Up next in 10
The Science of Airflow: The World’s First Modern Car
3K views
Jul 18, 2025
How three automotive geniuses revolutionized cars around the world—and why it was both a smashing success and a dismal failure!
View Video Transcript
0:01
Hi, I'm Dave and I'm here to talk with
0:02
you about the science of the airflow,
0:05
which was in fact the first modern car
0:07
and the first car totally based on
0:09
science. Because before then, cars were
0:12
mostly done as an art and as a set of
0:15
independent systems or pieces to the
0:18
point that the front and rear
0:19
suspensions were designed and tuned
0:22
separately. This car would almost
0:23
certainly never have happened if not for
0:25
Fred Zeter, Owen Skelton, and Carl
0:27
Brrier. They had met in engineering
0:30
school and bonded over a belief that
0:32
using science and engineering principles
0:34
is the best way to solve problems. Now
0:37
many companies at that point lacked
0:39
serious research labs or testing
0:41
facilities. Now, Zader Skelton and Breer
0:44
did use science to create the Chrysler
0:46
six-cylinder, focusing on the engine
0:48
itself, and they built a 68 horsepower
0:51
straight 6 at a time when that was
0:53
seriously hot stuff, especially in a
0:56
mid-pric car, which is what the 1924
0:58
Chrysler was. To get there, they did
1:01
things like uh testing out single
1:03
cylinder engines with different types of
1:06
heads and then changing the heads
1:08
slightly and retesting them to generate
1:11
the most power with the most durability
1:13
and the least fuel use. But they really
1:16
didn't apply those principles to the
1:18
rest of the car. They didn't really look
1:20
at the car as a system. They looked at
1:22
each individual part and each subsystem
1:24
separately. And the car body itself
1:27
remained as it had been derived from
1:30
horsedrawn coaches. Now once Maxwell
1:32
Motors which was making the Chrysler
1:34
became profitable, Zader Skelton and
1:36
Breier said we really have to start
1:39
making a car scientifically from the
1:41
ground up thinking about every single
1:44
part of the car. It was a truly
1:45
ambitious effort and it was hampered by
1:48
the sheer ambition coupled with not
1:50
really thinking about how they would
1:51
build it and that's what really killed
1:53
the air flow in the end. Now, of course,
1:55
we all know about the aerodynamics part
1:58
of the airflow. It's the most obvious
1:59
part of the car partly because it's the
2:03
visible part that you can look at it and
2:05
immediately say now that's something
2:07
that was designed to slip through the
2:08
air. Although it was not as
2:10
aerodynamically good as it could have
2:12
been, the science was really at a dawn
2:15
at that point. And they did pretty well
2:17
considering. And they started out with
2:19
model cars in a wind tunnel. And at one
2:23
point, this might be an apocryphal
2:25
story, but at one point, one of them put
2:26
in a car facing the other way, and it
2:29
was actually m more aerodynamic facing
2:31
backwards. And they did a lot of work to
2:34
try to make the cars more more
2:36
aerodynamic,
2:38
including the tapered tail, the rounded
2:40
fronts, and the sealed beam headlights
2:42
were part of that. They were the first
2:44
company to use sealed beam headlights.
2:46
In fact, they are the reason why sealed
2:49
beam headlights were created because
2:50
they wanted to have them mounted in the
2:53
fenders themselves so that they could
2:55
minimize wind drag. I'm not entirely
2:57
sure that that strategy worked, but it
3:00
gave us sealed beam headlights, which
3:02
were the standard of the auto industry
3:03
for about half a century. Now, maybe
3:06
more significant than the aerodynamic
3:08
work, was work on vibration frequencies,
3:11
center of gravity, and cornering. The
3:13
team measured the vibration frequencies
3:15
of numerous cars, including their own.
3:18
They found that European cars of the day
3:20
had a very very high vibration rate and
3:23
American cars had a higher vibration
3:25
rate than was comfortable for most
3:27
people. Their cars they could get down
3:29
to 90 to 200 cycles per minute and that
3:33
they considered to be very close to a
3:35
human walk which they register which
3:37
they registered as 90 to 100 cycles per
3:39
minute. Now how did they do that? Partly
3:42
they tuned the front and the rear
3:43
suspensions together as a unit. They
3:46
adjusted the springs properly and they
3:48
moved the wheels around and the axles
3:50
and mainly they moved the seats. So they
3:53
moved the engine forward by 20 in so
3:56
that it would ride over the front axle.
