Alex Tremulis' Chrysler Thunderbolt: upcoming auction

[Larry Clark]

RM Auctions will have at auction a 1941 Chrysler Thunderbolt dream car on January 18 (Vintage Motor Cars in Arizona auction): http://www.rmauctions.com/Default.cfm?SaleCode=AZ08

The Thunderbolt was designed by Alex Tremulis while working for Briggs, then an independent design and body manufacturing company with a design contract with Chrysler. The RM ad in Auto Week, 11/5/07, says that five were built. The following web site, which provides a good description and picture, says six were built and survive: http://www.diseno-art.com/encyclopedia/ ... rbolt.html
This same web site says that the Thunderbolt was the second dream car to be designed and shown to the public (the 1938 Buick Y-job being first).

There is a Thunderbolt at the Chrysler museum in the entranceway in a hugh revolving mast. You can get a look at the car from different levels of the museum- very impressive. Chrysler commissioned a second Thunderbolt years later: see http://www.seriouswheels.com/abc/Chrysl ... erbolt.htm For those who like to dream of what a modern Tucker might look like, would Alex Tremulis have approved of this Thunderbolt?

Will the Thunderbolt beat the highest price of a Tucker '48? Quite easily. Perhaps the same Thunderbolt was at auction in January 2006: http://www.sportscarmarket.com/auctions/?ID=40663
The sale price? $1,210,000 (see http://www.sportscarmarket.com/auctions/top1000.php

Larry


ADMIN EDIT: Links didn't work in the original post because you put periods at the ends of them. They are fixed now.

[Tuckerfan1053]

Chrysler, for some reason, built a number of simply gorgeous prototypes, but never put them into production. The 1952 DeSoto Adventurer being an example that springs to mind.

[maineman]

This is a story as interesting and unknown as the tucker I spent a night reading all about the prject!! 50 cars given out all across the usa for folks to test drive for monthes, then all but a few cars crushed on video???
1964 chrysler turbine car

http://americanhistory.si.edu/ONTHEMOVE ... _1304.html[url]http://americanhistory.si.edu/ONTHEMOVE/collection/object_1304.html
http://www.familycar.com/Classics/ChryslerTurboCar.htm[/url]http://www.familycar.com/Classics/ChryslerTurboCar.htm
http://www.lhmopars.com/MOPAR_Ads/Turbine_Brochure.htmlhttp://www.lhmopars.com/MOPAR_Ads/Turbine_Brochure.html

[Tuckerfan1053]

Here's probably the definitive turbine car page: http://www.turbinecar.com/

And Chrysler would have come out with a turbine powered car, if it hadn't been for the Carter Administration: http://www.allpar.com/mopar/turbine.html

Somewhere, out there on the intarwebs is a site about a guy in Sweden who's installing a turbine in his 60s Charger.

[tatraman]

Did Tremulis' really design the Thunderbolt? I know he claimed it, but the patent is in the name of famed car designer Ralph Roberts. Roberts was better known than Tremulis at the time. So, does anyone know the real story? I've always wanted to know.

Thanks,
TatraMan

[Larry Clark]

Tatraman: You have always brought great insights and facts to the TACA web site, based upon solid research. You have put something on the table for discussion that I was not aware- that Ralph Roberts had the patent on the design of the car. From papers I saw some years ago attributed to Alex Tremulis, I posted the information that began this particular thread. I cannot otherwise say for sure what role Alex Tremuils had with the design of the car. However, I continue to believe that Alex Tremulis had an important role with the car, if not the sole designer. I will be interested to learn more on what you find.

Larry

[Tuckerfan1053]

It may be that Tremulis did the work, but for contractual reasons (or simple greed), that Roberts got the credit. Raymond Lowey was rather famous for taking credit for work done by those in his employ (even going so far as to stage photographs).

[tatraman]

Thanks for the kind words Larry. I'm a fan of your work also.

