It did that, but in 35, car sales were on the rebound, except for the Airflow. It actually sold worse than the 34, despite being available for the entire year. People thought the car was ugly.
this video is typical of today's reporting, try it with outlandish claims just to get the numbers up. It doesn't matter if it's factual and obviously Timeless has just latched on to a internet thread that is inaccurate. Why would anyone believe Timeless when they can't even get the car correct.
Engines falling out of cars is far more common these days than it was back in the early days. Not sure why manufacturers think its OK now to literally suspend their motors in thin air by a couple weak rubber mounts that will let the engine fall out as soon as they fail. I had a customers engine fall completely out of their Saturn from engine mount bolt thread failure a short time after bringing it to me for new engine mounts with the engine hanging half out of the car. Evidently a couple little bolts in the top of each side of the aluminum block weren't up the task of suspending a running driving vibrating engine block. Who'd have known LoL
Modern cars are all built for maximum gas mileage and lightest possible weight. Much of their weight is from all the accessories and "systems" in them, not from the car it'self. Yesterday's cars were designed to be sturdy. If you wanted good gas mileage, you got a small low powered model. If you wanted a nice big comfortable car with good performance, you didn't get good mileage. That's just the way it was. If they had all those accessories and "systems" that today's tin cans have, they would have weighed close to 5,000 lbs for an ordinary grocery-getter. Probably 6,000 for a luxury car.
They need to use rubber mounts, unless the customer wants a car that sounds like a table saw. But I never understood the rubber-block-type mounts they used in the 1960s and 1970s, which were literally stretched apart as the car accelerated. They usually had a safety catch, but even that let the engine move enough to slowly destroy the fuel lines and exhaust fittings. I haven't had a bad engine mount since the 1990s, either because the rubber they use is better now, or because the newer mounts are built like giant bushings, relying on compression more than tension to hold the engine in place. Some of the newest ones are controlled by the computer, either tightening up during acceleration and cornering, or even canceling some of the engine vibration. I'd never heard of the problem with the bolts pulling through on Saturns, but it seems they under-engineered that part. One unfortunate thing about modern cars is that you have to take off at least one mount to maintenance items like the timing belt. Win some, loose some.
@@pcno2832 Of course they need to use rubber mounts. No manufacturer uses solid steel mounts. My point was that the mounts need to be under the engine like they used to be in the 60s-80s so there is something for the engine to rest on besides the pavement when the rubber gives up. Active mounts are a crutch for the awful harmonics and balancing you get as a side effect of modern crank and valvetrain designs that we would have known better to use 40-50 years ago but are daring enough to experiment with now. I swapped my 68 Plymouth to solid steel mounts for improved performance and even with a massive 500+ lift cam with a 110 degree lobe separation angle the car is way smoother and more pleasant to drive than any modern V8 or 4 cylinder I've seen with solid mounts swapped into it.
@@Impactjunky FACTS. 4 cyl, V6s, and those Flat-plane V8s we have heard about a few years ago have very poor harmonics. That's why V8s, (and Straight 8s as well), switched to 90 degree cranks, and why 4s were replaced with inline 6s. American motorists don't like engines that "buzz" at certain speeds.
@@Arltratlo Do you know of any one classic car made in Europe that is still going on its un-rebuilt original engine and transmission that isn't some kind of famously well preserved specimen? Do you know of any in private hands that belong to an average joe? Meanwhile there are literally hundreds of thousands of classic American cars still running strong on their original engine and drivetrain. No other country mass produced that kind of quality and reliability.
It is nice to see a younger person like yourself expressing an interest in a car that is not Japanese, but some errors - The Airflows that the public bought were mostly trouble-free. Early test cars had the problems that you mentioned, and their then radically different design caused a big production problems at first, causing a long delay in getting the cars to dealers, which killed interest in the car. Also, the base 1934 car had a 298 cubic inch engine, and the huge Imperial CW had a 384 cubic inch engine. The rest all had a 323 cubic inch job, with the cheapest 35 and 36 models having only a 1 barrel carburetor, the rest having a 2 barrel. You are correct about the public not liking the car's looks. They thought it to be ugly. Another case of styling winning over engineering and function.
@@jamesbosworth4191 I know my Grandfather had 33 Dodge 8 Cylinder convertible sedan, one of 18. He never intended selling it but it left him stranded once and he traded it off on a used '41 Dodge convertible. One of his In-laws went to the dealer to buy it the next day but it was gone. My dad and one of his brothers looked for it for 50 years and never found it. The '41 was eventually replaced by a Desoto Hemi '53 or '54.
Sadly there are many errors of fact in this video. In fact, so many that any research done for this channel should be considered worthless. Of course this does serve as a place where TH-camrs can relate stories of their parents or grandparents car ownership experiences with a similar lack of facts! I doubt that more than half the viewers even watched the entire video (or understood how poor it was).
Cars capable of 80 then were quite rare. And with the roads of the time still populated with occasional 40mph model ts and slow ford AA farm trucks 80 would have been almost suicidal.
I'm thinking the design didn't have the "prestige" factor, didn't have a regal appearance, image being so important to the buying public. They wanted something that gave the impression of prominence, not advanced into the future of scientific design.
It's funny to see that in '34 Citroën introduced it's Traction Avant with a unibody design and to prove it's rigidity pushed one of a cliff just like Chrysler. I wonder who copied who or if they were even aware of each others. The Airflow was the sole inspiration of the fuseau sochaux from Peugeot and they never shied away or hid it. But Peugeot was more successful, I believe Peugeot did a way better job in the design of their 202, 302, 402 and 602. Hanomag too looks like it got inspired but their cars look more like a beetle that got stung by a bee.
