Changing Winds: The 1934-1937 Chrysler Airflow


Engineer Paul Jaray (born Pál Járay) had a great deal in common with Edmund Rumpler. Like Rumpler, Jaray was Jewish, originally from Austria (although his family was Hungarian), but spent his early career in the fledgling German aviation industry, joining Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH (Zeppelin Airship Works Ltd.) in 1912. Although Jaray eventually became Zeppelin’s chief designer, business was slow after the war and Zeppelin allowed him to pursue a sideline: applying aerodynamic principles to passenger cars.





1934 Chrysler Airflow Six CY front 3q © 1992 Richard Spiegelman per

Chrysler Engineering had at least some knowledge of Jaray’s work (Owen Skelton had received a copy of one of Jaray’s articles in March 1933 from the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Lowell Brown), but it’s unclear if they were aware of his 1927 patent. Chrysler was prepared to take the matter to court, but eventually opted not to on the advice of an independent aerodynamics consultant the company had hired as a prospective expert witness. In June 1935, Chrysler settled with Jaray out of court, agreeing to license the Jaray patent for a modest $5,000 plus a small royalty on Airflows exported to Europe.







1935 Chrysler Airflow front 3q Bill Burris 2007 CCBYSA20
1935 Chrysler Airflow rear 3q Bill Burris 2007 CCBYSA20



1935 DeSoto Airflow sedan front 3q © 2008 Bill McChesney (CC BY 2.0 Generic)
1935 DeSoto Airflow sedan dashboard © 2008 Bill McChesney (CC BY 2.0 Generic)
The 1935 DeSoto SG Airflow had an attractive new hood and grille, along with revised bumpers, different cooling louvers, and a new dashboard. Unfortunately, its $1,195 price tag — cut to a still-hefty $1,015 during the model year — pitted it against eight-cylinder rivals of greater prestige. Nearly 75% of 1935 DeSoto buyers opted for the much cheaper Model SS Airstream Six. (Front 3q photo (“2445 1935 DeSoto Airflow”) and dashboard photo (“2453 1935 DeSoto Airflow”) above © 2008 Bill McChesney; used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)


All of those were concept cars, but in the spring of 1935, Volvo launched its streamlined PV36 Carioca, followed that October by the aerodynamic Peugeot 402. Both the Peugeot and the Carioca looked broadly similar to the Airflow, although they were smaller and had conventional body-on-frame construction. While Volvo corporate historian Claes Rydholm denies that the PV36, designed by former Hupp engineer Ivan Örnberg, was based on the Airflow, author Vincent Curcio says Peugeot actually licensed the Chrysler design for the 402. We were unable to confirm that assertion, but it seems unlikely, although Peugeot was certainly aware of the Airflow (and the Bendix SWC, which was demonstrated to Peugeot engineers in the fall of 1934). Some sources indicate that Peugeot did license the Jaray patent for the 402 and its derivatives, which seems more plausible; we have no information about whether Volvo did so or not. Toyota’s first automobile, the 1936 Toyoda Model AA, was definitely Airflow-inspired.

Peugeot 402 sedan front © 2006 Stahlkocher (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported)
Although the Peugeot 402 bears a general resemblance to the Airflow, it differs significantly in both proportions and detail. Among other things, the Peugeot mounts its headlights behind the grille rather than in the nose, it has no running boards, and both its front and rear doors (which are not interchangeable) hinge at the B-pillars. We find it more attractive than the Airflow and it was certainly more popular, selling something like 75,000 units in various iterations before the fall of France in 1940. (Photo: “Peugeot 402 grey vl” © 2006 Stahlkocher; resized and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license)



Add a Comment










    1. John,










    Thanks again for a nice article!

    1. Frank,

      Thanks for the kind words!









  6. Aaron,





    1. Dennis,






    They may not have sold well, but their influence was certainly felt around the world. You mention the Volvo Carioca and the <i>Fuseau Sochaux</i> Peugeots (the last of which were made in 1949!), but there is also the first “proper” car from the land of the rising sun: the 1936 Toyota AA. None survived, so Toyota actually built one for their museum in the 1990s.




  10. There is a rather long promotional video of the Airflow made by Chrysler in the mid-1930s that discusses its design and features, and includes a rather dramatic test rollover with a live driver. The roof of the vehicle remains completely intact as do all windows, although one rear door came open (they lacked interlocking door latches that have been required since the late 1960s). If you have not seen this, you should get a copy. I may have a video version if you cannot find one elsewhere. This video provides dramatic evidence that manufacturers could have provided good rollover protection in more recent decades without the advanced materials now used to meet FMVSS 216, and saved thousands of lives in rollovers (particularly of SUVs).

    1. I’ve never seen the film, but I’ve heard about some of the stunts Chrysler did to demonstrate the Airflow’s rigidity and safety, including pushing one off a cliff. It was partly done to counter rumors that the Airflow wasn’t very strong, perhaps because people heard that its inner skeleton was not all that rigid by itself. (The bridge-and-truss skeleton wasn’t intended to be self-supporting, but once welded to the body panels, the whole thing was extremely stout.)