It is true that Loewy took credit for all of his employee's work. That was the way it was often done then. However, Tremulis was just as guilty of claiming things that were simply not true. One example was his story about being named Chief Stylist of the Tucker Corporation on New Years Eve, 1946 (Indomitable Tin Goose, pgs 96-97, among other sources). Yet, Tremulis' own SEC trial testimony shows that he was not even a Tucker employee until April of 1947 (a fact further supported by Tremulis' own resume, a copy of which was given to me by Chrissie Tremulis). Instead, he was an employee of Tammen and Dennison for the first three months that he worked on the Tucker project, being first hired on December 27, 1946 (not New Years Eve the last time I checked). He had a three month consulting contract which ran out on March 15, 1947 and which was not renewed. He was hired directly by the Tucker Corporation on April 15, 1947, not being employed on the Tucker project for one month's time. It was during Tremulis' absence that the team from J. Gordon Lippincott started their work on the Tucker automobile (Letter from Tremulis to Egan, 11 March 1986, and letter from Tremulis to John Cermak, 10 Sept. 1985). Even though Tremulis was hired on April 15, 1947, that doesn't mean that he was made the "chief stylist" at that time, which leads me to another question. Can anyone tell me if or when the Tucker Corp officially named Tremulis their chief stylist? When is the earliest mention of him having such a title?

Tremulis also stated that he never made a clay model of his Tucker design, and that his design went directly into metal (Letter from Tremulis to Egan, 11 March 1986; Also letter from Tremulis to John Cermak, 10 Sept. 1985)). Yet, we have photographs of Tremulis standing next to his clay buck! Tremulis further claimed that the J. Gordon Lippincott team (Budd Steinhilber, Hal Bergstrom, Tucker Madawick, Read Veimeister, and Phil Egan) contributed nothing to the design of the Tucker '48 except the tail lights (Indomitable Tin Goose, page 98, among other sources), yet we now know (thanks to Egan's book) that the Lippincott team's design was the one chosen for the production automobile.

The list of inconsistencies goes on and on. But from a stylistic standpoint, it seems unlikely to me that Tremulis could have designed the Chrysler Thunderbolt, because the Thunderbolt is a very "clean", streamlined design. Yet, Tremulis' normal design work is not streamlined at all. His early work is usually quite boxy, and he also liked to hang lots of lights and things all over his designs (in complete contrast to his supposed interest in streamlining). Even his Tucker proposal (published in March of 1947) is very boxy and disjointed, despite being based on George Lawson's extremely smooth, integrated design. So, yes, I have some doubts about Tremulis' having designed the Thunderbolt. By the way, it is interesting to note that according to Tremulis' SEC trial testimony, he and George Lawson worked together at Briggs body in 1940, which would have been when the Thunderbolt was being designed. Having personally studied both Lawson's and Tremulis' design work, if I had to guess, I would say there's a much greater chance that Lawson designed the Thunderbolt than Tremulis.

[MD]

Larry and Hampton, Thanks to both of you for your years of research, and your continued insights into the people involved in the Tucker saga. It is my belief that Alex Tremulis' involvement in the Thunderbolt concentrated on the folding hardtop mechanism, although I don't have the evidence to back that up. I remember reading something to that effect somewhere...

Martyn

[MD]

Also, as a side note, one of the Thunderbolts (not sure which one) is currently undergoing a complete restoration in SoCal.

Martyn

[john]

Larry & Hampton,
You guys really dig deep to unearth facts!!!

I have a question for you guys.
What years did Tremulis work under Gordon Buehrig, or did he in fact work under
Buehrig as an assistant ?

To our best knowledge it was in the early 30's to about 1936, is this correct?

There was a car built at that time, maybe the first true compact/lightweight Futuristic closed bodied and enveloped sports car ever built, which may have inspired Tremulis's thoughts of streamlining in his early years.

It seems that the builder of this unique car was Gordon's best man at his wedding and they continued as best friends until their deaths.
We fully assume that Gordon was fully aware of the cars design and build, thats a no brainer, would also further assume that Tremulis was aware, seems that Mr. Erret Cord was pictured with this Futuristic car in a Magazine also.

With this said, how long was Tremulis employed at Cord & did he work with and under Gordon ?

John

[Larry Clark]

John: I appreciate your kind words. I cannot provide you a good answer back to your question.

