Tesla is open for business in Michigan -- a landmark settlement

From an article by Tom Krisher in the Detroit Free Press, 1/22/2020

Tesla will be able to sell and service its vehicles in the back yard of Detroit’s three automakers under a lawsuit settlement, a person briefed on the matter says.

The settlement between the office of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Tesla is likely to be announced Wednesday, says the person who asked not to be identified because terms of the deal haven’t been made public.

The settlement would end a Tesla lawsuit against the state over a law that banned company owned stores and stopped Tesla from opening service centers.

The settlement could cause other states that have stopped Tesla from selling to follow suit.

Thousands of Teslas are on the roads in Michigan but must be sold and serviced out of nearby Ohio or another state.

The person says that under the deal the Teslas will have to be titled in another state or Canada and then transferred to Michigan.

Under the agreement, Tesla will sell and service the vehicles under a subsidiary, the person said.

The company now has what it calls a “gallery“ at the Somerset Collection North in Troy. But employees there are now barred from talking about pricing or lease terms or from completing sales deals.

The agreement would allow Tesla to deliver vehicles in Michigan, the person said. Currently buyers have to leave the state to pick up their vehicles.

A Great Porsche 356 Story

The year is 1996. The place is an inn in the village of Klein-Neusiedl, population nine hundred, around twenty-five kilometers southeast of the Austrian capital of Vienna. Viktor Grahser sits alone at a table in the far corner, talking excitedly in English. He has ordered stuffed crêpes, like he does every Friday. Three years ago he returned to Austria for reasons of the heart. The woman for whom he left his adopted homeland of Australia after thirty-one years is no longer in his life. Grahser, who trained as an aviation mechanic, is fifty-six years old. His features are chiseled; his brown hair is combed back and sticks out over his collar. He’s wearing blue overalls, and his jacket with a Trans-Australia Airlines logo is slung over a chair. A rusted bicycle stands outside the door. Cigarettes lie on the table to his right, and to his left a car magazine that he leafs through while engaging in conversation with himself.

Auspicious encounter

The son of the inn’s owner sits a few tables away, observing Grahser. Rudolf Schmied is in his mid-twenties and has recently returned from a vacation in Australia. The young man doesn’t wait too long before addressing the loner in his village in English. The two quickly find common ground—Down Under—and their first conversation leads to many more. Nearly every day Grahser sees Schmied driving a red VW Beetle past his house in the neighboring village of Fischamend and waves to him from his front yard, and on Fridays the two often meet at the inn. Schmied helps Porsche fan Grahser obtain replacement parts—and listens to the older man, whose stories mostly revolve around Porsche. Eight years go by before Grahser invites Schmied to his two-story house. He wants him to see something he has never shown anyone before. “And bring your camera!” he adds, knowing that Schmied is studying photography in Vienna. The next day the two of them stand in Grahser’s living room in Fischamend.

“And bring your camera!”Viktor Grahser

“Here we go, my friend,” says Grahser, pointing to the heart of his home. Schmied can hardly believe his eyes. A Porsche 356 Speedster stands in the middle of the living room, with just one headlight and no floor or seats. The engine lies behind it, next to a pile of wood. “All right, now you can take pictures of me driving,” says Grahser. “And where are we going?” asks Schmied. ”I’m driving on the Great Ocean Road, on the southern coast of Australia. You’ve been there, right?” replies Grahser. Without waiting for a response, he sits down on the metal frame of the unfinished Speedster, puts both hands on the steering wheel, and imitates the sound of the engine while calling out, “Second gear, third gear—see, the wind is blowing through my hair.” He closes his eyes and turns the wheel to the left and right, shifts through imaginary gears, accelerates and brakes. All the while providing the appropriate acoustics.

The dream of a museum

Schmied doesn’t miss a beat and proceeds to take photos of the scenery rushing by, although he’s having trouble with the focus as tears well up in his eyes. He has just found the subject for his thesis. Shortly thereafter Schmied will tell the story of Grahser’s love for his Porsches in evocative black-and-white images. With Ein Leben. Ein Mythos (A Life. A Legend), the young photographer graduates with honors. He captures the unstinting devotion and sacrifice, and the attempt to make the dream of a lifetime come true. Grahser allows himself only about twenty square meters of living space. One room with a narrow bed, chair, desk, radio, and stove. He doesn’t need anything else to be happy, he says. The rest of his space goes to the Porsche 356.

