Chrysler’s 1934 Airflow revolutionized car aerodynamics-our wind-tunnel tests prove it | Driving.ca
Автокөліктер мен көлік құралдары
#ChryslerAirflow #windtunnel #aerodynamics
Barn door. Brick wall. Whatever metaphor you use, cars at the turn of the twentieth century were simply not that streamlined. With narrow, upright grilles; flat plate-glass windshields; and bodywork that ballooned out at the back, automobiles of the 1910s, ’20s, and early ’30s were, aerodynamically speaking, a real drag. The “horseless carriages” of those decades were, however, making more and more power every year, propelling them to speeds where, unlike their draft-animal-drawn forebears, their slipperiness-through-the-air had an impact.
Walter P. Chrysler and the engineers at Chrysler Corporation understood that perhaps sooner than anyone in the American auto industry. In the late ’20s, the fledgling automaker conscripted famed aviator Orville Wright to build a small-scale wind tunnel to test cars’ aerodynamics. Those tests led Chrysler to develop a radical new model, the Airflow, designed around fluid-dynamics principles, and marketed via scientifically derived claims that contemporary cars’ styling was so backwards, many were more streamlined driving in reverse than forward.
The Airflow’s story has been told a hundred times, and Chrysler engineers’ data from the period repeated endlessly. But how would their figures compare to ones measured at a modern state-of-the-art facility, like the ACE Climatic Wind Tunnel at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa? Driving.ca decided to find out firsthand, testing the revolutionary 1934 Chrysler Airflow, as well as a conventional 1932 DeSoto sedan, using some of the most advanced equipment available today. Here’s what we learned.
Read the full article on Driving.ca: driving.ca/feature/1934-chrys...
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#prewarcars #OntarioTechUniversityACE
Пікірлер: 18
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THIS PROJECT. I LOVE THE CHRYSLER AIR FLOW. I WOULD LOVE TO BUILD ONE IN THE FUTURE.
Why are we not given the drag coefficient numbers? That would have made the video far more interesting
Great information. The Airflow was definitely a car ahead of it's time. Thanks for sharing.
Peugeot did copied the design of the Airflow for their 202, 302, 402 and 602 and the cars sold fairly well for a number of years in France starting in 1935. Tatra did too.
i've often wondered how the big late 50s early 60s jet age cars did with the big fins & such did in a cd score.probably not to great.
How about comparing the Airflow to the Lincoln Zephyr?
Great vedio
One cool production!
Great Looking Chrysler ! ! !
MOPAR old school 👍🏻🇦🇺
I almost wonder if the lower numbers you measured not meeting Chrysler's claims wasn't because of better measuring techniques and overall advancement in the knowledge of aerodynamics?
@mrdanforth3744
3 ай бұрын
I suspect if you took off the license plates and rear view mirrors and just tested the body shape it would look better. There is also the fact that Chrysler tested wooden model shapes in a 3X2 foot wind tunnel so would not get the same effect as a full size car.
Was the Chrysler Airflow the inspiration for Ferdinand Porsche in creating the VW Type 1 (Beetle) in 1937?
@mrdanforth3744
3 ай бұрын
No doubt he was aware of the Airflow as he kept up with the latest trends in design. But the beetle was much more like the rear engine Lincoln Zephyr prototype designed by John Tjaarda that was shown in car shows starting in 1934.
@maximlovkov
Ай бұрын
No, it was tatra
Automotive aerodynamics are only significantly practical at speeds above 45 mph. However, in the mid-1930s there were no high-speed roads like today. In fact, the typical country road for traveling long distance at that time was winding, heavily crowned, and two-way. Approximately 50 mph was as fast as a driver could safely operate a car on those roads. Thus, the highly aerodynamic Airflow/Airstream cars from Chrysler Corporation did not have a practical purpose. Instead, what buyers at that time found more desirable was a comfortable ride. The similarly styled aerodynamic DeSoto was even less popular than the Chrysler Airflow. Planned, but never produced, Dodge and Plymouth models of similar aerodynamic design would have been so unpopular that Chrysler Corporation would have probably gone bankrupt. As a result of poor sales, all Chrysler Corporation's models had ultraconservative design until Virgil Exner's popular 1955 Forward Look models. The most dumpy/dull looking models of the conservative era were the 1937/1938 models ("potato era") and 1949/1950 models (stubby boxlike).
"Walter P. Chrysler stood by the Airflow even decades later." 9:51. Unfortunately Walter P. Chrysler died in the year 1940!