When it comes to knowing about car designers I enjoy reading what Hampton posts as he has really gotten to know and understand the Tucker car era concerning designers. Given this, he will probably shake his head to see me paste in what I am about to paste in. I believe what is posted on Wickipedia for Alex Tremulis is correct about his ACD years. It says: As a 19-year old, and without any formal training in art or engineering, he landed a job on the design team for the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Company in 1933. Among his projects were the now famous and classic Cord 810 and 812 series, as well as a custom Duesenberg roadster having both convertible and hardtop options. In 1936, he was named Chief Stylist for Auburn-Cord-Deusenberg, and remained in that role until the company failed in 1937. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Tremulis

Coachbuilt.com says near the same thing: At the age of 19, and without any formal training in art or engineering, he landed a job on the design team for the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Company in 1933. Among his projects there were the now famous and classic Cord 810 and 812 series, as well as a custom Dusenberg roadster having both convertible and hardtop options. Tremulis became Chief Stylist for Auburn-Cord-Deusenberg in 1936 at the age of 22, and remained in that role until the company failed in 1937. http://www.coachbuilt.com/des/t/tremulis/tremulis.htm

Note that Coachbuilt.com goes on to say that he worked on the Thunderbolt but stops short of saying that he was the car's designer- possibly supporting what Hampton has posted on this matter.

Findagrave.com says near the same again: Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1914, at the age of 19, and without any formal training in art or engineering, he landed a job on the design team for the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Company in 1933. Among his projects there were the now famous and classic “Cord 810” and “812” series, as well as a custom Dusenberg roadster having both convertible and hardtop options. He became Chief Stylist for Auburn-Cord-Deusenberg in 1936 at the age of 22, and remained in that role until the company failed in 1937. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cg ... id=5817812

Sorry not to have better facts on Tremulis' ACSB years to offer.

Larry

[Tuckeroo]

I have read a couple of sources (though again will have to refer back to them to tell you what they are) that quotes Tremulis saying that his contribution was not to the 810 per se, but adding the side exhausts to the supercharged 812 (which he later learned was to Buehrig's dismay).

[john]

Larry, Hampton and Tuckero,
Do appreciate the help.
We have been researching a rather unique Futuristic automobile on and off for 22 years.

It was first designed in clay and renderings in 1934, completed in 1936 and instantly invited to sit atop a pedestal at the Chicago International Auto Show in 1936.
One of many shows it was invited to, it ended up on the cover of the NY International Auto show also.
When it was 16 years old, it beat a Kustom Kings new creation from California at the Indy Rod and Custom show in 1951 as it was still state of the art and still futuristic in design.
Seems that after it was in the news again, Jaguar, Ferrari and other famous cars followed Bens designs in numerous ways.
These are a few of its accomplishments.

We are sure that Gordon was fully aware of this car, and do surmise that Alex had full knowledge of it also.
Your dates brought forth substantiate our thoughts as being correct.
Mr. Cord himself together with the owner of Perfect Cicle piston rings were pictured in a magazine with the car also. To date, we know of 12 national magazines it has been in from 1936 to 2003 in some form or other.

Gordon and the builder of the car were best friends until their deaths, Ben was Gordons best man at his wedding, all transpired while the automobile was being built.
While being interviewed by a Road and Track magazine spread about the car, the writer of the national article noted that a letter from Gordon was delivered to Ben the day he was doing his interview.

We believe that the car inspired Gordon & Alex in some of their designs in later years.
Interesting fact, through our best research, Bens car had hide away headlights in its original renderings.
Ben founded SCCA racing in Illinois as well as many other lifetime accomplishments, he was a remarkable man and we believe that he "unknowingly built the first compact/lightweight fully enveloped bodied sports car in the world" this is to our best research and knowledge.

Do thank you guys for you help, a person gets burned out sometimes researching.