Grahser’s great dream is to open a Porsche museum in his Austrian homeland. He has the first three cars for it already; they just need to be restored. The 356 Speedster, which is one of the few built with the steering wheel on the right, stands in the living room, while the other two are still in the shipping container outside the door. They haven’t left it since departing Australia. The one on the upper level is a Porsche 356 A Coupé, partially converted to a 356 Speedster with 911 parts and a 2.7-liter engine with a mechanical fuel-injection pump. The one on the container’s ground floor is Grahser’s absolute favorite, a 1959 Porsche 356 B Roadster with a three-liter turbo engine from a 1977 Porsche 911 (Type 930). Grahser often opens the doors of the container just to be near this 356/930, as he calls it. He sits on a cushioned chair against the left wall of the container, above a vacuum cleaner and extension cable. An old wooden table with a built-in drawer stands against the right wall, two chairs placed on top of it. Grahser is relaxed, his legs stretched out, his ankles crossed, and a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He’s looking to the left. At the two Porsches.

During this time Grahser tells Schmied a lot about Australia and how he bought the first damaged 356 Roadster in 1981. Schmied hears how Grahser’s 356/930 project got started the following year, and how the aviation mechanic became one of the founding members of Australian Porsche 356 Register Inc. in 1986. After returning home to Austria, Grahser stayed in touch with his friends from the club, with letters flying back and forth.

Grahser dies—and his legacy?

In May of 2008 Grahser dies unexpectedly. Schmied holds on to his letters from Australia and keeps thinking about the return addresses. He would like to meet Grahser’s friends from back then, inform them of his death, tell them about the years he spent in Fischamend, and find out much more about his life in Australia. And the fate of the three Porsche 356s? For a long time Schmied knows nothing at all about what happened to the sports cars after Grahser passed away. Until he gets a call one day in 2012. The voice on the phone belongs to Rafael Diez, who happened across the story of the unconventional man and his three Porsche 356s. Diez contacted a dealer in Stephanskirchen who had acquired the sports cars from the executor of Grahser’s estate. He buys the trio of Porsches and immediately grasps Grahser’s unfulfilled intent: the Roadster’s broadened wheel housings, the engine hood augmented by two cooling air intakes, and the unusual front lip for a 356, which recalls that of a Porsche 911 S. It’s now up to Diez to bring Grahser’s project to fruition. In short: adjustments, metal work, and paint. Diez moves the steering wheel to the left, welds the body together, installs the engine and transmission, and sets the front window perfectly into the frame with a strip of chrome.

A 356 with turbo technology: Walter Röhrl and his new car

The new owner is impressed

In 2018 Diez tells an acquaintance, Porsche brand ambassador Walter Röhrl, about the 356 B Roadster and asks him to take a few test-drives in the 356/930. “I’m a great fan of old cars. They give you the feeling you should still be able to do something,” says Röhrl.

Walter Röhrl

“But I approached this converted 356 B Roadster with its turbo parts very gingerly; it looked like too much had been altered. So I was all the more astonished at how perfectly balanced it felt right from the start of the first test-drive. The low lip in front, the heavy engine behind, 260 hp—it drives smoothly and precisely, and it’s a lot of fun.” Röhrl, a two-time rally world champion, now owns the car that Diez christened the “Porsche 356 3000 RR”—3000 refers to the engine displacement; RR stands for Röhrl Roadster. Its exterior is slate gray and its interior is red. Its engine cover sports Röhrl’s four victory badges from the Monte Carlo Rally. A 911 steering wheel with a 356 rim has been installed. Even the instruments are reminiscent of a 911. For Viktor Grahser, the 356 with 911 parts was intended to be his “Super Porsche.” That was his lifelong dream.

The meeting

As part of the work for this article, photographer Rudolf Schmied met the new owner of the Porsche 356 Roadster—and told two-time rally world champion Walter Röhrl the story of Viktor Grahser and his inimitable 356/930 project

The Significance of the Lowly Mudguard to the Mercedes-Benz Story

Slim splash guard: Early examples of mudguards, here on the Benz Vis-à-Vis dating back to 1893 in Myths 1 at the Mercedes-Benz Museum, clearly show the origins going back to horse-drawn carriage design

If you visit the M-B Museum in Stuttgart!

Cause and solution? The mudguard from the “33 Extras” at Mercedes-Benz Museum protects against dirt stirred up from the road. However, horses, the long-established, most important means of transport back then, are far from being the only source of the dirt on roads.

Automotive design and architecture: Mercedes-Benz 8/38 PS Roadster (1926 to 1928). Image taken in front of Le-Corbusier House at Stuttgart’s Weißenhof Estate, 1928.

Standard item: Mercedes-Benz vehicles from the 1920s with clear designs featuring mudguards that are separate from the body.

1 – Surprise for museum visitors: What is a single mudguard in a museum display case meant to tell us? It emphasises how vital this unassuming component is. Its appearance may have changed significantly over the decades. However, to this day, it protects occupants and vehicles from stirred up dirt on road surfaces and spray.