Actually, the VW is sort of a shrunken version of the prototypes for the 1936 Lincoln Zephyr. Look at the shape of the rear deck lid, look at the rims. The Zephyr was originally intended to have a rear-mounted engine and a rounded-down front, just like the VW.
@@jamesbosworth4191 Excellent to point out the resemblance, but I'm dubious that Ferdinand Porsche had access to any prototype info for the '36 Lincoln Zephyr, unless there was some serious industrial espionage going on. His first "Beetle" prototype was tested as a wooden model in 1932, for not only some of the first wind tunnel testing (at the Heinkel factory), but also to work out the layout details. This, along with clay modeling, was how cars were developed before "CAD". Porsche admitted practically copying earlier Tatra designs (not directly, as is often assumed, the somewhat larger Tatra 97), saying of their chief designer, Austrian-born Hans Ledwinka, "well, sometimes I look over Han's shoulder, and he, mine." Hitler had ridden in Tatras while visiting Czechoslovakia prior to 1933 and was quite impressed with them, saying, "this is the car we should have on German roads." When the VW Beetle was announced in 1938, Tatra threatened to sue for infringement, but Hitler told Porsche that he'd "settle out of court." The taking of the Sudetenland in September of '38, after the Munich Conference with Chamberlain, Daladier, and Mussolini, and the subsequent annexation of the Czech republic into the Reich ("Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia"), the present-day Slovak Republic being nominally independent though certainly controlled by the Nazis, enabled Der Fuhrer to do precisely that...for awhile. After a new VW rose from the proverbial ashes at Wolfsburg, Tatra once again pressed an infringement claim against VW AG. The case was finally settled for DM 1M in 1965.
@@jamesbosworth4191 The designs for the Airflows were finalized in the middle of 1933, long before the designs of the Zephyrs were created. Ferdinand Porsche is known to have been influenced by imported Airflows that he saw on the streets of Berlin.
They learned their lesson. When I visited Chrysler in 1974 their engineers told me they would pick one area at a time to refine. Their current one was reducing fan noise to match a Rolls-Royce
Yea, I think that 35 was sharp looking, I'd drive one of those around. Also, if I remember correctly the original 34 was given the unflattering nickname The Bathtub by the public.
There's no excuse for repeating yourself. I've been seeing this issue more lately--TH-camrs are getting lazy...not checking for stupidity before posting.
Love the cliff test. I can rest assured that if my Airflow ever suffers the same circumstance, it will come through unscathed. Rescuers, however, will need a waterproof bag to scoop my remains into.
My Mom and Dad bought a 1935 DeSoto Airflow after WWII. New cars were very hard to come by for several years after the war as companies started to retool. He told me that the car was junk. The roof leaked so bad my mother had to use an umbrella inside the car. It was hard to start ran hot and he had to use pipe thread material to be able to keep the spark plugs tight inside the head. Cars were so hard to come by that he sold it for what he paid for it a year earlier, $400
Streamlining was invented by Paul Jaray in the late teens, he came to these concepts through his work with Zeppelins. He actually patented these principles Tatra paid him to use his design patents to create the Tatra T77, T 87, T97, and T600. The T600 was actually the original beetle. When Hitler invaded the Czech republic he put a halt to T600 production, and gave the tech the Porsche. Tatra was using air cooled V8's and knew how to keep an air-cooled engine cool. Porche was having issue. One other point about the Airflow. If you look at the interior pictures you will see metal framed seats. Metal furniture was very new at the time, this was considered super high tech and modern. The touch screen of the 1930s.
The PT Cruiser was a masterpiece. I don't know who designed it but it captured the charm of The old-time autos and brought it up to date. Every time I see one I marvel at what a complete and flawless job was done on it. I don't think Chrysler treated that car with any respect. I heard the build quality was non-existent. Too bad. Now it's branded as a loser when the design is definitely a winner.
My son worked fir an engine machine shop. The Cruiser was too heavy for the little engine they put in it. People, instead of driving them like an economy car, floored it to make it run like a sportier model. That quickly wore out engines. He said they were doing rebuilds on 2 year old ones because of shot engines. Said if Chrysler had put their V-6 in it they would've had a winner from the start.
@@johnchandler1687 I have to question why people would beat the shit out the motors. That's interesting. Either the motors were bad or the people paid too little for the cars and didn't care what happened to them. A mystery. And a shame. Beautifully designed cars.
@@alext8828 The engine 1st used was the little 4 cyl from the Neon. A kinda weak crappy motor , but adequate for that small car. The Cruiser was quite a bit heavier. Being a sport wagon people expected it to run like one and made it perform by winding up tight. Couldn't take it. Their V-6 would've been the better choice. Chrysler put the 4 in it because it was counted as a truck and brought their truck fleet average gas milage down to meet government standards.
@@johnchandler1687 The 1st motor they used was the one used in the Neon? Did they ever put a bigger 4 cylinder in it or not? I don't think I'd judge that little thing as a truck. It's more of a station wagon if anything. Who knows what goes on between them and CAFE standards. It's a bit nuts, I kinda think.
The Beatle was not inspired by the Chrysler air flow. The beetle was inspired by Ferdinand Porsche's 1929 design which looks almost identical to it. I find it strange that you complain about Chrysler sales numbers of the airflow when their sales numbers for virtually every other car that they built exceeded Chevrolets for almost every one of those years that you are talking about. From 19306 through 1939, they outsold Chevrolet by quite a bit. And I would have a tendency to believe that some of the complaints were ill-founded but I do understand that given the redesign of the airflow that some of the early Vehicles suffered from procedural issues that were related to the method in which the vehicles were assembled. The act of moving the engine further back so it didn't balance in between the front wheels was a good step, they're probably was also an issue with making the first unibody but they had made it so incredibly strong that it was probably just as durable or reliable a car as any that were built a lot of cars suffered a lot of issues in the 1930s. For crying out loud Ford went for two or three years after Chrysler invented hydraulic brakes, the greatest safety mechanism ever put on automobiles, so much so that it has saved more lives than all other Safety Systems put in cars combined. And yet Ford refused to put hydraulic brakes on his cars for at least two or three years I believe. He finally relented to paying Chrysler royalties for using hydraulic brakes.