>>By the way, do any of you guys know when the first twin cam, twin distributor, twin carburated V-8 engine was built.
Thats another area we still need to address before releasing a full story, 14 chapters in all.
Thanks again for the help guys, please lend a hand on the V-8 question.
John

[streamliner]

For those Tucker Club members and Guests fortunate to have known Alex Tremulis, especially in the 60's, 70's, and early 80's you already know that he was a man of great character and integrity. He was a student of streamlining in his teens and twenties but soon became the master at applying aerodynamics to automobile design. Although he constantly looked into the future, somehow he knew that with each airbrush stroke he was creating history and with each typewriter keystroke his adoring wife, Chrissie, was recording the stories to go with it. Together, they kept an incredibly detailed account of streamlining covering six decades. The following is but one of those stories, submitted to Special Interest Automobiles (SIA) in 1975, originally titled "The Chrysler Called Newport". Although this particular account is mainly about Ralph Roberts and the Newport, the Thunderbolt figures prominently. Enjoy:

The one point I really want to clarify is to give credit to Ralph Roberts for the actual designing of the Newport. In the past I have been credited with both the Thunderbolt and the Newport. I will certainly clarify this point as Ralph, a man of great humility, has never considered himself a stylist. In this area I disagree with him completely. He is one of the greatest perfectionists of line and surface development and as a stylist he can best be judged by one of his colleagues. I think it will make a very interesting story and it should be fun.

I really enjoyed writing it and it was indeed a pleasure to give credit to a very great designer Ralph Roberts. History has always credited Ralph as a managerial genius and has soft-pedaled his qualities of having been one of the greatest custom body designers of all time. After some 40 years in the profession and in my professional judgment, I consider it a pleasure to clarify once and for all in giving the proper credit to the designer involved in the creation of a car that I feel made a significant contribution to the art. This is the way I saw it and lived it.

The introduction, perhaps not related to the car, is intended to portray the existing design climate that was prevalent in Detroit during the late 30s. I tried my best to turn the calendar back some 35 years. At times it seems, in reflecting back, that it was just a few years ago…