  11. Though only slightly connected to the article, is it known whether other more viable engines (e.g. inline, V-angle, Boxer, etc) were considered for the Chrysler Star Car in place of the five-cylinder radial-engine?

    It seems like a number of otherwise production worthy designs during that period up til the end of WW2 were fatally compromised by radial or other experimental engines.

    Also interested to know where one can find more information on Chrysler’s post-war small car project (including the name), which was intended to challenge the Chevrolet Cadet and the Ford Light Car project that eventually became the Vedette.

    1. To your first question, as far as I know, there were not. The “Star Cars” were FWD (if you look up the SIA article “MoPar’s Star Cars” on the Hemmings site, you’ll see some photos of the powertrain layout), which, like some early postwar FWD cars, was predicated on fitting the engine in a relatively short space ahead of the front axle. Short of the radial engine, that configuration would probably have dictated either an I-2, a V-4 or an H-4, with the latter probably being the most practical choice. Had Chrysler succeeded in finding overseas licensing interest, they might have gone that route, since for a non-experimental project, it’s hard to see a manufacturer considering the complexity of the five-cylinder radial worthwhile for an 1,100cc engine.

      The postwar concept you’re probably thinking of is Project A-106. I don’t have much detailed info on it; it was designed around an H-4 engine, but I don’t know the engine’s specifications beyond that.

      1. Indeed, the radial and other experimental engines considered by rivals were blind alleys.

        Agree about the production versions of the Star Car being powered by H-4 engines, though why didn’t Chrysler consider such an idea themselves instead of seeking out overseas licensing interests?

        Regarding Chrysler’s efforts in seeking overseas interest in the UK, know the likes of Stafford Gripps and others in the post-war Attlee wanted to establish a British people’s car project, supporting the stillborn efforts of Roy Fedden and Denis Kendall in setting up such their own car projects.

        Could an H-4 powered Star Car have remained in production after WW2 let alone achieve similar success to another similarly styled model whose engine layout / etc was at the rear?

        1. As far as I know, the Star Cars that were built were primarily experimental rather than development prototypes. With experimental designs, it’s not uncommon for a mule or set of mules to examine several different technologies at once, even if there isn’t any serious intent to build a production model that way. While an H-4 engine would probably have been a more promising design, it was no less radical for Chrysler in terms of actual production (having no relationship at all to any existing engine design), but less novel strictly from an engineering standpoint, offering less to be learned from experimentation. At that point, there wouldn’t have been a market for such a car in the U.S., at least in that form, and Chrysler didn’t have the export organization or local dealerships to offer it outside North America in meaningful quantities, especially given the complex tariffs and import duties involved in pre-EEC multinational productions.

          When the project began, Walter Chrysler was very enthusiastic about the Airflow and basically showing off what Chrysler engineering was capable of. Given the timing, my assumption is that the Star Cars amounted to dabbling in what they might do if they took some of the concepts involved in the Airflow a step or two further: FWD and a compact, easily removable powertrain. I can’t see Chrysler putting it into production in that form, but if the drivetrain and radial engine had shown promise AND if the Airflow had been a big hit, some of those concepts might have shown up in an Airflow successor. However, the Airflow was not a big hit, Chrysler management started getting nervous about these pie-in-the-sky engineering fancies and lost any interest in building such a thing. I think the effort to find a British licensee was at least partly a flailing attempt to recoup some of the substantial investment Chrysler had already made in the project rather than a coherent marketing strategy, which, combined with the timing, may have been why it didn’t pan out.

          I don’t know that comparative engineering strengths are a reliable predictor of commercial success. Some advanced designs fail despite their strengths, lacking other important characteristics like after-sale service or just being too costly to build. Some rudimentary or old-fashioned designs succeed because they’re reliable, familiar, or just well-marketed. So, it’s hard to judge potential success simply based on specifications without a sense of who a product would be marketed to, how well, and for what price.

          1. In the case of the Airflow, were there other more attractive styling proposals that Chrysler considered which could have worked in retrospect?

            Guess the following is admittingly a fantasy, it would have been interesting if a production worthy Star Car formed the basis for Chrysler’s UK division instead of them later acquiring Rootes.

          2. Well, as the article explains, the Airflow — and presumably the Star Cars — were primarily engineering designs, not styling ones. The role of Chrysler Art & Colour was to decorate the pre-approved shape (which they did pretty well, in my view), not to decide what it would look like; what today we’d probably call “detail styling.” Judging by the photos I’ve seen of the Airflow prototypes, the alternatives the engineers developed were arguably worse, although there’s a coupe design with a low-slung roof that would have pleased postwar customizers. Could actual stylists have come up with ways to apply the Airflow’s aerodynamic concepts in a more visually appealing way, and potentially on a smaller scale? Sure; the Peugeot was not an unattractive car for its day. Did Chrysler do that? Not so far as I know.

            Another significant consideration is that I remain convinced that part of the reason for the Airflow’s mediocre sales performance was that the Airflow cars were quite expensive. That’s an issue that would likely have affected the viability of something like the Star Car, especially vis-à-vis contemporary Ford of England offerings.

Leave a Reply

