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26/08/2024 4:27 pm
Andre Dubonnet, heir to the aperitif giant, was everything a renaissance man/ playboy could be. An avid race car driver, veteran WWl flier of a Hispano-Suiza powered Nieuport French fighter, he became obsessed with other ways of increasing a car's performance besides increasing horsepower. He designed a novel front suspension to help keep the cars on the road, but his real quest was finding the most aerodynamic body shape. For that, he and his engineer friend developed a way to calculate the drag coefficient of his designs. Up to the 1920s, the perfect aerodynamic design was considered to be the bullet and early rocketry (including science fiction models), but that shape did not work with automobiles. His work re-bodying Ford Model As produced a 30-40% increase in top speed. The culmination of his designs appeared in that magic year of 1938. Built on the 1932 Hispano-Suiza H6B chassis that he'd been modifying over the years, his aerodynamic creation, built by Jacques Saoutchik of Paris was named the "Xenia" for his late wife. With using an upgraded 160 HP Hispano-Suiza 8 liter SOHC 6 from an H6C it was capable of 110 mph due to its slippery design and a specially built 4 speed by H-S.. Hidden during the war, it resurfaced in 1946 and has since changed hands multiple times and now resides with the Peter W Mullin Collection having won multiple prestigious awards along the way.
1938 was also the year the "Flash Gordon Goes to Mars" serial was released with Flash and Ming the Merciless ships showing similar futuristic design cues. Check out the unusual exhaust design on the Xenia and compare it to Ming's ship. Flash's ship has the conventional bullet design with Ming's being more curvaceous.
Note the exhaust tips on Ming's ship:
and the 'bullet' shape of Flash's ship:
26/08/2024 6:24 pm
Design cues noted, and attractively executed. Thankfully this survived the war, but it makes one wonder how many did not. Who knows just how many beautiful cars, design exercises, and prototypes were reduced to rubble. 😔 😔 😔
Rich Sufficool and Tony Perrone reacted
27/08/2024 7:19 pm
@chris I agree Chris and in the US how many were destroyed in the drives for the metal that went into the war effort.