of the hybrid cars. Some of the Finnish scriptsies
for aerodynamic advantage. And that's what this car is all about.
It's really a h and what it comes down to
is that the Chrysler Airflow was a like a stylish, roomy, aerodynamic,
economic um option for somebody who's buying a new car
at the time. Let's take it down a little bit, Scott,
(11:26):
because people are starting to put it together, right. I
think people are starting to say, hey, Scott, then this,
if this car is so is so awesome. If this
is as well as you say it is, how come
it only ran from seven? Yeah? There was some some
bad press. Can we get some bad press music? All right? Yeah?
(11:51):
Rest music? Yeah? Interesting. I'm gonna be gonna have to
listen to this one to see what that was exactly.
You know, here's the thing that now it wasn't is
Chrysler building this at the time either. There was also
De Soto version UM, and they built six cylinder versions
where the Chrysler air Flow version was eight cylinders UM,
and they had five different wheelbase base lengths all way
(12:11):
up to this this monster that was a hundred forty
five inch wheelbase. That's pretty big. Um. A lot of
really unique things are going on in this vehicle. But
here's the crazy thing. The public was really slow to
accept it. I think right at first they loved it
and then they kind of trailed off because, Um, you know,
I got a note here. I want to I want
to mention something here because one of the articles that
(12:32):
I read mentions a GM smear campaign on the airflow.
You know what. I I touched on that my research,
but I didn't go deep on it. Yeah, it says
the details for me. Yeah, I'll read from this here,
and I think, is this this is from one of
our articles right here. We have several on the Chrysler
air flow. As matter of fact, Um, let's see. Unfortunately,
(12:53):
the massive cost an effort of retooling delayed air flow
sales until January four, whereas you know they would normally
release the prior you know, mid year, prior to the
year that it actually comes from the model year, Um,
June for the custom Imperials then, says jealous competitors, mainly
General Motors, began running a smear advertising campaign that claimed
the cars were unsafe. Yeah. I know, so this is
(13:15):
even before the cars really getting, um, really getting out
there and getting some public interest drawn into it. Um,
they're they're really kind of tainting the viewpoint of the
public before it's even available. So, um, that really really
hurt them bad right from the beginning. And um, you know,
then they got to deal with criticism about the design
and about the way things are just it's it's different,
(13:37):
it's all around different. And uh so they went back
and they changed things. In ninety five, they went back
and they changed things again, and nineteen thirty six, they
changed things in nineteen seven, and eventually they just had
to give it up. The sales were just lagging, just terribly.
There's kind of a there's definitely a timing issue there
because of the delays. You know, we we've learned historically
(14:00):
that when you're coming out with a new vehicle. Really
this goes to technology in general, consumers do not care
for delays. In the longer you delay something, the higher
expectations rise. That's true. And here's the other thing, is
like when you delay and something like this and you've
already you've already revealed what your vehicle is. Yeah, it
was revealed you know early, Um, and then then there
(14:20):
was delayed. Of course, it's unpopular with the public initially
because of everything that's gone on and just the radical design, right, um,
relatively unpopular, should say, um. But then you've also got
to deal with the competition that's catching up with you
because they've got an advantage. Then at that point to
say like, let's adapt, let's let's try to do what
they're doing with this, you know, because they've they've got
this right and this right. Let's let's change this and
(14:42):
this so they can kind of leap frog off of
the earlier progress of Chrysler correct and all. And let's
also not forget that production numbers didn't go that high. No, No,
they eventually didn't. Didn't even get you have numbers for us.
I've got well, okay, i've got a number, like uh,
(15:03):
let's see the I've got an ending number, and I've
got a beginning number. I've got some book ends. Um,
so production doesn't the peak of production doesn't even go
past like seven thousand. It's like six thousand and change
for cars for uh ninety four, and it's in May,
(15:24):
so it's already kind of late in the years. Sure,
it's five months in Yeah. Yeah, and uh, they don't
really have the supply that you kind of that you
need to get it into the dealer's show rooms, which
is where you want those cars, right, Yeah, you have
to make them available for them to buy them. Right,
and and even just to just to have one for
a piece of Hey look at me. You know it
(15:45):
sounds elementary, but you really do have to put the
product in front of the consumer. Otherwise they're not going
to purchase something based on a brochure. Yeah, it just
went and n that I gonna jump online and find
all about it, right right, right, You've got to go
down to the show room and I'll use some shoe
rubber or shoe leather. However the term was I think
a shoe leather and uh, and check it out. And
(16:07):
I've got my book in number from ninety seven when
they had when they okay, so people know, Um, by
ninety seven, the Airflow was just one model, and it
was it was either you can get a two door
or four door. Again, this is down from five right, yeah,
down from five models Chrysler and de Soto to you
(16:29):
and uh, there's a little more than forty units. Really. Yeah,
that's too bad. It is bad because it's um, it's
so strange that this would go down like this and
I actually have something while we're I want to just
get the bad press stuff out of the way immediately
so we can move on to some cool stuff. But
(16:50):
I've got some of the stats on this thing that
may would be interested in. Okay, can I do my
bad news thing? Alright? So according to Time magazine and
the list of the worst cars, yes, sir, really number seven,
number seven, number seven. Okay, I think that's a little unfair.