It must have been the early part of 1939 when we heard that the coming war in Europe would shut down operations at Briggs Manufacturing in England. Rumors were flying that the legendary Ralph Roberts of LeBaron fame would soon return to Briggs in Detroit. Ralph had been in charge of the design studios in England, and had been serving our major account—Ford of England—with great success. He had also been a great success at the Rootes group. He was responsible, with the aid of Holden “Bob” Koto (later of Studebaker and FOMOCO), for the Hillman Minx line that was tremendously successful in Britain. He came, as they say, well recommended.
John Tjaarda was in charge of the design studio in Detroit. This was in a red brick building on Mack Avenue. We were located on the fifth floor, with a penthouse on the roof. The penthouse was approximately . . . oh maybe, some fifty feet square. It was our “showroom in the sky,” where we always presented finished models. Constantly under lock and key, it was the Mecca of such industry giants as Edsel B. Ford, K.T. Keller and Ed Macauley. Of course, a distinguished entourage of executives—mostly engineers—always accompanied them. The penthouse was strictly off limits to members of the styling staffs of companies for whom Briggs Manufacturing built only bodies, though. Styling at Briggs was at most a “good will” department where we at Briggs could offer our clients a fresh viewpoint, free from engineering restrictions and dedicated solely to the task of inspiring top management for future models. Edsel Ford and K. T. Keller both used to refer to us as their Escape Machine.
For weeks, we underlings at Briggs gossiped over what we thought might happen when these two giants of the design profession Roberts and Tjaarda—men of equal stature in the Briggs hierarchy—were forced to share the same office together. Styling was starting to grow in importance, and a new virus called Professional Jealousy had begun to rear its ugly head. We assumed that the studio would be cut in half, with half of us in Tjaarda’s group and the other half under Roberts. Naturally, both would want the best men. However, the problem never came up. Tjaarda’s men were too busy on Chrysler, Ford and Packard programs and simply could not be spared. Roberts never pushed the point. He gracefully merged with the existing structure, and began his own series of projects.
For a while, Ralph used the drawing board next to mine. He would always wear a meticulously-clean smock while drawing. Some people have always credited Ralph with being the managerial genius of LeBaron, while downgrading his design ability. This was simply not true. As an artist he was certainly no Roland Stickney, but then few of us could have ever crossed pencils with that famed illustrator from LeBaron. But Ralph had been associated with some of the greatest designers ever: Tom Hibbard. Ray Dietrich, Bob Koto, Phil Wright. . . and a host of others. Their collective design expertise had rubbed off on him. He knew every visual design trick in the game. And when it came to purity of line, he was an absolute perfectionist.
I used so watch him take a razor blade and retune the curve of a French curve or a plastic sweep in order to achieve the exact line he wanted. A deviation of a sixteenth of an inch on a full-size drawing of a roof sweep was a tremendous trifle that might require hours on end to rectify before he was satisfied. Bob Koto was the only other designer I ever worked with who attacked the celluloid sweeps with the same vengeance as Ralph Roberts. I eventually found myself doing the same thing, always in secrecy, away from the ever-watchful eye of John Tjaarda. I didn’t want him to accuse me of going over to the other side.
Ralph started out doing some strange designs of fully-enclosed scooters and things like mini-type, narrow gauge three-wheelers. One Friday afternoon, he asked me for my advice and in a joking fashion I told him he’d been in England too long and that Americans liked long, low, swoopy monsters. I remember suggesting to him that since he was highly regarded by K. T. Keller, why didn’t he work out two or three very advanced concepts—super custom LeBarons—and sell them to Chrysler as show cars. Briggs needed a gimmick to sell Chrysler and had come up with nothing.
I told Ralph that Chrysler had been smarting under the stigma of the catastrophic disaster of the Chrysler Airflow for too long. All of us referred to it as the Airflop. It had set the industry back twenty years, a blow from which we would never recover. I had seen John Tjaarda’s years of dedicated effort, slowly brainwashing the leaders of industry into accepting streamlining, thrown out overnight. We were all ordered to retrench to return to the old, staid silhouette we thought we were finally done with. If we could somehow erase this stigma of streamlining, then Chrysler’s sins of the past might be absolved.
All we had to do was to design and build a couple of the hottest streamlined cars since Rome burned and slap them with a Chrysler nameplate. Ralph replied. “Whatever you say, don’t call it an Airflop.” “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll kill them with kindness, extol the virtues of the Airflow philosophy and pay tribute to the engineering geniuses that designed it. I won’t even mention the fact that Ray Dietrich, one of the greatest stylists of all time, wasn’t even allowed into the Airflow room and that he was allowed only one designer, Herb Weissinger, to enter the inner sanctum. Poor Herb used to walk out daily in complete frustration and mutter, ‘Only God can make a tree.’”
I thought about my suggestion all weekend, and on Monday morning I showed up with what I have always considered my greatest masterpiece in the art of salesmanship. I entitled it “The Measured Mile Creates a New Motor Car’. Ralph was quite excited and got on the phone to K. T. Keller. In an hour we met in Dave Wallace’s office. Mr. Wallace at that time was vice-president of Chrysler Division. We were joined by Mr. Keller. I had prepared a series of rough pencil sketches that ran the gamut of land speed record cars from Major Seagrave’s 203 mph Sunbeam and Frank Lockhart’s ill-fated Stutz Blackhawk, to Seagrave’s 231 mph Golden Arrow and Sir Donald Campbell’s brace of evolutionary Bluebirds. I wound up with Captain George Eyston’s sheer brute force Thunderbolt that had recently set the land speed record of 357 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
Alongside each of the race cars was a quick sketch of an imaginary passenger car inspired by the land speed record automobile. Of course, all these passenger cars had one thing in common with those illustrious race cars of the past: streamlining. They were all very aerodynamic and obeyed the basic laws of nature, established by Chrysler’s own engineering staff when they developed the Chrysler Airflow cars. Ralph had decided that I was to make the presentation. It was utterly impossible for him to read my Egyptian Hieroglyphics. I proposed that these passenger cars be unmarked with nameplates as they were unmistakably Chryslers and represented Chrysler’s philosophy that function dictates form. And that beauty is the by product of sheer engineering integrity
—as exemplified by Chrysler’s forward thinking policy in the taming of the wind. I went on for about half an hour like this, sounding more and more like an advertising executive than a designer.
Keller was excited about two names: Golden Arrow and Thunderbolt. Could we design and build two cars and introduce them at the auto show in less then five months? Ralph answered. “Yes, providing we get no interference and that the designs are left to Briggs/LeBaron’s professional judgment.” We explained that we would need at least sixty days for quarter scale clay model exploration and three or four months to build the prototypes at LeBaron. I interjected that Mr. Keller and Mr. Wallace should he the only two men involved and aware of the project because if more men entered the project we would still be scraping clay a year from now. They agreed.