Just north of Conway, Arkansas was a resturant for years named The Airflow Cafe. Parked out front were 2 restored Airfows. Don't know anything about them, but saw them often. When cafe closed they went with owner.
30 Grand today....WTF...Just shows how fucked our Financial System is...That 30 Grand is cheap by todays standard,,Try and buy a Morgan for 30 grand Today!!!!
That I've seen an old rusted out air flow car turned into a Rat Rod. It was diffeniently different from the original design. Being of the X generation. Classic American made vehicles have been my thing for years. To build up a classic. Hopefully it becomes original again. But auto parts are in limited supply. Then sacrifices are often made with a newer chassis and engine's. Classic design is about style, luxury and indulgence. Just there's not much of that going around thesedays. Reason I'm proud owner of a Thunderbird. Foreign vehicles are compact not offering the comfort needed about a tall man as myself. The more people break law's about speed. Desire for speed causes governments to tighten it's reign on manufacturers. Awhile this new generation is all about speed within their entire Lifecycle. But I'm gonna settle down some.
The car is definitely ugly. There are areas of cars that look good, like the square body cars in this movie, the gangster cars. Then there are jewels like the Edsel. Today you have the dull lookalike crossovers and minimalist Teslas, just nothing to look at. And the Rivian, whose horse collar headlights remind me of the Edsel.
Actually the Unibody structure is horrible when it comes to durability and stiffness, its basically like building a car out of wielded together Pressed steel, it has no longevity, no durability and cant take a bash in a crash without serverly compromising the car, as the Front of the E Bodies, Mopars, Chryslters, that kinda thing, yeah they kinda, droop abit from the weight of the massive V8 engines and need reinforcement and were built exactly the same way just 3 decades latter same thing with another Unibody, the ford mustang,theirs a reason why they have a monte carlo bar that mates the fenders with the cowl and reinforces the structure on the shelby version of that car as otherwise its only what's at the bottom of the car that holds it together and its why they went through so many chargers on the dukes of hazzard, it was all wielded press steel with a K member attached to it, same with the axel and I'd be willing to bet they fibbed the crash and just took a normal chrystler and put that ontop with reinforcement in the structure of the car, as that thing should have folded like a beer can and that problem with the engine mounts most likely wasnt that, as 80 mph is really moving, especially for a car back then, most were out of puff at 60, and the brakes just 10 years latter could barely hold up to two panic stops, before the brakes went out thanks to brake fade, hell if those engines really did drop out of them at that speed, I'm surprised anyone lived to tell the tale its far more likely that someone hit a bump, it moved the fender and the engine mount out of place and dropped out thanks to how weak the structure was with the engine that far forward in the car and if anything I'd say that report you read was a flat out lie, or some urban myth that was reported to explain why a car that looks like its from 1947, didnt sell in 1937 during the great depression, before the war when hoovervilles were all over the east united states and everyone was out of work, and couldnt afford a new car as Bank Loans, High Interest rates, and I O U's didnt exist back then, well maybe the last one, given the only people with money were the mobsters back then and the popularity of the loan shark in modern movie mob mythos and also Leno never mentioned that problem at all with his, a 1934 Airflow, that was featured in the game Mafia City Of Lost Heaven, which is where I learned of this and alot of other pre war cars, as those Czek boys, they know their cars and I hope they leave the EU and tell them all to stuff it, as I may have to move there some day, as their the only ones in europe with sense anymore the rest are hell bent on repeating 1939 all over again and were the ones who came up with the Tatra 77, the car that alot of people think they might have coppied with this in the first place
Ive never heard about mechanical issues, most people at the time thought it looked strange compared to the others in the industry...theyd no idea of aerodynamics or fuel efficiency, they didn't need to then
Chrysler automotive design has always been ahead of its time. The world has never been ready for what they have offered. If they could just wait a decade or so, they would have been at the top of the Big Three.
Chrysler had some abyssal designs in the early 1960’s from the Valiant to the Fury to the Dodge Dart. They seemed to have lost their way. Push button transmissions in the steering wheel and rear view mirrors on the dashboard for no other reason than to be different. Likewise DeSoto’s demise was caused by an offering that was noteworthy for nothing other than fins
The Chrysler Airflow did not well well due to it's styling, but those who bought them did not find them to be troublesome at all. They were among the best built and most trouble free cars of their time.
My family had one of the First VW vans we ran it to death. Valve job every 5,000 miles it ended with the engine falling off the car at an intersection. Cold weather startups needed a gasoline blow torch to unfreeze the long control rods for the transmission. That model had a pass through between the front seats the second one had a solid wall if I remember the order of design features correctly. After those two we had a Dodge Power Wagon. Good verbal report.
The PT Cruiser was ugly!?! Maybe to some. Different, certainly. I thought they were a neat looking car and would have bought one, except for Chrysler "engineering", more recently known to be... crappy. Sorry folks, it ain't your pappy's Duster no more.
I would say that it was a car ahead of its time. Unfortunately, the engine mount issues gave it too bad of a reputation for being dangerous or unreliable, otherwise it's possible that they could have sold more and kick-started the unibody vehicle design in the US decades earlier. A shame, really.
