Concept Car of the Week: The Airomobile

Even the most casual student of automotive history knows that aeroplanes and automobiles ‘grew up’ together, with much technology transfer between the two. Both designers and engineers, as well as various manufacturers, moved freely between the aeroplane and the automobile in the decades before the Second World War.

The Ford Trimotor and Model A. Cars and planes developed together in the first few decades of the 20th century

Witness such pioneers as Gabriel Voisin, engineer of both aircraft and luxury automobiles, Henry Ford, manufacturer of both the Model T and the Ford Trimotor airplane, William Bushnell Stout, who designed the Trimotor, and later his own luxury car, the Stout Scarab, and the Packard Motor Company, manufacturer of luxury cars and aircraft engines.

There were, of course, innumerable other engineers, inventors, and small manufacturers that dreamed big in this era, creating all manner of interesting automotive and aeronautical experiments. One of these was Paul Lewis , an inventor and sometime engineer who first came up with a VTOL (Vertical Take-Off & Landing) aircraft company in 1933. When that failed to get established, he turned to the idea of creating an inexpensive everyman’s automobile that would sell for $300. The idea was to create a Model T-like car for the streamlined age.

A luxurious 1932 Franklin. Franklins sported innovative air-cooled engines. Later models after about 1925 included a dummy radiator to make them look like other cars- a design change demanded by dealers. Franklin would not survive the Great Depression, but its engines would

Lewis would find plenty of engineering and technical talent available, as many of the second-tier auto manufacturers who had limped into the 1930s were closing their doors due to the hard times of the Great Depression. Lewis began working with Carl Doman and Edward Marks of the newly formed Doman-Marks Engineering company. Doman had been chief engineer, with Marks his lieutenant, of the well-respected Franklin Automobile Company before its untimely demise in 1934. The Doman-Marks duo had managed to salvage the engine manufacturing portion of the company’s assets and were able to continue to produce Franklin’s innovative air-cooled engine for industrial and aircraft applications.

Lewis approached Doman-Marks about technical help with his car project. After considerable discussion, a three-wheeled design was chosen, with a square tube perimeter frame and a removable subframe for the Franklin air-cooled engine which cantilevered over the front wheels. An innovative transaxle made up of Citroën parts would transfer power to the front wheels.

The passengers would sit behind the engine and low within the triangular frame. Because the weight distribution was so front-heavy, the passengers acted as a counterweight to the engine/transaxle assembly. At the rear, the lone wheel was just to prop up the car –it had a suspension and hydraulic shock absorber, but no brake- it rolled free at all times.

The Ford/Briggs Dream Car, designed by John Tjaarda in 1933. Rear-engined in this design, it would later be redesigned with a traditional front-engined layout and become the Lincoln Zephyr

Lewis then approached the Briggs Manufacturing Company to get a design for his streamlined three-wheeled car. Lewis had been particularly impressed with Briggs’ concept car for the Century of Progress exhibition in Chicago. Though technically a Ford, the car was widely known as the ‘Briggs Dream Car’, a futuristic rear-engined sedan. Lewis engaged the chief designer of Briggs, John Tjaarda, to design a body that could wrap around the tubular frame of the little car.

John Tjaarda’s original design for the Airomobile. Extreme cab-forward, and rather fish-like

Tjaarda’s drawings were apparently taken to Doman-Marks for fabrication and assembly. The design and execution seems a too clumsy to have come from Briggs. But no matter – Lewis loved it. The little three-wheeled everyman’s car was ready for its introduction to the world.

The 1937 version of the Airomobile. Though not as elegant as Tjaarda’s drawings, the little car still made quite an impression during its tour of America

Lewis would take his automotive creation on the road in 1937, hoping to line up investors and dealers as he crisscrossed the country. It was a Great American Road Trip for Lewis, who stopped in big towns and small, showing off the car, handing out brochures and giving demonstration rides. He would race the local daredevils and challenged them to follow him for an hour ,as he took the Airomobile down country roads, racing through city streets, and taking abrupt detours across farmers’ fields and pastures. The little car, like the Model T before it, seemed to hold up to all kinds of abuse, with its lightweight, strong chassis, itself a product of decades of Franklin engineering experience.

The 1938 version of the Airmobile seen on the road

The timing for Lewis’ road trip seemed excellent. The worst years of the Depression seemed to have passed – 1936 had been a good year for automotive sales, and indeed, consumer goods in general. Years of austerity had created quite a demand for all sorts of products. Although the economy cooled a bit in 1937, Lewis was still confident that the timing was right for his affordable car.

