So even Chrysler management knew it was not a success.Ĭlick to expand.The Airflow was a premium priced specialty car meant to show off the best most modern ideas Chrysler had. Keller, he sold them on the idea of redeeming the Airflow's design. One other clue is that when Alex Tremulis pitched the Newport & Thunderbolt show cars to Chrysler president K.T. I think that the Pierce Sliver Arrow had more effect. It also had more turnunder (the curve inward from beltline to sill) than any other maker picked up. The tell is that Chrysler had to keep making the grille more conventional in search of buyers. What everyone else copied was the forward engine position, which allowed the back seat passengers to ride inside the wheelbase for more comfort.

It was more expensive to build, had teething problems and customers voted with their feet.

Rusty, I think you're quite wrong about the failure of the Airflow. This makes me wonder if GM paid a little attention, or at least saw that the design was a quick and dirty way to test some ideas. The conventional wisdom is that he ran into a wall of 'not invented here' indifference. Howard Marmon designed a similar one shortly before this and was trying to interest the auto industry in it. The most interesting part about the car is the backbone chassis. If the Chrysler spies had seen it, they wouldn't have worried about it, let alone rushed back to make their own. It looks like an early British streamlined design clumsily adapted to a larger American chassis. So even Chrysler management knew it was not a success.īut, to the question of the Albanita, I think it was an experimental car intended to not look like a GM product.

1933 chrysler airflow