Mr. Wallace then had his secretary call Captain Eyston in England . . . and turned the phone over to me. I exchanged greetings with the great man and told him we were going to build an aerodynamic masterpiece inspired by his Thunderbolt. And that we wanted to use the name. When asked about the style of the logo, I stated. “No logo. We will use two lightning streaks, one on each door.” All he said was. “Capital. Bloody, bloody good.” We could use the name. However, if the Thunderbolt ever reached production, then we would have to discuss a royalty arrangement. When I told Dave Wallace, he cried “Promise him anything. We want that name.” Imagine my excitement. Here I was, 25- years-old, topping off a successful top-level meeting with my first trans-Atlantic telephone call.
People later asked me how on earth we got Chrysler—which had now retrenched in defeat to conventional silhouettes—to buy such an advanced program. Let me put it this way. Had Ralph Roberts and I walked in there with two beautiful proposals, our chances of success would have been a hundred to one against us. Because of the nature of the business, the cars would have been nit-picked to death and never seen the light of day. Instead, we walked in that day and we sold an abstraction. We had only my crude drawings. We sold a philosophy that day, not a pair of cars. K. T. and Dave Wallace squinted their eyes and tried to imagineer what we were trying to design. They bought sight unseen what we hadn’t even designed yet. Their primitive Airflow philosophy—which had reached deaf ears—was suddenly rekindled when we walked in. We had them at our mercy. It was good for all of us. Perhaps Chrysler had been right when it developed its Airflow. And it gave the illustrious house of LeBaron— a tragic child of the depression—the opportunity to go out in a blaze of glory. It was an idea that couldn’t lose.
Back at Briggs, Ralph asked Tjaarda for his permission to use me on the project. Tjaarda half-agreed, so a quick call to W. 0. Briggs and I was on loan to Ralph with the proviso that if Tjaarda had any crisis I would have to help him out. Ralph now needed a design modeler. Another quick call, this time to Thomas L. Hibbard, one of the original LeBaron greats, and he had just the man. A young designer from Toronto, John Hampshire, joined Ralph’s staff, too. John was a native Canadian who had just finished a line of streamlined, customized trucks for Labatt’s Beer. He had worked in New York for the legendary Tom Hibbard, so he was a natural. With this small crew, Roberts was ready.
The theme of the Golden Arrow presented a real problem. First of all, it had a 45 degree slant on its nose that terminated in a sharp point—sort of Needle-Nose Supersonic. Squeezed down to a minimal frontal area, it had huge blisters on the hood that embraced the overhead cam assemblies of its Rolls-Royce aircraft engine. And the wheel fairings were divorced from the body itself. Ralph soon decided that the theme was impossible. I suggested instead that we use for inspiration one of Gordon Buehrig’s most beautiful design concepts ever, a double-cowled Duesenberg phaeton. Why didn’t we build a double-cowled phaeton . . . only really streamlined. By a slight stretch of the imagination, it would have LeBaron blood in its veins.
I must have made an impact on him, because in three days of whirling away on the drawing board he had it. There it was, at least 97 percent of the final version. And he did it all himself. Hampshire in the modeling room began preparing the buck. This was complicated in itself, as it would have to be modeled in open cockpit form with the seats also modeled in quarter-scale. There was neither time nor modeling help available to do it in full-scale. Everything now had to have four times the accuracy of a full-size clay. Actually, a full-size job is a lot easier to do, for at least it’s there in actual finalized scale where you can visualize all your mistakes and correct them. In quarter-scale, everything is reduced accordingly and only a super-critical eye such as Ralph’s could compensate for scale effect.
In this area he had been well prepared. He had years and years of experience in building custom bodies using only a full-size body draft. By-passing the visual full-size model and going straight into the final solution can only be done by a few people in the world ... and nine out of ten of them are no longer on this planet. Even in Detroit, where design exploration is commonly done in quarter- scale, top management rarely sees these small scale models. Even the designers aren’t quite sure. If it looks tremendous in small scale it just might look good in full-scale. You have to close one eye and with your nose six inches from the clay pretend it’s a full-size animal. We used to feel pretty ridiculous when confronted by visiting dignitaries who thought we were sniffing clay.
Ralph had done something really difficult with the design of his phaeton. The front cowl was lower than the rear cowl; he purposely wanted a car with a split personality. He argued that the driver should feel he was driving a sports car, completely oblivious to the passengers in the rear seat. As for the rear passengers, they should be well protected from the wind with their higher cowl, and ride comfortably in chauffeur-driven splendor. The easiest thing for him to have done would have been make both cowls identical and let it go at that. But the challenge was there.
When Hampshire and Ralph were doing the clay, they constantly made adjustments . . . only to find optical illusions as they walked around the model. The long front fender posed hinging problems. The engineers said it was a first. They suggested ending the front fender in the middle of the front door like everybody else. Ralph refused. He said. “We’ll buy time when we go into full-size and figure something out. We just have to make it work.” The final deadline was only about ten days away. Ralph jumped on a plane and went skiing in Aspen, Colorado for the weekend, figuring that a couple of days away would give him a fresh edge on Monday. It was just what he needed. When he got back he cleaned up all the little trifles and made the schedule.
The Thunderbolt was more of a problem. Ralph started working on it concurrently with the Golden Arrow. But he wanted to try one radical idea that K. T. Keller just wouldn’t buy. Ralph had flown in a rainstorm with a pilot whose plane had a strange windshield that swept out at the top instead of the bottom. This pilot claimed that rain water flew right off, and that this curious design eliminated wind noise, too. So Ralph decided to try this advanced aerodynamic feature on the Thunderbolt. But the Chrysler people just wouldn’t go for it. K.T. gave him an ultimatum. They would forget the Thunderbolt completely, and do only one car.
I had done some preliminary sketches of my own, which I showed to Roberts and Mr. Keller. And K.T. agreed to give me ten days to see what I could do. This was at the same time that Ralph was having problems with the phaeton, so I worked independently. Well, I only had ten days. But I made a few changes to his original concept. The first thing I threw out was that crazy windshield. But I kept the compact retracting roof that Ralph had planned. Along the rocker panels, I added fluted moldings. That was inspired by a streamlined Budd train that was very popular then. And in ten days, I had the Thunderbolt. Just barely, but on schedule.


