WILL IT BE ANOTHER AIRFLOW AGE FOR CHRYSLER IN 2024?
Dear Classic American
Back in 1934, the DeSoto catalogue for their version of the Chrysler Airflow stated boldly: “It’s an Airflow age”! The more upmarket Chrysler catalogue saw no need to make that statement, using beautifully detailed catalogue artwork for their brand’s Airflow models. This was a ground-breaking design of car for the time, and the first mass-produced American streamlined sedan.
On holiday in Arizona last December, I called in to the local Chrysler dealer to find out what sort of car would replace the long running Chrysler 300C model, because 20 years on from its introduction in 2004, it surely had to be replaced by something as bold, yet popular. It seems most likely to be a very different concept, probably an electric SUV, but I was intrigued when the salesman said that a model name being considered was ‘Airflow’.
Very quickly, I realised that 2024 would be exactly 90 years since the original models were introduced.
I have always been a fan of the original Airflow models since I rode in an Airflow used as a taxi in south-east Essex as a child and what was probably a 1936 model, when this luxurious car was some 20 years old. This version had a less radical front clip, but there was no mistaking the rest of it in my first known ride in an American car. Illustrated here is a 1934 DeSoto Airflow encountered in one of the few car museums in this part of Arizona, and there will be more to come from this excellent attraction where I found the Edsel wrecker featured in CA after an earlier visit, in December 2022.
John Bath
Chrysler have always been known as probably the most technically advanced of the ‘big three’ and the Airflow illustrates how this was the reality even back in the early days. We wait with anticipation to see what the new ‘Airflow’ will be like… hopefully not an electric jellybean-shaped soft-roader!