Timeless Elegance
“Strikingly beautiful… Lines that cleave the wind,” Chrysler said of the 1935 Airstream, its redesigned entry-level series that was more conventional in appearance than the premium-priced, slow-selling Airflows, yet still targeted a “discriminating clientele.”
The Chrysler, Imperial, and De Soto Airflows featured an innovative and radically aerodynamic-for-the-era streamlined design, as well as numerous engineering advances that would prove influential in the automobile industry. Yet their meager sales figures indicated that the styling was too far ahead of its time to foster broad public acceptance.
Where form followed function in the Airflow’s design —to reap the most aerodynamic benefit — eye-appealing styling took precedence over a low-drag coefficient for Airstream Chryslers and De Sotos. Compared to the 1934 non-Airflow models, the new Airstream exhibited a more dramatically swept-back vee’d grille and windshield, and refined fenders, all of which suggested motion even when stationary. (Several body elements were also shared with the updated Dodge and Plymouth.)
As in the Airflow, the engine and passenger compartment were