2 – Etymology of the German term “Kotflügel”: The wheels of the first vehicles were covered by slim strips of sheet metal or wood. As a result of their elegant shape reminiscent of birds’ wings, Germans called them “Flügel” (wings). They protect against all types of dirt, for instance horse manure (“Kot”), something the most important means of transport before the invention of the motorcar in 1886 left behind.

3 – Integrated into the body: Early vehicle versions also adopted the mudguards from horse-drawn carriages. The function and design have been the focus ever since: when the wheels got wider, so did the mudguards. From the 20th century they became more closely linked to the main body and have ultimately been fully integrated into the vehicles’ outer shell.

4 – Analysing road dirt: What does the mudguard actually protect us against? English chemist Dr Henry Letheby already analysed the dirt on London’s roads back in the mid 19th century: and it had long since consisted of more than just horse manure. No less than 30 per cent of the dirt is made up of abraded stone from the cobbles, a further ten per cent consists of metal particles from wheels and horseshoes. The roads themselves and the vehicles consequently produce a large part of the dust that turns into mud in poor weather conditions.

5 – From dirt track to tarmac road: The issue becomes even more apparent on country lanes. Mudguards play a key role in the success story of this new means of transport, ever since 1888 when Bertha Benz went on the first long-distance trip with a motorcar from Mannheim to Pforzheim. In contrast to towns and cities, country roads feature only a few cobbled stretches, and carriageways are made of compressed gravel and surfaces consisting of sand and pebbles. What a stroke of luck then that the history of innovations for vehicles went hand in hand with those for road building. Nowadays road surfaces made of composites with surfaces consisting of asphalt or concrete have long since become the standard.

6 – Speed and aesthetics: However, modern carriageways are far from making mudguards obsolete. On the contrary, on these new and smooth roads vehicles these days can drive faster than ever before. And with increasing speeds, tyres stir up even more spray and dust. This correlation made the mudguard one of the favourites of automotive designers in the 1920s and 1930s. Its extended lines, dynamic curves and expressive, shapely design tell a tale of the speed and aesthetics of fast driving. Consequently, the most beautiful Mercedes-Benz bodies produced during this era are far removed from the down-to-earth, fundamental principle of the mudguard for protection against spray. More than ever before, they turn vehicles into works of art.

7 – Influenced by aerodynamics: The mudguard for passenger cars and commercial vehicles continues to develop. Aerodynamics also play an increasingly vital role as part of this evolution. Early examples in this context include designs with an optimum flow in vehicles, such as the Mercedes-Benz 540 K Streamliner and the Mercedes-Benz 320 “Autobahnkurier” (motorway courier) with its flowing forms. It goes without saying that both vehicles still had mudguards that were clearly separate from the body. From the 1950s the ponton design prevailed in modern Mercedes-Benz passenger cars. Starting with commercial vehicles, a new styling took over in the 1960s featuring cubic shapes.

8 – Motorsports as the exception: Many racing cars and in particular formula racing cars have free-standing wheels to this day so drivers can accurately steer into corners. The Mercedes-Benz W 196 R dating back to 1954/1955 took a different route: this Formula 1 car was available both with free-standing wheels as well as with a streamlined body that covered the wheels and, you guessed it, featured striking elements over the front wheels. Depending on the race track, the Racing department would rely more on the specific strength of improved aerodynamics.

9 – Mudguard as a design element: The mudguard, formerly a free-standing element, finally became an integral part of the body in the second half of the 20th century. However, its design has more variants than ever before, e.g. stylists’ portfolios ranging from a wheel housing with a cheeky lid line in the 300 SL (W 198) and 190 SL (W 121) models dating back to 1954, and the elegant wings of “tail fin” saloons that picked up on the North American zeitgeist of short rear fins to make backing up easier, to the smooth shapes of the traditionally contemporary, compact W 201 series models.

10 – Variety like never before: Mudguards have always remained a paramount element of the overall design in each era. Thanks to the Mercedes-Benz model campaign and the differentiation between different body shapes, this variety of forms and styles is as ample today as it ever was. In a permanent exhibition with 160 vehicles dating back to the invention of the motorcar in 1886 – and as part of “33 Extras”, the Mercedes-Benz Museum describes how we got to this point and what we can look forward to.

The Chrysler Airflow and its Influence on European Automotive Design during the 1930s

I learn something new about automotive history every day. Thanks to Michael Schlenger's Facebook page, I saw a photo of a 1936 Renault(It was  either a six-cylinder "Viva" or an eight-cylinder "Nerva". Whether it's a Vivastella / Nervastella or rather a Vivasport / Nervasport depends on the wheelbase or overall length)and recognized similarities to the Chrysler Airflow. Michael then told me of the Peugeot 402. Let's look at some photos first.

Two Airflow images:

Renault 1935/6

1935 Renault Nervastella Gran Sport Cabriolet

In 1928, Renault introduced an upgraded specification to its "Stella" line. The Vivastella's and Grand Renaults had upgraded interior fittings and a small star fitted above the front hood logo. This proved to be a winning differentiator and in the 1930s all cars changed to the Stella suffix from the previous two alpha character model identifiers.