He put a damn Chevy engine in his DeSoto? Shame. I would have put a 50s Chrysler HEMI or a Chrysler 383 in it. NO computers, NO sensors, and it would have remained all-Chrysler.
@@rickmorgan8856 That attitude is destroying our automotive history. If you want to do what you want with your own car, why not get something like a late 70s - 80s full-size or mid-size car? They aren't yet super rare, and they aren't really valuable, and they have a separate frame and usually a V8 engine. Don't you think it would be fun to drop a souped-up 460 in a 1983 Ford, or a souped-up 454 in a 79 Impala? Especially one that had a peace-loving Stovebolt 6 in it?
Everything on the Lancia Beta rusted. My mate bought a 4 year old used one and we went for a 105mph test run, steering was a bit interesting - turned out, the ball joints were almost completely rusted away.
As to engines dropping down/out of the cars it seems GM did not learn from chrysler's mistake. The Chevrolet Corvair had this very same problem. Anybody that removed or replaced the engine ( I put a clutch in one and had to lower engine) knows they bolt up to motor mounts from the ground. If the car hit a large pothole in a city street there was a good chance the Corvair could be seen sitting at the curb with the engine sitting on the ground under it.😝😝😝
I actually witnessed this happen to a corvair. I was at a stop sign when the Corvair came down a steep hill from my left, crossed the level cross street at a high rate of speed. A hard bounce and it continued down the street dragging the engine by various wires and cables.
I owned several Corvair coupes, as well as, a Corvair van and a Corvair pickup. It was important to replace the cotter pin in the bolt/castellated nut that secured the rear mount. Overheating also occurred when mechanics failed to replace ALL of the shrouding! It is always helpful to read the manufacturer's shop manual.
The price you pay for being ahead of the time .... Nice display of engineering trying to bring people something new for their cash instead of attaching to a knonw recipe
In the 1942 film “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” a genuine film clip taken from the raid shows a Toyota like that driving as the B-25 entered Japan at a very low altitude. There is a Toyota like that that was discovered in Russia with a Chevrolet 6 cylinder engine. No explanation as to how it got there.
Cool video. I like watching/ learning obscure facts about cars, manufacturing or anything really. One piece of advice is cut back on the ads. I mean a less than 10min video and had 2 ads in it. Was wanting to subscribe because I love helping small channels but I'll wait. Still a great, informative video 👍
Appreciate the interest in my video ! My channel isn't actually monetized at the moment so TH-cam put's their own ads on my videos, unfortunately I don't have control over the placement of them.
Typical Chrysler product: Twice the engineering, HALF the quality~ The design reminds me a little bit of the Omni/Horizon twins that came out 40 years later. Though they were smaller, boxier, and WAY faster, especially the Omni GLH Turbo!
The defective cars were never sold to the public. The problems had been worked out by the time the cars were actually in the show rooms. That delay killed interest in the car and made people think that it was a problem child.
The Great Depression might have hampered sales as well.
It did that, but in 35, car sales were on the rebound, except for the Airflow. It actually sold worse than the 34, despite being available for the entire year. People thought the car was ugly.
Don't forget the Tatra 87 from Czechoslovakia!!!!
this video is typical of today's reporting, try it with outlandish claims just to get the numbers up. It doesn't matter if it's factual and obviously Timeless has just latched on to a internet thread that is inaccurate. Why would anyone believe Timeless when they can't even get the car correct.
category 5 yapper over here
Engines falling out of cars is far more common these days than it was back in the early days. Not sure why manufacturers think its OK now to literally suspend their motors in thin air by a couple weak rubber mounts that will let the engine fall out as soon as they fail. I had a customers engine fall completely out of their Saturn from engine mount bolt thread failure a short time after bringing it to me for new engine mounts with the engine hanging half out of the car. Evidently a couple little bolts in the top of each side of the aluminum block weren't up the task of suspending a running driving vibrating engine block. Who'd have known LoL
Modern cars are all built for maximum gas mileage and lightest possible weight. Much of their weight is from all the accessories and "systems" in them, not from the car it'self. Yesterday's cars were designed to be sturdy. If you wanted good gas mileage, you got a small low powered model. If you wanted a nice big comfortable car with good performance, you didn't get good mileage. That's just the way it was. If they had all those accessories and "systems" that today's tin cans have, they would have weighed close to 5,000 lbs for an ordinary grocery-getter. Probably 6,000 for a luxury car.
They need to use rubber mounts, unless the customer wants a car that sounds like a table saw. But I never understood the rubber-block-type mounts they used in the 1960s and 1970s, which were literally stretched apart as the car accelerated. They usually had a safety catch, but even that let the engine move enough to slowly destroy the fuel lines and exhaust fittings. I haven't had a bad engine mount since the 1990s, either because the rubber they use is better now, or because the newer mounts are built like giant bushings, relying on compression more than tension to hold the engine in place. Some of the newest ones are controlled by the computer, either tightening up during acceleration and cornering, or even canceling some of the engine vibration. I'd never heard of the problem with the bolts pulling through on Saturns, but it seems they under-engineered that part. One unfortunate thing about modern cars is that you have to take off at least one mount to maintenance items like the timing belt. Win some, loose some.
@@pcno2832 Of course they need to use rubber mounts. No manufacturer uses solid steel mounts. My point was that the mounts need to be under the engine like they used to be in the 60s-80s so there is something for the engine to rest on besides the pavement when the rubber gives up. Active mounts are a crutch for the awful harmonics and balancing you get as a side effect of modern crank and valvetrain designs that we would have known better to use 40-50 years ago but are daring enough to experiment with now.
