Concept Cars and Aerodynamics Part 4: Airflow

Learning from the Americans:Planned Obsolescence and Airflow influence

By Gijsbert-Paul Berk

In 1920, Alfred Sloan was appointed to save the ailing General Motors. As we have seen in part 3, Sloan had learned from contacts with dealers and client surveys that styling sold better than advanced engineering. This was one of the reasons why he engaged Harley Earl to set up an Art and Color department at GM, the first professional in-house styling studio in the world.

To increase the output of GM’s factories, Sloan and Earl introduced annual model changes. The idea was to seduce the public to buy a new model, long before it was economically or technically necessary to trade in their present car. This strategy became known as ‘Planned Obsolescence’.

(If you would like to know more about its effect on car design and marketing, read “My Years with General Motors” by Alfred P. Sloan. It was first published in 1963 but second-hand copies are still available from Amazon and AbeBooks.)

The great depression that followed in the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 had grave consequences for the societies in many countries, and thus for the car manufacturers in the USA and – with some delay – of those in Europe. A great number of smaller companies did not survive the economic downturn while many workers became jobless. In Germany and Italy poverty and social insecurity would lead to the rise to power of National socialist and Fascist governments.

At the first signs of economic revival after the 1928 – 1933 depression, the car industry in the U.S. rediscovered its dynamism. It was the beginning of a new era, one of optimism and confidence, and also the era of the so called ‘streamliner’.

The concept car or dream car ‘originated’ in the U.S.A.
One must admit that it was an extremely clever marketing idea; give the public a foretaste of the future by exhibiting a concept – or dream car. One of the first of its kind was probably the rear-engined Briggs Dream Car, designed by the Dutch born engineer John Tjaarda and displayed on the Ford stand at the Chicago Century of Progress Exhibition (1933-1934).

GM’s Harley Earl, who can be regarded as the originator of the profession of car stylist, became a firm believer in the use of concept cars for exhibition purposes. For the 1933 Chicago Fair he designed the two-door Fleetwood Aero-Dynamic Coupe for the Cadillac V12. But this was in fact more of a design study for a limited series than a futuristic dream car. But in 1938 Earl unveiled his Buick Y job. This would be the forerunner of many GM concept cars such as the 1951 Le Sabre and of course the legendary gas-turbine powered Firebirds.

The Chrysler Airflow was not a dream car
Over at Chrysler, streamlining was much the rage. Walter Chrysler wanted to manufacture an aerodynamic car that would ‘slip through the air’. The resulting ‘Airflow’ model was never presented as a concept car.

The aerodynamic – but perhaps too futuristic – 1934 Chrysler and De Soto Airflow range (developed by Carl Breer, Fred Zeder and Owen Skelton with some input from the Hungarian aerodynamic wizard Paul Jaray) were serious production models. Unfortunately they were also a serious commercial flop. (This has always amazed this author, because the Peugeot 402, which looks very similar to the Airflow, was quite a success in Europe.) The ‘waterfall grille’ that adorned the front of the Airflow proved very popular with European designers. It was not only used on Peugeots (with the headlights behind the grille) but also on the Adler 2.5 liter Autobahn cruiser, a range of 1935 – 1938 Fiat models, and less well known, the small 1938 Steyr type 50 and the Skoda Rapid Coupé.

Edsel Ford turned a dream into reality
Ford was not idle either. At the request of Edsel Ford, the Briggs Dream Car concept was redesigned by Ford’s in-house styling boss Bob Gregorie, to become the front-engined Lincoln Zephyr and Briggs was awarded the contract to supply its body panels. Gregory would later design the Lincoln Continental Convertible, based on sketches made by Edsel Ford while in Europe.

Lowey and the Hup
Although he was born in Paris (France), Raymond Loewy became one of the best-known industrial designers in the U.S.A. He and his associates designed duplicating machines for Gestetner, streamlined locomotives for the Pennsylvania Railroad, buses for Greyhound, vending machines for Coca Cola and the interior of the NASA Skylab. Loewy was also involved in the styling of automobiles. Around 1932 Hupp Motor in Detroit approached Loewy to assist Amos Northup with the design of a new Hupmobile. The result was a mixture of modern streamline and Art Deco. The 1934 Aerodynamic Hupmobile featured a raked front grille, a three-piece windshield (also seen on contemporary French Panhard cars), a smooth rear end incorporating the luggage compartment with an inboard spare wheel, and aerodynamic door handles. But the most original detail was the way Loewy integrated the headlamps in the large hood covering the engine compartment.

Unfortunately the Aerodynamic Hupmobile was not well received by the public and for 1936 it was redesigned to look more conventional.

Was the design, like the Airflow, too advanced for the American taste of that time? There is an interesting postscript to this story. In 1936 Opel, then a German subsidiary of General Motors, introduced its Opel Kadett. That car was virtually a small clone of the Loewy Hupmobile. A year later Louis Renault borrowed the design for his Juvaquatre and in 1938 Opel also styled its flagship Admiral line with a bonnet that integrated its headlights. After the Russians occupied part of Germany they took over the production of the Opel Kadett and called it the Moskvitch.

Meanwhile in Europe, most cars were still shaped by engineers
Whereas the popular American automobiles gradually became larger and more powerful with a smooth six cylinder or a V8, in Europe large displacement cars were still a luxury. High fuel prices and progressive taxes on the cubic capacity of engines forced the leading European manufacturers to concentrate on the design of smaller economical cars.

Most bread-and-butter cars in Europe were still shaped by engineers, sometimes with the help of in-house stylists – for instance Flaminio Bertoni at Citroën and Louis Bionier at Panhard – or independent consultants such as Jean Andreau, George Paulin or George Ham in France and Roy Fedden in the UK.

Because European manufacturers generally feared that their competitors would discover what their designers were working on and steal their ideas, cars that were not finalized for production were never shown in public. And there went the idea of the concept car in European terms.

In all fairness, car makers in Europe at that time did not really need to produce their own dream- or concept cars. Most of them had a close relationship with specialist coachbuilders. To whom they also often confided the design and construction for small series of bodies for their more sporting or exclusive models. The exhibits of these coach building firms at the various Motor Shows, more than once unveiled interesting or futuristic design trends. But that is another story.

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