![]() ![]() Chrysler Corporation would now offer not one but three versions of the new car. In short, the Airflow had become bigger than DeSoto. What better way to mark its first decade than with this engineering tour de force? The revolutionary new car would be a symbol of his corporation’s great technological leap. Walter Chrysler founded his company on the principal of engineering excellence. That plan would change when the man whose name is on the building took a personal interest in the Airflow. ![]() As a coming out party to announce its advance in status, and to give the marque a unique identity, the revolutionary new Airflow design would to be a DeSoto exclusive. For 1934, DeSoto would leap ahead of Dodge to a position just below the Chrysler brand. For its first five years the division was slotted just above Plymouth and roughly level with Dodge, albeit a bit spicier. Seven years later, out of that tunnel emerged one of the most significant cars in history: The Airflow.Īt the same time Airflow was given the go ahead, the decision was also made to shift DeSoto’s position in the Chrysler Corporation’s brand hierarchy. At the behest of Breer and under the supervision of Earnshaw and Wright, Chrysler built the automobile industry’s first wind tunnel. Earnshaw was acquainted with aviation pioneer, Orville Wright. Upon his return to the office Monday morning, Breer sought out one of his engineers named Bill Earnshaw to discuss some of his conclusions. Driving home, with his arm out the car window, he experimented with different angles and shapes and the way they responded to the wind. Breer got to thinking about how the plane’s shape helped them slip through the air with such grace and ease. As the flock drew closer it turned out not to be geese, but a squadron of Army Air Corps planes flying in formation. Carl Breer, while touring with his family near Port Huron, Michigan, saw in the distance what at first he thought was a flock of geese flying low in the sky. ![]() ![]() The story begins one summer weekend in 1927 when one of Chrysler’s chief engineers was out for a drive. And then there was the 1934 Airflow, the car that brought automotive aerodynamics into mainstream consciousness…and nearly destroyed the DeSoto brand, and the Chrysler Corporation along with it. The Insight barely achieved 4-didgit annual sales, while just a few years later Toyota’s Prius would become the suburban eco-warrior’s front line weapon against climate change. Honda’s 60mpg Insight in 1999 introduced us to gas-electric hybrid technology. After selling a total of 9 copies, it was the last one for 45 years before the Plymouth Voyager took suburbia by storm. The versitile Scout Scarab of 1936 was the first minivan. The Jetfire flamed out after 2 years, but a decade later Turbo Saabs and Buick T-Types made inter-cooling cool. The 1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire was the first car to use turbocharging, delivering big block power from a smaller more efficient engine. Trailblazers paid the price for being first. Their technological or stylistic achievements were greeted in the marketplace with hesitation and suspicion. The History of the Automobile is littered with tales of cars so advanced that they flopped. ![]()
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