(17:10):
Do you want to hear what they said? What did
they say? All right? They said that they said that
the idea of its worseness or it's badness comes from
the bad timing. Um, because they admit that, you know,
decades later, this, uh, these innovations, the engineering innovations would
have been really well received, but since it was ninety four,
(17:34):
this newness, this strangeness, apparently kind of bothered consumers. And
uh also there because of the newer engineering techniques, there
were some defects in the in the especially in the
first generation. I've heard this, Yeah, yeah, and which is
to be expected with any kind of new technology. Yeah.
(17:56):
I mean so like you're talking about a few thousand
vehicles that have major flaw was in them from the
initial initial built right right, Yeah, it wasn't a little
thing like knobs that would fall off. Go ahead, what
it's like engine fault? Like in time magazine, they say
engine falling out type. Yeah, that's okay. I heard this too.
And this is the son of UM Carl Brewer. Yeah,
(18:17):
Fred Beer, Fred Brewer. He said that. He admitted later
that yeah, the first two or three thousand off the
SLUMBI line. I think he said, yeah, yeah, I had
a fault that. Yeah, they meant the amounts could just
snap right off if you Yeah, he's like, if you
hit uh, you know, eighty miles an hour or so,
I think as the number he gives. But that's unfortunate.
That's tough. That that is enough to get you up
(18:39):
to to UM number seven. But here's the crazy part, friend,
this is this is still they still call this an
influential car in it in that the ar dynamics that
it introduced, some of the some of the design characteristics
you know that they're talking about here, some of the ideas. Well,
you know, one other thing is um, well this is
a big one. The wheel. But remember I mentioned that
it's a roomy um kind of a stylish roomy car.
(19:02):
The room nous in this car comes from the way
that they configured the where the wheels were in the vehicle.
And this is big because up to this point. You know,
the engine was tucked kind of farther back, um, and
they put the they put the engine where was over
the wheels they put the engine, Uh, I think over
the wheels and the passengers has result end up being
(19:22):
like almost on the rear axle, right, And if you
look at the car, the wheels are very very I mean,
it's what do they call that cab forward design? I
think it's what they call it, where the wheels are
at the very far corners of the vehicle and the passengers.
Up until this point, a lot of cars said the
passengers sitting right on top of the rear axle, which
is not a smooth ride. No, it's not. That's the
probably the worst place. It's so bumpy. Um. So you
(19:43):
get this long, long wheel base, and we mentioned the
wheel base that you know, the lengthiest one was for
the custom Imperial, and the Customer Imperial had a very smooth,
smooth ride because, um, all the passengers were sitting within
the wheel base of the car. And strange as it sounds,
that was unusual for the day. That's one of those
other Uh, why didn't someone think of this earlier? That's
(20:05):
a forehead slap moment, right, I mean, like, what why
didn't I put myself in between the wheels? Why why
wouldn't it be a lot smoother than sitting right on
top of the reax? So? Um, strange. I got a
couple of numbers here, it might be questioned in Yeah,
I want to hear the numbers. Take us up. Now.
You may think like, Okay, all these aerodynamics going on,
this must be a speedy car, right, one would assume
you would think so. But I remember this is ninety
(20:27):
so um, you're not talking about a blazing performance car.
All the other world race cars that were fast during
the day. Um, this one had an inline eight engine,
which you know this is the Chrysler version apparently that
I've got these stats for um in line eight because
the DeSotos were six cylinders, UM one and two horse
powers all that thing had. And when you look at
the size of an uh rather an airflow, boy, that's
(20:50):
a pretty big car. That's really surprising. Yeah, it's a
pretty big car. I don't know what the torqu rading
was or anything like that. I don't have it, but
um zero to sixty time, Ben, if you're interested, I'm
interested in nineteen and a half seconds. It took a
long time to get up to speed. That's well, there's
a lot of weight to move with not that much horsepower.
That's true. That's what we would say. This is a
big car. Zero to sixty. I don't know how that
(21:11):
compares with other cars of the day. I'd have to
I'd have to really dig for that. Nineteen and a
half seconds zero to sixty. That's not blazing by any mean.
That's you gotta really watch traffic to decide top speed.