I swapped my 68 Plymouth to solid steel mounts for improved performance and even with a massive 500+ lift cam with a 110 degree lobe separation angle the car is way smoother and more pleasant to drive than any modern V8 or 4 cylinder I've seen with solid mounts swapped into it.
@@Impactjunky FACTS. 4 cyl, V6s, and those Flat-plane V8s we have heard about a few years ago have very poor harmonics. That's why V8s, (and Straight 8s as well), switched to 90 degree cranks, and why 4s were replaced with inline 6s. American motorists don't like engines that "buzz" at certain speeds.
@@jamesbosworth4191 Very true!
Better engineering, defeated by styling.
The story of Chrysler.
or just quality made in USA.....one of many reasons people in Europe dont buy US cars!
@@Arltratlo Our cars were SUPERB quality. European cars are the ones that are trash, both then and now.
@@Arltratlo Do you know of any one classic car made in Europe that is still going on its un-rebuilt original engine and transmission that isn't some kind of famously well preserved specimen? Do you know of any in private hands that belong to an average joe? Meanwhile there are literally hundreds of thousands of classic American cars still running strong on their original engine and drivetrain. No other country mass produced that kind of quality and reliability.
@@Arltratlo u must be talking about modern chevy's , so your argument is invalid
@@Arltratlo They don't buy our cars because their roads were built for horses and donkeys and never really improved
It is nice to see a younger person like yourself expressing an interest in a car that is not Japanese, but some errors - The Airflows that the public bought were mostly trouble-free. Early test cars had the problems that you mentioned, and their then radically different design caused a big production problems at first, causing a long delay in getting the cars to dealers, which killed interest in the car. Also, the base 1934 car had a 298 cubic inch engine, and the huge Imperial CW had a 384 cubic inch engine. The rest all had a 323 cubic inch job, with the cheapest 35 and 36 models having only a 1 barrel carburetor, the rest having a 2 barrel. You are correct about the public not liking the car's looks. They thought it to be ugly. Another case of styling winning over engineering and function.
Don't think the Plymouth offered an 8 cylinder as he stated.
@@fk4515 Not until 55. Dodge did, from 1930 - 33, but not Plymouth and not DeSoto, until 52.
@@jamesbosworth4191 I know my Grandfather had 33 Dodge 8 Cylinder convertible sedan, one of 18. He never intended selling it but it left him stranded once and he traded it off on a used '41 Dodge convertible. One of his In-laws went to the dealer to buy it the next day but it was gone. My dad and one of his brothers looked for it for 50 years and never found it. The '41 was eventually replaced by a Desoto Hemi '53 or '54.
@@fk4515 I like the looks of the 41 Dodge, but that little engine - only 217 cubes.
Sadly there are many errors of fact in this video. In fact, so many that any research done for this channel should be considered worthless. Of course this does serve as a place where TH-camrs can relate stories of their parents or grandparents car ownership experiences with a similar lack of facts! I doubt that more than half the viewers even watched the entire video (or understood how poor it was).
lmao. preciate it bro.
And how many people were driving above 80 mph in 1934, that fault was overcome before construction started, get your facts right
Thank you for calling them out on their B/S
Cars capable of 80 then were quite rare. And with the roads of the time still populated with occasional 40mph model ts and slow ford AA farm trucks 80 would have been almost suicidal.
Yes you’re right 80 mph back then was like 200 now
Just look at the dumb AI generated thumbnail.
My grandparents had the DeSoto. My grandmother told me many stories about the car. It was one of her favorite's.
I'm thinking the design didn't have the "prestige" factor, didn't have a regal appearance, image being so important to the buying public. They wanted something that gave the impression of prominence, not advanced into the future of scientific design.
It's funny to see that in '34 Citroën introduced it's Traction Avant with a unibody design and to prove it's rigidity pushed one of a cliff just like Chrysler. I wonder who copied who or if they were even aware of each others.
The Airflow was the sole inspiration of the fuseau sochaux from Peugeot and they never shied away or hid it. But Peugeot was more successful, I believe Peugeot did a way better job in the design of their 202, 302, 402 and 602.
Hanomag too looks like it got inspired but their cars look more like a beetle that got stung by a bee.
Looking at the deSoto airflow town coupe, it’s very clear that the VW beetle is an almost exact copy (on a smaller scale).
Both took "inspiration" from some of Tatra's offerings.
Actually, the VW is sort of a shrunken version of the prototypes for the 1936 Lincoln Zephyr. Look at the shape of the rear deck lid, look at the rims. The Zephyr was originally intended to have a rear-mounted engine and a rounded-down front, just like the VW.
@@jamesbosworth4191 Excellent to point out the resemblance, but I'm dubious that Ferdinand Porsche had access to any prototype info for the '36 Lincoln Zephyr, unless there was some serious industrial espionage going on. His first "Beetle" prototype was tested as a wooden model in 1932, for not only some of the first wind tunnel testing (at the Heinkel factory), but also to work out the layout details. This, along with clay modeling, was how cars were developed before "CAD". Porsche admitted practically copying earlier Tatra designs (not directly, as is often assumed, the somewhat larger Tatra 97), saying of their chief designer, Austrian-born Hans Ledwinka, "well, sometimes I look over Han's shoulder, and he, mine."
Hitler had ridden in Tatras while visiting Czechoslovakia prior to 1933 and was quite impressed with them, saying, "this is the car we should have on German roads." When the VW Beetle was announced in 1938, Tatra threatened to sue for infringement, but Hitler told Porsche that he'd "settle out of court." The taking of the Sudetenland in September of '38, after the Munich Conference with Chamberlain, Daladier, and Mussolini, and the subsequent annexation of the Czech republic into the Reich ("Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia"), the present-day Slovak Republic being nominally independent though certainly controlled by the Nazis, enabled Der Fuhrer to do precisely that...for awhile.