3:58
And they moved the people forward so
4:01
that they would ride between the axles
4:03
instead of having the back seat
4:04
passengers all the way at the back of
4:06
the car over or behind the rear axle. If
4:09
you've ever been on a bus, then you know
4:11
that you don't want to be over or behind
4:14
the rear axle. And that was one of two
4:17
things that caused them to say that they
4:19
had the first ride inside motor car and
4:22
the first really spacious car. The
4:24
second part was that they essentially
4:27
drew a semicircle from the front to the
4:29
rear and then they widened the car where
4:32
the passengers went in the middle and
4:33
that made the interior much wider and
4:36
larger. Incidentally, they had a
4:38
marketing term for the whole thing where
4:40
they tried to make the spring movement
4:42
slower and that was called floating ride
4:44
and it really did work. The interior of
4:46
the car was much more comfortable and
4:49
people found who people who were not
4:51
able to read a book in the car before
4:53
now found that they could read in the
4:55
car while somebody else drove hopefully
4:57
while somebody else drove. They
4:59
theorized and they proved that having a
5:01
stiffer body helped both cornering and
5:04
rides. So they made the airflow body
5:06
part of its structure. So instead of the
5:08
ladder frame that was common in that
5:10
day, they had a sort of cross between an
5:13
airframe and a regular frame uh which
5:16
was a type of unit body design. So the
5:19
frame ran up the fender line crossing
5:21
the cowl and went all around the door
5:23
openings and along the roof. It was much
5:26
stiffer than the regular body-on-frame
5:28
cars of the day, especially since most
5:30
of them were still using metal over wood
5:32
where wood was the main structural unit.
5:35
Making the entire body out of steel, of
5:37
course, was something that they got from
5:39
Dodge Brothers and Briggs Bod's work
5:42
because they were the first to make an
5:44
entire car out of steel. But they had
5:46
bought Dodge Brothers and then they took
5:48
the steel design to a new level and made
5:51
it more practical. And they had already
5:53
done that by this time. Now, as Chrysler
5:55
itself noted internally, some of the
5:57
disadvantages of the airflow were the
5:59
expensive body and mostly the long body.
6:03
It was a very long body compared to a
6:06
regular car that they that they
6:08
themselves made. And part of that was
6:10
the long tapered tail, which
6:12
incidentally was the first to have an
6:13
integrated trunk. And the 1934s at least
6:17
didn't have an outside opening to that
6:19
trunk. You had to get there from inside
6:21
the car. It was behind the back seat.
6:24
They did figure it out pretty quickly,
6:25
but the reason that you call the rear
6:27
compartment in a car the trunk is
6:28
because it used to be an actual trunk
6:30
mounted to the back of the car. And
6:32
Chrysler made it an integrated part
6:35
pretty much through the present day. It
6:38
had an automatic overdrive system, which
6:40
was quite nice, although rather
6:42
expensive to make. So that at around 45
6:45
mph, it could shift into overdrive on
6:47
its own, allowing the engine to drop in
6:49
revs, which made the interior quieter
6:51
and increased fuel economy and might
6:53
have increased the top speed. And that's
6:55
one reason why current airflow owners
6:57
say that they're very confident at
6:58
modern highway speeds. the rigid body,
7:01
the welltuned suspension, the hydraulic
7:04
brakes on all four wheels, but also the
7:06
fact that the engine isn't as stressed
7:08
as it could be otherwise because of that
7:10
overdrive. And as somebody who has a
7:12
3-speed torque flight where the top gear
7:15
ratio is 1 one, I can tell you I would
7:17
love to have an overdrive. Now, they
7:19
also had a Filco radio which could be
7:21
installed in the dashboard as a $55
7:23
option. That was also innovative with a
7:26
super heterodine circuit designed
7:28
specifically for car use. It had
7:30
full-size speakers, a four-point
7:32
equalizer, and automatic volume control.
7:34
Believe it or not, a Chrysler had to
7:36
work with Pittsburgh plate glass or PPG
7:38
to create the first curved safety
7:40
windshield. The cost of this was such
7:43
that it was only installed on the
7:44
top-of-the-line luxury model, the
7:46
Chrysler CW, which was a 9 passenger
7:48
sedan, which also had the first power
7:51
partition window ever in a car. And
7:53
Motel has a story on one of the CWs that
7:56
was lent to the most popular radio
7:58
personality of the day, guy named Major
8:01
Bose, who basically started the whole
8:03
onair talent show thing on the radio
8:06
with viewers uh sorry, listeners calling
8:09
in to vote. So now you know who's to
8:11
blame for that. The Chrysler and Dotto
8:13
Airflow were both revealed at the 1934
8:16
New York Auto Show 10 years after the
8:18
original Chrysler B70 was shown there.
8:20
Customers were quite enthusiastic and
8:22
they got over 20,000 orders, but mo
8:25
around half of those would be withdrawn
8:27
before the car was actually made. What
8:29
was the problem? Well, really it was
8:31
that Zader skeleton, Brier, and Chrysler
8:33
had been so excited that they had not
8:35
really thought about how to make the
8:37
car. And the main problem there was its
8:40
length. It couldn't negotiate the turns
8:42
in the assembly plants that they had
8:43
then. They were relatively small plants.