Here's the here's a good one. Top speed. You mentioned
the Mounts break eight tough speed is only eighty eight
miles per hour in this fantastically aerodynamic car. But you
(21:31):
know what, there's good news in that. What's that? That's
just fast enough to get back to the future. That
is just oh finally, man, these Libyan terrorists are breathe
it down my neck? Isn't that funny? Okay? Yeah, I
thought you might find interest in that. So eighty eight
miles per If you don't know what that means, look
it up. Um. Okay, one other quick thing before I'm
I'm all wrapped up here. Oh two things. Um, the
original list price I've got here around twety five dollars
(21:55):
is what a Chrysler air flow cost in the day. Um.
It's set seven need to speed records. Now, given that
the numbers that I just read you you would be
hard to believe that, but I guess yeah, I don't
know what the records were. Would have to look up
each one individually and find out why that's the case,
because that's not a fast to speed or is there
to sixty? Um? But today, if you were to get
(22:16):
the same vehicle, you know, and and moderately restored or
nicely restored, you can talk anywhere from fifty thousand to
eighty thousand. But you can find you know, barn finds,
you find, you can find Junkyard versions I'm sure for
a couple of thousand dollars. So you know, the price
is very dramatically But again dollars is the price of
a new air flow. UM. I would guess nineteen thirty
four would be the price they're giving us here. UM.
(22:39):
And the last thing I want to mention, if somebody
wants to see one of these in action, do you
have any more to go before this? Oh? No, I
was okay, you look like you made add something to say,
But I always have looks like I have something to say,
I've got I've got some other got something smart to say,
some smart alley can say no, no late on me.
All right, here's here's the thing. If you go to YouTube,
(22:59):
which I loved to do, and of course, you know,
digging around for this, I found a YouTube video that
I always do, Chrysler Airflow Economy Run. Search Chrysler Airflow
Economy Run. Okay, you'll find this video. It's a short
ved it's like two and a half minutes long. So
just take a look. It's a trip that it's kind
of a publicity stunt. They took it from l A
all the way to New York, and it was a
long trip to I mean they went over every type
(23:21):
of road surface you can imagine, you know, gravel roads,
nice smooth paved roads. Uh, they hit high altitudes, it
was you know, low depths, it was. It was regular
transcontinal trip. Right. They stayed around fifty miles per hour
the whole time. It's a it's a three thousand, seventy
two mile trip that they took. Okay, so it's not
a straight line right across it. The roads of the day, Um,
(23:43):
the average get this eighteen miles per gallon was the average,
and that was what they called an economy run. And
how great you know this is doing eighteen miles per
gallon and yeah, this is one of these big aerodynamic
advanced vehicles of the day. So again you have to
look back and find out what, you know, what what
they would get mpg? Uh what made that so good?
I don't know, but um, it consumed so um in
(24:05):
the in the engine. It consumed two and a half
quarts of quote mobile oil that they used on the trip.
And get this, the entire cost of the trip been.
The entire cost everything that including the oil that they
consumed and the U and the gas. Get get the cost.
Guess the cost right there? Thirty five dollars. Thirty five
(24:30):
dollars coast to coast. That's what it cost. In that
is probably the most wronging I've ever been on a guest,
Isn't that something? So? I mean, it's a it's an
interesting short little video, but you get some running footage
of the the airflowing action, and uh, I think it's
worth it. You get to see um, you know, Walter P.
Chrysler congratulating the guy that drove it at the end,
you know, shaking his hand and saying job and there
(24:51):
it's an interesting black and white film. Okay, because I
was gonna ask about the year. If so, it's an original,
it's not a restored version. No, this is this is
this is an origin. All this this happened has a
publicity is done al right, So that probably wraps it
up for us today when you say, Scott, I'm done
all right, Well David, um, I'm done as well. And
(25:11):
we hope we did. You're proud man. Uh. We think
that the airflow kind of proves uh something you hear
a lot in in many other fields, the idea of
the critics Darling disease, right, you know, Mark Twain said,
a classic is a is a book that everybody loves,
nobody reads. And the airflow was not too well received
(25:33):
by the American public. But now, how many cars are
you gonna see in a given day that in some
way have have used this concept of streamline? Countless? And
you know what their air airflow clubs all around the US, um,
you know, the gatherings of people that that are excited
about the airflow still and you'll find online group discussions
(25:54):
and forums and everything. So you know, it's still out there.
And on that note, there are other cars that are
still out there, and we'd like to hear which ones
you want us to talk about in an upcoming episode,
So you know the drill by. Now we're all on Facebook,
we're up on Twitter. We've got this awesome blog, got website.
You may have heard about how stuff works dot com,
(26:15):
where you can find interesting articles on the airflow that
we've mentioned before. And if you want to tell us
more about a topic you'd like to hear of an
upcoming episode, please just send us an email at our
stuff at how stuff works dot com For more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click
(26:36):
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Ben Bowlin
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.