After a new VW rose from the proverbial ashes at Wolfsburg, Tatra once again pressed an infringement claim against VW AG. The case was finally settled for DM 1M in 1965.
@@selfdo Perhaps it was a combination of the two?
@@jamesbosworth4191 The designs for the Airflows were finalized in the middle of 1933, long before the designs of the Zephyrs were created. Ferdinand Porsche is known to have been influenced by imported Airflows that he saw on the streets of Berlin.
You can briefly spot a bright red Airflow in the opening scene of "A Christmas Story" Wonder who owns that one.
The studio at the time.
THE THUMBNAIL IS CERTAINLY NOT A CHRYSLER OR DESOTO AIR FLOW, GET IT RIGHT ! THE CAR SHOWN WAS NOT EVEN MADE IN THE U. S. A. !
bros heated
Stupid is as stupid does
😮😮😮
womp womp
I agree on all aspects. But I do think it is a good looking car. I am inclined to think it is a CAD car, and I don't mean Cadillac.
That picture on the thumbnail is not an Airflow...
They learned their lesson. When I visited Chrysler in 1974 their engineers told me they would pick one area at a time to refine. Their current one was reducing fan noise to match a Rolls-Royce
I really like the look of the 1935 and 1936 models. I would have bought one. Wonder how much they'd be worth in today's money? Take care all.
scanning real quick,, looks like the 1936 would is worth about $150,000 today
Yea, I think that 35 was sharp looking, I'd drive one of those around.
Also, if I remember correctly the original 34 was given the unflattering nickname The Bathtub by the public.
More than your life.
There's no excuse for repeating yourself. I've been seeing this issue more lately--TH-camrs are getting lazy...not checking for stupidity before posting.
When you realise that even the most aerodynamical cars have about 10 times higher drag coefficient than average airplane…
Pity you keep showing a film clip of a Pierce Arrow Tourer
Oh sweetie, the past tense of "cost" is "cost," not costed. That's a made-up word a 6 year old would use.
Just don't drive it any faster than 80 miles an hour.
perhaps if it looked more like a citroen traction avant it would have sold better
Love the cliff test. I can rest assured that if my Airflow ever suffers the same circumstance, it will come through unscathed. Rescuers, however, will need a waterproof bag to scoop my remains into.
Yeah like Jay Leno once said, they just hose off the blood on the car for the next guy
What's with the Pierce Arrow pictures?
My Mom and Dad bought a 1935 DeSoto Airflow after WWII. New cars were very hard to come by for several years after the war as companies started to retool. He told me that the car was junk. The roof leaked so bad my mother had to use an umbrella inside the car. It was hard to start ran hot and he had to use pipe thread material to be able to keep the spark plugs tight inside the head. Cars were so hard to come by that he sold it for what he paid for it a year earlier, $400
Plymouth and Dodge never had a straight 8
First V8 Plymouth was 1955
Streamlining was invented by Paul Jaray in the late teens, he came to these concepts through his work with Zeppelins. He actually patented these principles Tatra paid him to use his design patents to create the Tatra T77, T 87, T97, and T600. The T600 was actually the original beetle. When Hitler invaded the Czech republic he put a halt to T600 production, and gave the tech the Porsche. Tatra was using air cooled V8's and knew how to keep an air-cooled engine cool. Porche was having issue.
One other point about the Airflow. If you look at the interior pictures you will see metal framed seats. Metal furniture was very new at the time, this was considered super high tech and modern. The touch screen of the 1930s.
The PT Cruiser was a masterpiece. I don't know who designed it but it captured the charm of The old-time autos and brought it up to date. Every time I see one I marvel at what a complete and flawless job was done on it. I don't think Chrysler treated that car with any respect. I heard the build quality was non-existent. Too bad. Now it's branded as a loser when the design is definitely a winner.
My son worked fir an engine machine shop. The Cruiser was too heavy for the little engine they put in it. People, instead of driving them like an economy car, floored it to make it run like a sportier model. That quickly wore out engines. He said they were doing rebuilds on 2 year old ones because of shot engines. Said if Chrysler had put their V-6 in it they would've had a winner from the start.
@@johnchandler1687 I have to question why people would beat the shit out the motors. That's interesting. Either the motors were bad or the people paid too little for the cars and didn't care what happened to them. A mystery. And a shame. Beautifully designed cars.
@@alext8828 The engine 1st used was the little 4 cyl from the Neon. A kinda weak crappy motor , but adequate for that small car. The Cruiser was quite a bit heavier. Being a sport wagon people expected it to run like one and made it perform by winding up tight. Couldn't take it. Their V-6 would've been the better choice. Chrysler put the 4 in it because it was counted as a truck and brought their truck fleet average gas milage down to meet government standards.
@@johnchandler1687 The 1st motor they used was the one used in the Neon? Did they ever put a bigger 4 cylinder in it or not?
I don't think I'd judge that little thing as a truck. It's more of a station wagon if anything. Who knows what goes on between them and CAFE standards. It's a bit nuts, I kinda think.
The Beatle was not inspired by the Chrysler air flow. The beetle was inspired by Ferdinand Porsche's 1929 design which looks almost identical to it.
I find it strange that you complain about Chrysler sales numbers of the airflow when their sales numbers for virtually every other car that they built exceeded Chevrolets for almost every one of those years that you are talking about. From 19306 through 1939, they outsold Chevrolet by quite a bit. And I would have a tendency to believe that some of the complaints were ill-founded but I do understand that given the redesign of the airflow that some of the early Vehicles suffered from procedural issues that were related to the method in which the vehicles were assembled.