Lewis also showed off the car to industry luminaries, who were generally favorable to the layout and efficiency of the little car. One of these industry giants was an automotive engineer, little known in America, but a rising star in Germany, Ferdinand von Porsche. Porsche was intrigued with the engine placement and transaxle of the Airomobile, and a few years later, when the Volkswagen was introduced, it had an engine/transaxle arrangement remarkably similar to Paul Lewis’ little car. (See graphic below)

By 1938 the Airomobile was sporting a new Lincoln-Zephyr like nose, complete with L-Z headlights

By the end of the year, Lewis had logged some 45,000 miles and claimed his car had averaged 43.5 miles per gallon. Lewis wasn’t above a little salesman’s hyperbole, but Franklin engines were known to be rugged and economical, so Lewis’ claim is within the realm of possibility. The interest Lewis received convinced him that the project was viable, and that he should take the Airomobile on the road for another season of touring and selling.

Photo showing the changes between 1937 and 1938. The later edition looked like a tadpole version of the Lincoln Zephyr

Over the winter of 1937-8, Lewis remodeled the Airomobile. This time the strong design sensibility of John Tjaarda was much in evidence. The headlights, formerly in tube-like nacelles up at the top of the hood, were Lincoln–Zephyr lights integrated into the front fenders. The blunt-nosed hood was softened with a rounded nose and a circular air vent. Windows and windscreen, which had been rather clumsily crafted, were recreated with a greater degree of design and craftsmanship.

Looking into the interior of the Airomobile – very basic, with minimal creature comforts

And so Lewis took to the open road again in the summer of 1938. But things had changed over the winter. The economic recovery of 1936 had run out of steam, and America slid back into recession. By 1939 war clouds were on the horizon in both Europe and in the Pacific. And Lewis was rapidly running out of money. There was just not enough investor cash or firm dealer commitment to justify entering production. The Airomobile and Lewis American Airways were finished.

The Airmobile, rear three-quarter view. John Tjaarda got an early start on the tailfin era

But if the Airomobile was finished, Lewis was not. It took him three decades, but in the late 1960s he produced an Airomobile-like car called the Fascination. The original Fascination was meant to be basically a propeller plane without wings; an ovoid passenger compartment sat on a tricycle frame and was powered by an aircraft engine and propeller. The prototype was wrecked when the propeller failed, resulting in a number of lawsuits.

The Airomobile was reborn as the Fascination in the late 1960s. A mockery of the quirky purity of the original car

Lewis was undaunted, as usual. He installed a Volkswagen and then a Renault engine in subsequent prototypes. In all, five Fascination cars were built, although not all were running prototypes. But they were too odd, ungainly from any view. Promotional literature tried to sell the Fascination as the ‘car of tomorrow’, but it was more like the car of yesterday’s tomorrow. Investors lost interest, and Paul Lewis would die in 1990 having never realised his dream.

The interior of the red/white Fascination car– a red velour nightmare

Other principals in this story had better endings. Doman-Marks would continue their consultancy and shepherd the remains of the Franklin Motor Company through the Depression, reforming it as the Aircooled Motors Corporation in 1937. Aircooled would produce a light, powerful air-cooled motor for planes and then helicopters in World War II.

The air-cooled engine of the Tucker 48 was a descendant of the Franklin air-cooled engines of the 1930s

The company would then be sold to Preston Tucker, who used the flagship air-cooled motor for his Tucker 48 car. After the demise of Tucker’s car, the Tucker family would continue to own and operate Aircooled Motors until 1961, when its assets were sold. Finally, in 1975, Aircooled was sold to the Polish government and its machinery and designs were moved to Poland where the reformed manufacturer still operates today.

Doman and Marks, after selling their interest in Aircooled Motors, moved on to Ford and Pratt & Whitney respectively. They would retire about a decade later, having spent their careers working on some of the most interesting automotive engineering projects ever.

A page from a 1971 article in Special Interest Autos. Note the graphic at the top comparing the Volkswagen Beetle and the Airomobile. At bottom right a nice Airomobile detail, the side-loading trunk

The Airomobile still exists – it’s in the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada. A couple of the Fascination cars still exist and are located in museums or private collections in the Midwest. All the cars are exhibited from time to time or make guest appearances at Concours every few years.

It is hard for us now to imagine the desperation of the Depression years, but they were also an era filled with hope and great expectations. Automobiles and airplanes were symbols of a new world to come, a Dymaxion dream ( according to Buckminster Fuller), of shiny, streamlined machines, and great feats of engineering and speed.

The Airomobile, a simple but rugged and efficient everyman’s car, represents only a small one of those dreams, but it is a dream that can still inspire us today.