The Airflow's "worst"-ness derives from its spectacularly bad timing.
Twenty years later, the car's many design and engineering innovations —
the aerodynamic singlet-style fuselage, steel-spaceframe construction,
near 50-50 front-rear weight distribution and light weight — would have
been celebrated. As it was, in 1934, the car's dramatic streamliner
styling antagonized Americans on some deep level, almost as if it were
designed by Bolsheviks. It didn't help that a few early Airflows had
major, engine-falling-out-type problems that stemmed from the radical
construction techniques required. Chrysler, and the even more hapless
Desoto, tried to devolve the Airflow stylistically, giving it more
conventional grill and raising the trunk into a kind of bustle (some
later models were named Airstream), but the damage was done. Sales were
abysmal. It wouldn't be the last time American car buyers looked at the
future and said, "no thanks."
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