The act of moving the engine further back so it didn't balance in between the front wheels was a good step, they're probably was also an issue with making the first unibody but they had made it so incredibly strong that it was probably just as durable or reliable a car as any that were built a lot of cars suffered a lot of issues in the 1930s. For crying out loud Ford went for two or three years after Chrysler invented hydraulic brakes, the greatest safety mechanism ever put on automobiles, so much so that it has saved more lives than all other Safety Systems put in cars combined. And yet Ford refused to put hydraulic brakes on his cars for at least two or three years I believe. He finally relented to paying Chrysler royalties for using hydraulic brakes.
Ford was still producing cars with mechanical rod and cable brakes in the 1950s. The Ford Pilot V8 and Prefect.
Just north of Conway, Arkansas was a resturant for years named The Airflow Cafe. Parked out front were 2 restored Airfows. Don't know anything about them, but saw them often. When cafe closed they went with owner.
30 Grand today....WTF...Just shows how fucked our Financial System is...That 30 Grand is cheap by todays standard,,Try and buy a Morgan for 30 grand Today!!!!
That I've seen an old rusted out air flow car turned into a Rat Rod. It was diffeniently different from the original design.
Being of the X generation. Classic American made vehicles have been my thing for years. To build up a classic. Hopefully it becomes original again. But auto parts are in limited supply. Then sacrifices are often made with a newer chassis and engine's. Classic design is about style, luxury and indulgence. Just there's not much of that going around thesedays. Reason I'm proud owner of a Thunderbird. Foreign vehicles are compact not offering the comfort needed about a tall man as myself. The more people break law's about speed. Desire for speed causes governments to tighten it's reign on manufacturers. Awhile this new generation is all about speed within their entire Lifecycle. But I'm gonna settle down some.
The car is definitely ugly. There are areas of cars that look good, like the square body cars in this movie, the gangster cars. Then there are jewels like the Edsel. Today you have the dull lookalike crossovers and minimalist Teslas, just nothing to look at. And the Rivian, whose horse collar headlights remind me of the Edsel.
This just proves that Chrysler has been producing crap-wagons for almost 100 years.
Its a saftey feature, prevents cabin intrusion.
The undamaged vehicle goes to the next of kin
Actually the Unibody structure is horrible when it comes to durability and stiffness, its basically like building a car out of wielded together Pressed steel, it has no longevity, no durability and cant take a bash in a crash without serverly compromising the car,
as the Front of the E Bodies, Mopars, Chryslters, that kinda thing, yeah they kinda, droop abit from the weight of the massive V8 engines and need reinforcement and were built exactly the same way just 3 decades latter
same thing with another Unibody, the ford mustang,theirs a reason why they have a monte carlo bar that mates the fenders with the cowl and reinforces the structure on the shelby version of that car as otherwise its only what's at the bottom of the car that holds it together
and its why they went through so many chargers on the dukes of hazzard, it was all wielded press steel with a K member attached to it, same with the axel
and I'd be willing to bet they fibbed the crash and just took a normal chrystler and put that ontop with reinforcement in the structure of the car, as that thing should have folded like a beer can
and that problem with the engine mounts most likely wasnt that,
as 80 mph is really moving, especially for a car back then, most were out of puff at 60, and the brakes just 10 years latter could barely hold up to two panic stops, before the brakes went out thanks to brake fade, hell if those engines really did drop out of them at that speed, I'm surprised anyone lived to tell the tale
its far more likely that someone hit a bump, it moved the fender and the engine mount out of place and dropped out thanks to how weak the structure was with the engine that far forward in the car
and if anything I'd say that report you read was a flat out lie, or some urban myth that was reported to explain why a car that looks like its from 1947, didnt sell in 1937 during the great depression, before the war
when hoovervilles were all over the east united states
and everyone was out of work, and couldnt afford a new car
as Bank Loans, High Interest rates, and I O U's didnt exist back then, well maybe the last one, given the only people with money were the mobsters back then
and the popularity of the loan shark in modern movie mob mythos
and also Leno never mentioned that problem at all with his, a 1934 Airflow, that was featured in the game Mafia City Of Lost Heaven,
which is where I learned of this and alot of other pre war cars, as those Czek boys, they know their cars
and I hope they leave the EU and tell them all to stuff it, as I may have to move there some day, as their the only ones in europe with sense anymore
the rest are hell bent on repeating 1939 all over again
and were the ones who came up with the Tatra 77, the car that alot of people think they might have coppied with this in the first place
for uglyness jist imagine a Ford Edsel/Airflow.....L o L !
Love hearing an Aussie voice doing one of these, amazingly put together video to top it off
Ive never heard about mechanical issues, most people at the time thought it looked strange compared to the others in the industry...theyd no idea of aerodynamics or fuel efficiency, they didn't need to then
Chrysler automotive design has always been ahead of its time. The world has never been ready for what they have offered. If they could just wait a decade or so, they would have been at the top of the Big Three.
Yes, Chrysler introduced the K car and had to wait for the World to catch up...
@andrewweitzel7352 I guess there have been a few exceptions
Chrysler had some abyssal designs in the early 1960’s from the Valiant to the Fury to the Dodge Dart. They seemed to have lost their way. Push button transmissions in the steering wheel and rear view mirrors on the dashboard for no other reason than to be different. Likewise DeSoto’s demise was caused by an offering that was noteworthy for nothing other than fins
*engine producing 100 ft/lbs of torque*
Engine mounts: aight imma head out
The depression defeated sales. Pity, with better gas mileage from aerodynamics.
I watch a lot of old movies made during that time and never see that model
The Tatra 77 came out in 1934 and was much better designed and had one of the best aerodynamics.
Sorry to say this, but not a very thorough video.