K. T. Keller and Dave Wallace came in for the final showing. They were ecstatic; but could we build two show cars in only three months? We had to make the New York Auto Show. We knew we could. We were lucky; we had the finest layout body draftsmen in the world at Briggs. We had Mr. Voytypka as chief body engineer. He said. “Yes, providing there are no changes in the designs.” It would be hell, seven days a week at wide-open throttle. As for the Thunderbolt, Voytypka wasn’t sure. No one had ever made a curved windshield that large before. I assured him that if our glass failed, I would settle for a V-shaped windshield with flat glass panes. On that basis he agreed. K. T. sprinkled both cars with holy water, and the decision was made to hit the Auto Show.
Up to the very last minute the phaeton was called the Golden Arrow. Imagine my surprise upon my arrival at the New York show when I saw a different sign on it. It was now the Chrysler Newport. The initial first run of brochures was thrown out, and new ones were being printed in New York. We were so late; I had come to New York with two gold arrows that had been fabricated in our shops. I was supposed to place them somewhere on the car with a bit of tape. I put the arrows back in my suitcase. Chrysler’s advertising men had decided that the car in no way resembled Seagrave’s Golden Arrow. Someone hurriedly thought up the name “Newport”—a real stroke of genius.
At the show, a very distinguished moderator in a tuxedo introduced both cars in a speech entitled “The Measured Mile Creates Two New Motor Cars.” He read my original proposal verbatim. I had a large sketchpad on an easel, and I would sketch the land speed record cars as the narration unfolded. A lovely model in a glistening gown would then stamp “Courtesy of the Chrysler Corporation” on the sketch and everybody, especially the kids, would start scrambling for mementos. The press coverage was tremendous. A typical headline was: “Chrysler. The Pioneers of the Airflow, Are Now Pointing the Way To The Future.” In our own little way we were erasing some of the stigma of the Chrysler Airflow. Eventually, both designs went on tour and were seen by a reputed six million people.
General Motors, under Harley Earl, had up to that time been recognized as the undisputed leader in styling. At the same show, they were showing their famed Buick show car then known as the Y model and later called the Fireball. It was a very beautiful car, with front fenders that terminated in the front door. Ralph had beaten GM to the punch by flowing the front fenders of the Newport into a gentle continuous sweep all the way to the rear fender. The Thunderbolt, of course, was devoid of all semblance of fenders at all, except for a subtle rear bulge that indicated where fenders used to be. Both of our cars later exerted a tremendous influence on the direction that Detroit styling eventually took. Ironically, when I got back to Detroit after the triumphant auto show, John Tjaarda informed mc that his budget had been drastically cut because of the coming war. I had been laid off.
In my book Ralph is a true aristocrat of motordom. As the force that motivated LeBaron he is the personification of the dignity and elegance that the House of
LeBaron stood for. He is a gentleman and a designer of tremendous distinction. These are the facets that made LeBaron one of the most respected coach builders of all time.
The last time I saw Ralph was at an Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg symposium. In his early- 70s he appeared utterly ageless. Someone there showed him a ski training machine. Ralph put his feet in the stirrups and demonstrated the most fantastic slaloms. No mystery to me, for on the glistening white slopes of Aspen he just simply draws an invisible smooth black line with the eye of an eagle exactly as he did on his Newport. Long, long life Ralph and Happy Skiing. —Alex Tremulis

