When the radical 1934 Airflow drove buyers from the showrooms, DeSoto rushed the far more conventional Airstream into production for 1935.
1935 Airflow
Because it’s such an important and interesting story, we’ve covered the Chrysler Corporation’s Airflow experiment of 1934-37 at some length at Mac’s Motor City Garage. (See our feature on the Chrysler Airflow here and the DeSoto version here.) Equally interesting, perhaps, is how Chrysler managed to extricate itself from what could be fairly described as a sales disaster.
1935 Airstream
While the Chrysler brand hedged its bet, offering both conventional and Airflow models for the 1934 introduction, the DeSoto division was assigned a more aggressive strategy. First, the brand was moved uprmaket from its previous slot between Plymouth and Dodge in the Chrysler price ladder to between Dodge and Chrysler, with a list price of $995. Next, there were no conventionally styled models in the ’34 DeSoto lineup. The divsion went all in on the radical Airflow.
We know how that worked out. Repelled by the unsual design, buyers fled the DeSoto showrooms in droves, while production problems limited selection and availability. In an up year for Ford, Chevy, and Plymouth, DeSoto sales tanked 40 percent, falling to not quite 14,000 cars. Quickly and wisely, the corporation rushed a far more conventional car to market for 1935 and called it the Airstream.
Whilte the Airstream was marketed as “aero-dynamic design” like its Airflow sibling, in truth the styling was totally mainstream. There was no real attempt at unit body/frame construction; the engine was in the normal location. The body shell was borrowed from the Dodge divsion, while the front end sheet metal barely hinted at the DeSoto’s sloping nose with a few diagonal grille bars. The Airflow and Airstream did share the same drivetrain and 241.5 CID L-head six with 100 horespower.
Meanwhile, prices for the Airstream were slashed by several hundred bucks to $695-$825, just slightly above Dodge. And unlike the Airflow, the full range of body styles was offered, including open models. While it was orthodox in most every other way, the Airstream did offer at least one advanced feature: independent front suspension with short/long control arms and coil springs. Plymouth had tried IFS for a year in ’34, then abandoned it until ’39. Despite all its other innovations, the DeSoto Airflow stuck with the front beam axle for its entire short life.
The Airflow, it seems, stands as a early example of a car firmly rejected by the public, at least in part, for its unusual exterior styling. There would be more to come: the Edsel, the Pontiac Aztek, the Tesla Cybertruck. In the auto industry, change can be risky; or, why it tends toward the incremental. After 1936 the Airflow was dropped and the Airstream name as well, the entire episode better left behind.
The Airflow was the product of Chrysler engineers’ fixation on aero. The few designers on staff were confined to creating logos and trim, not body shape. When the Airflow fizzled, designers were let loose though Chrysler adopted a policy of doing only what others had done successfully before them. Until the ’50s, that is, when Virgil Exner showed what design leadership was the way to go.
For me, the biggest problem with the Airflow was the grille and headlights. Had they been able to put the Airstream front end on the Airflow, they might have salvaged the product. They they could have eased into an aero front end.
The Taurus succeeded because of the aero look, and the Aztek is the prototype for today’s CUVs, so you can’t be sure what the public will like. The Cybertruck was an innovative design that might have worked with a different owner and the ability to do what was claimed.
the Aztek was ugly. today, it might have went over, but at the time it was obnoxious looking.
The Aztec is the poster child for how not to design a car. In his book “Car Guys versus Bean Counters,” Bob Lutz talked about how the Aztec was designed to meet the constraints placed on the designers by the finance crowd at GM – a terrible way to design a car.
Ford designed a version of the Taurus with a conventional grille, but decided in the end to go radical. It worked.
Mr. Chrysler was said to be the most honest and fair man one could meet, but also had a notoriously bad temper. The boss held a grudge against Durant at GM for years after leaving Buick, and wanted his own brand to counter GM’s new Pontiac. W.P. C. was also a wildly successful world class gambler who hedged his bets. Desoto was the hedge on his bet if the Dodge Brothers deal fell thru. After acquiring Dodge, DeSoto was used to explore new markets and innovations, like the Airflow …
GM designers say the original Aztec design was quite nice, but the bean counters forced it on a smaller platform, wrecking the proportions. However that front was just ugly, no excuse for that.
We own a ‘36 Chrysler Airstream coupe. I like it better than the Airflow and even today the Airflow isn’t not everyone’s cup of tea. That front end is the issue.