The Chrysler Airflow did not well well due to it's styling, but those who bought them did not find them to be troublesome at all. They were among the best built and most trouble free cars of their time.
My family had one of the First VW vans we ran it to death. Valve job every 5,000 miles it ended with the engine falling off the car at an intersection. Cold weather startups needed a gasoline blow torch to unfreeze the long control rods for the transmission. That model had a pass through between the front seats the second one had a solid wall if I remember the order of design features correctly. After those two we had a Dodge Power Wagon. Good verbal report.
I remember when there were still vw busses on the road. Wretched, grossly underpowered rolling road blocks! Glad they're gone now.
Built by quality Americans and no it is NOT a looker
Engine dropping out at 80! Opposite of the Delorean.
The eight cylinder engine was available exclusively in Chrysler brand automobile. Plymouth, Dodge and De Soto were six cylinder only.
There was also an Imperial Airflow. Jay Leno has one.
1930 DeSoto CF was a straight 8. AACA Museum in Hershey has one on display.
@@drjohn96 yes, but this is in reference to the Airflow models.
@@danielulz1640 Then state it first.
@@Calc_Ulatorthat is what this video is about!
Who wrote the script? This guy has an aussie accent but speaks the American language
Kah
The PT Cruiser was ugly!?! Maybe to some. Different, certainly. I thought they were a neat looking car and would have bought one, except for Chrysler "engineering", more recently known to be... crappy.
Sorry folks, it ain't your pappy's Duster no more.
I had a failed engine mount once. Only one of three. Engine did not fly out of the car.
That script needed a closer review before being read.
Thanks for watching, my goal over the next month or so is to step up production quality big time.
Airflows are cool even if they resemble a toaster
What is carrrrr! I’m done
I would say that it was a car ahead of its time. Unfortunately, the engine mount issues gave it too bad of a reputation for being dangerous or unreliable, otherwise it's possible that they could have sold more and kick-started the unibody vehicle design in the US decades earlier. A shame, really.
how many times did the Brits invent the car new.....
so many times, they dont build cars in the UK anymore!
"Hey guys..." Really?
A whole lot of BS.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Get the right picture of an air flow before you post it in your thumbnail
You better bring that up to Howard P. Chrysler at the next board meeting.
You mean Walter Chrysler
I have a friend in Norway that has a 37 DeSoto...his engine didn't fall out but it was certainly removed to make room for an LS1. 👍😎
He put a damn Chevy engine in his DeSoto? Shame. I would have put a 50s Chrysler HEMI or a Chrysler 383 in it. NO computers, NO sensors, and it would have remained all-Chrysler.
@@jamesbosworth4191 It's his car, you do what you want to your car.
I put a 392 hemi in my model A, are you feeling better now ?
@@rickmorgan8856 It's not his car. He is temporarily responsible for a piece of history. It's his duty to preserve it, not destroy it.
@@dpjr47 AMEN.
@@rickmorgan8856 That attitude is destroying our automotive history. If you want to do what you want with your own car, why not get something like a late 70s - 80s full-size or mid-size car? They aren't yet super rare, and they aren't really valuable, and they have a separate frame and usually a V8 engine. Don't you think it would be fun to drop a souped-up 460 in a 1983 Ford, or a souped-up 454 in a 79 Impala? Especially one that had a peace-loving Stovebolt 6 in it?
Lancia Beta......engine mount was made to retain water...and so it rusted??? and the engine fell out.
Everything on the Lancia Beta rusted. My mate bought a 4 year old used one and we went for a 105mph test run, steering was a bit interesting - turned out, the ball joints were almost completely rusted away.
As to engines dropping down/out of the cars it seems GM did not learn from chrysler's mistake. The Chevrolet Corvair had this very same problem. Anybody that removed or replaced the engine ( I put a clutch in one and had to lower engine) knows they bolt up to motor mounts from the ground. If the car hit a large pothole in a city street there was a good chance the Corvair could be seen sitting at the curb with the engine sitting on the ground under it.😝😝😝
I actually witnessed this happen to a corvair. I was at a stop sign when the Corvair came down a steep hill from my left, crossed the level cross street at a high rate of speed. A hard bounce and it continued down the street dragging the engine by various wires and cables.
@@tedecker 🤣🤣🤣 I can see it now!!🤣🤣
I owned several Corvair coupes, as well as, a Corvair van and a Corvair pickup. It was important to replace the cotter pin in the bolt/castellated nut that secured the rear mount. Overheating also occurred when mechanics failed to replace ALL of the shrouding! It is always helpful to read the manufacturer's shop manual.
The price you pay for being ahead of the time .... Nice display of engineering trying to bring people something new for their cash instead of attaching to a knonw recipe
In the 1942 film “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” a genuine film clip taken from the raid shows a Toyota like that driving as the B-25 entered Japan at a very low altitude.
There is a Toyota like that that was discovered in Russia with a Chevrolet 6 cylinder engine. No explanation as to how it got there.
Cool video. I like watching/ learning obscure facts about cars, manufacturing or anything really.
One piece of advice is cut back on the ads. I mean a less than 10min video and had 2 ads in it. Was wanting to subscribe because I love helping small channels but I'll wait.
Still a great, informative video 👍
Appreciate the interest in my video ! My channel isn't actually monetized at the moment so TH-cam put's their own ads on my videos, unfortunately I don't have control over the placement of them.
Typical Chrysler product: Twice the engineering, HALF the quality~
The design reminds me a little bit of the Omni/Horizon twins that came out 40 years later. Though they were smaller, boxier, and WAY faster, especially the Omni GLH Turbo!
The defective cars were never sold to the public. The problems had been worked out by the time the cars were actually in the show rooms. That delay killed interest in the car and made people think that it was a problem child.