8:45
The cars would make a lot of turns going
8:47
back going around and they had a lot of
8:51
roof supports in those plants and it
8:53
also required new techniques for
8:55
construction in general because it was
8:57
the company's first unibody. So, it
9:00
required a lot more factory preparation,
9:02
but they did not plan ahead for that.
9:04
And they introduced the car far too far
9:06
in advance and GM and Ford were able to
9:09
spread dirty, malicious rumors about it
9:12
because they had nothing that could come
9:14
close to it and they really had to uh
9:16
badmouth the car or else they'd lose a
9:19
lot of money to it. Another problem with
9:21
the airflow, which is not often
9:23
mentioned by auto historians, is that it
9:26
was very expensive to make. Part of that
9:29
was the size, part of that was the unit
9:30
body. It was just a pricey car. And it
9:34
was still during the depression. It was
9:36
1934 when it was introduced. And it was
9:38
always Chrysler's most expensive car
9:40
while they made it. It was just much
9:43
more costly than the body-on-frame cars.
9:46
So what happened in 1934 was that both
9:49
Ford and Chrysler did a crash program to
9:52
adapt the airflow's unique attributes
9:55
like moving the seats, moving the
9:57
engine, getting the suspension tuned
9:59
properly. They took all these things
10:01
which Chrysler advertised, basically
10:03
telling Ford how to do it. and they both
10:06
came out with 1935 body-on-frame cars
10:09
that were normally priced, normally
10:10
sized, conventionally styled, sold like
10:13
hotcakes,
10:15
uh, and had most of the advantages of
10:17
the of the Airflow without having all
10:19
the advantages. A lot of critics said
10:21
that the main problem with the Airflow
10:23
was the funny looks. It was designed,
10:26
styled by engineers and not by a
10:28
stylist. So they tried making it look
10:31
more normal in future years and that
10:34
didn't really help all that much. It was
10:36
really I think personally the premium
10:38
price. Packard probably could have sold
10:40
the cars. Chrysler couldn't. Even though
10:43
they were really quite nicel looking
10:45
inside. So long-term the company had
10:47
lost market share but it's the main
10:49
problem with the airflow for Chrysler
10:51
was that it became overcautious. the
10:54
company lost its confidence in its own
10:57
engineering and they realized that
10:59
styling was more important than they had
11:01
thought. Another problem is that really
11:03
the unit body design is very expensive
11:06
if you've got a wide range of body
11:08
styles that people expect such as at the
11:11
time business coups, coups, sedans of
11:13
different sizes, wagons and so on. Now
11:16
Chrysler stopped showing interest in
11:18
aerodynamics until they started racing
11:20
in NASCAR. Well, actually until quite a
11:23
few years after they started racing in
11:24
NASCAR and then they did the 69 Dodge
11:27
Charger 500 and then the Charger Daytona
11:29
and Superbird. But on production cars,
11:32
they didn't really do a whole lot of
11:33
aerodynamic work until after the fuel
11:36
crisis. So the airflow was the uh
11:39
unibody car and then the Airstream was
11:41
the body on frame. What's interesting is
11:44
that the airflow really was the car that
11:46
all cars of the future, which is to say
11:48
today, would be based on. For the first
11:50
time, passengers were riding between the
11:52
axles instead of on them. So, the ride
11:55
was sensational at the time. The unit
11:57
body came back. I mean, Chrysler went
11:59
almost completely unit in 1960. And
12:03
today, pretty much all regular cars are
12:05
unit body designs, other than pickup
12:07
trucks and such. Likewise, overdrive
12:10
became very common, not to mention car
12:12
radios. It's a shame really because if
12:14
they had paid more attention to how the
12:17
the cars would be built up front, they
12:20
really could have probably made them
12:22
into a success. If they had been a
12:23
little bit less ambitious about it,
12:25
started out with the Airstream and then
12:27
went to the airflow. That would have
12:29
also been a really big success. But they
12:33
they really started too big. They tried
12:36
to change too much at once without
12:38
thinking about manufacturing, how they
12:39
were actually going to build it. and
12:41
they were hit pretty hard. Still, for a
12:44
number of years before World War II,
12:46
Chrysler was the number two automaker.
12:48
And part of the reason why was because
12:50
of all the lessons they learned by
12:52
looking at the entire car scientifically
12:55
with the Chrysler Airflow, one of the
12:58
most influential cars ever made in the
13:01
history of the car. Well, I've got a
13:03
page on motel.com which has more
13:06
pictures, so drop by Motel. Uh, I'm also
13:10
going to mention Motel now, which is our
13:14
new relevant news site, or as I would
13:17
call it, history as it's being made.
13:19
And, uh, you might want to look up my
13:21
book, Century of Chrysler on Amazon.
13:24
Century of Chrysler covers the full 101
13:27
years from 1924 Chrysler to 2025. And it
13:32
also looks at how Chrysler came to be
13:34
starting before 1904 with Maxwell. In
13:38
the meantime, I'll see you
#Automotive Industry
#Classic Vehicles
#Engineering & Technology