It ended up that the public wasn’t ready for all this in one drastic model year. There was a new innovation that allowed the driver to shift the transmission without using the clutch. This included the first rear seat that was mounted forward of the rear axle instead of sitting over the rear axle. The 1934 DeSoto and Chrysler Airflow cars had 25 major changes that included the looks, ride, power and driving. To achieve the best mileage and horsepower, the engineers came up with this design. This test showed that the 1930 DeSoto was more aerodynamic if the body was turned around on the chassis and ran backwards. Both vehicles were designed and tested in the wind tunnel owned by Wilbur Wright. The reason I had interest in the car was because of the aerodynamic styling that looks a lot like the front end of a Divco delivery truck. They have been compared to the Lincolns as the futuristic designed cars along with the high-speed trains of the 1930s & 1940s as well as the aerodynamic designs of the airplane industry. They have been in articles written for the Lincoln Zephyr Newsletter. I saw pictures of them and read articles about them. The DeSoto division soldiered on at the Chrysler Corporation, through good years and bad, until November 30, 1960.I never saw a Chrysler and/or DeSoto Airflow car in person until I saw this car. (1935 Convertible Coupe shown below.) DeSoto’s print advertising now modestly presented the Airflow as a “companion to the Airstream DeSoto,” and the Airflow was quietly retired after 1936. (Chrysler introduced an Airstream as well.) The totally ordinary Airstream outsold the highly advanced Airflow by a three-to-one margin. Sales plummeted to fewer than 14,000 cars for the entire ’34 model year, a staggering 39 percent decline.įor ’35, DeSoto rushed a conventionally styled car into the product line as a stopgap, borrowing a Dodge chassis and basic body shell and calling it the Airstream. When production problems delayed the rollout to dealer showrooms, and as customers ultimately rejected the controversial AIrflow styling theme, DeSoto had nothing to fall back on. While Chrysler continued to offer a conventional model, DeSoto’s 1934 product line consisted only of Airflows. Where the DeSoto Airflow departed from the senior Chrysler in a critically strategic way was that there was no plan B. The DeSoto AIrflow was every bit as advanced as its Chrysler sibling. And there was a 241.5 CID straight six with an even 100 hp under the sloping hood instead of the Chrysler’s more imposing L-head straight eights. Where they differed: The DeSoto’s wheelbase was a modest 115.5 inches in length, eight inches shorter than its big sister, which made the aerodynamic shape look even more polarizing to car buyers, if anything. (See our look at the Airflow’s engineering here.) WIth the rebranding, DeSoto’s market identity was now starting to appear a bit fuzzy, an issue that would shadow the division for the next 27 years.Īs the junior brand in the Airflow family, DeSoto employed the very same forward-looking design elements as Chrysler: steel-reinforced body semi-unitized body/frame construction engine relocated well forward in the chassis to allow the rear passengers to be seated within the wheelbase rather than over the rear axle. There it was decided that DeSoto would be moved two slots upmarket, above Dodge and below Chrysler, and share the radical Airflow design. (See our feature on the birth of DeSoto here.) Handsome, popularly priced, and sharing many Plymouth components to pare costs, the DeSoto did remarkably well in its mid-range role, racking up 80,000 sales the first year.īut then Chrysler reshuffled the deck as the revolutionary Chrysler Airflow was under development for its 1934 introduction. Launched by Chrysler in summer of 1928 almost simultaneously with the introduction of Plymouth and the corporation’s purchase of Dodge Brothers as well, it was originally slotted into the product line below Dodge and above Plymouth on the price ladder. If ever there was a star-crossed American car make from a major producer, it was DeSoto. And it wasn’t what the American car-buying public wanted. The 1934-36 Desoto Aiflow was an advanced, well-built, soundly engineered automobile.
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