The Survivors
After Alex Tremulis’ abrupt departure from Briggs, Chrysler continued to promote the Newport and Thunderbolt. A Newport was used as the pace car at Indianapolis for the 1941 running of the 500, the only pace car in Indy history that was not a standard production model. During the same period, Chrysler had five more examples of each design constructed by Briggs/LeBaron. Each was painted and trimmed differently— some had all-leather interiors, some had a combination of leather and bedford cloth. Paul Stern’s Newport for example, is yellow with brown leather and tan cloth, his Thunderbolt is a medium metallic green with cream leather and trim throughout.
The twelve cars were displayed across the country in showrooms and special exhibitions until just before World War II. Having no further use for them, Chrysler then sold eleven of the twelve, with Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. retaining the yellow Newport as part of his personal stable. The cars are said to have gone for varying price tags, with the figure $6000 reputed to have been paid for at least one. Actor Bruce Cabot bought a Thunderbolt, and sweater girl Lana Turner used a Newport on the West Coast.

Of the twelve, six cars are known to survive. Paul H. Stern Antique Cars has Walter Chrysler’s Newport and one Thunderbolt. Harrah’s Automobile Collection has Lana Turner’s Newport and the second known Thunderbolt, which William Gundaker and David Caldwell own the other two Newports. All seem to be in good to excellent original condition, though the Gundaker car has had the hidden headlights replaced with fixed units covered by stone guards and Stem’s Newport sports mid-Fifties Chrysler wire wheels. All have survived remarkably well for such extremely complicated designs with untried construction features
—the one-piece Thunderbolt windshields and retractable hard top, for example. Mr. Stern’s cars, in particular, though unrestored are perfectly drivable and usable. All the gimmicks still function properly, though the headlight covers of his Newport do suffer from a mild case of “Lazy Eye.” As for driving, both Newport and Thunderbolt are nothing more than 1940 Fluid Drive Chrysler Imperial Eights—comfortable, smooth and, unlike their land speed record namesakes, slow. —Rich Taylor

Our thanks to Dick Langworth, Hopewell, NJ. and Ralph Roberts, Pasadena, Calif. Our special thanks to Paul Stern, and Ben Hershey, Paul H. Stern Antique Cars, Manheim. Penn.