There was a complete model change in 1932: the word "aérodynamique" is much in evidence in reports on the Renault range in the early 1930s. The "Nervastella ZD2" cars now received "American-style" pressed-steel bodies with mildly sloping tails associated with the newly arriving "aerodynamic" fashion of the time.^[1] In this form, the Nervastella was effectively a longer wheel base version of the manufacturer's (already substantial) Vivastella model. The "standard" wheelbase Nervastella sat on the same 3,350 mm (131.9 in) wheelbase as the "long" wheelbase Vivastella, which for the Nervastella came with body types that included the "Berline aérodynamique" with seating for five at 49,000 francs.^[1] A longer 3,590 mm (141.3 in) wheelbase supported the "Conduite interieure aérodynamique" with seating for seven, listed at 52,000 francs.^[1] Both these were effectively large sedan/saloon bodied cars. There was also a lighter, sportire, and less well-equipped model introduced in March 1932, the Nervasport.

A price reduction of 2000 francs was available to any customer prepared to order a Nervastella with the previous year's bodywork,^[1] which could have reflected a backlog of unsold cars, or may simply indicate the high cost of the new steel presses needed to form the more subtly shaped less slab-sided car bodies coming into fashion at this time. In addition to the standard bodied cars, the Nervastella could still be purchased in base chassis form for the fitting of more exclusive "bespoke" bodywork.^[1]

The Grand Renaults were built using a considerable amount of aluminium. Engines, brakes, transmissions, floor and running boards and all external body panels were aluminium. Of the few that were built, many went to scrap to aid the war effort.

Peugeot 402

The 402 was characterized by what became during the 1930s a "typically Peugeot" front end, with headlights well set back behind the grille. The style of the body was reminiscent of the Airflow, and received in France the soubriquet Fuseau Sochaux which loosely translates as "Sochaux spindle".  Peugeot was among the first volume manufacturers to apply streamlining to the extent exemplified by the 402 and smaller 202 in a volume market vehicle range.

Recessed ‘safety’ door handles also highlighted the car's innovative aspirations, as did the advertised automatic transmission and diesel engine options. . In that comparison, the basic underpinnings of the 402 remained conventional, based on known technologies, and presumably were relatively inexpensive to develop and manufacture. Sticking to a traditional separate chassis configuration also made it much easier for Peugeot's 402 to be offered with a wide range of different bodies.

The amount invested in developing the car and in tooling up to produce it, as well as the way in which it was priced, suggest that Peugeot always intended the 402 to be, by the standards of the time, a big seller. Nevertheless, it was also a big car, at the high end of the volume car market, and in advertising material of the time Peugeot evidently thought it important to highlight one or two tempting standard features, such as the twin windscreen wipers powered by their own electric motor, the (semaphore style) direction indicators, the clock included on the instrument panel, the twin sun visors and the switchable reserve section of the fuel tank.

Here is my narrative on the Chrysler Airflow from The Automobile and American Life (2nd edition).

Streamlining and the Chrysler “Airflop”

            As articulated previously, James Flink’s argument concerning technological stagnation during the interwar years is open to revision. For example, James Newcomb has argued that in terms of shape and design, the 1930s “represent a period of the most pronounced transition in automobile styling.”¹⁵ Newcomb argues that beginning with the1931 Reo Royale and the Chrysler Airflow, rounder, smoother, and more flowing shapes were gradually introduced, and that this was due to cultural constructs that emphasized security and togetherness at the expense of individualism. In sum, it was a shift in values tied to a Depression-era culture in transition that became expressed in the way cars looked. Consequently, the automobiles of 1940 in no way resembled the automobiles of 1929, just as the America of 1940 was far different than that prior to the Great Depression. 

            One prominent example illustrating Newcomb’s argument is the story of the development of the Chrysler Airflow, and work in streamlining and aerodynamics in general that occurred in the automobile industry. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, there was considerable enthusiasm for aviation, and some of it spilled over into automotive areas. Indeed, the relationship between the automobile industry and aviation remains to be studied beyond superficialities. As previously mentioned, the dashboard of the Cord 810 resembled that found in aircraft of the day. Supercharging, developed at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, was installed in 1930s Mercedes and Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg models. But the rise in interest in automobile aerodynamics was also due to increases in engine size and horsepower, coupled with improved roads. The drag of a vehicle was responsible for both lower top speeds and higher fuel mileage.

            One of the first individuals to explore the aerodynamics of the automobile beyond a theoretical discussion was Edmund Rumpler, who constructed his Tropfenwagen (a car the shape of a water drop) in 1921.¹⁶ The Tropfenwagen can be translated as teardrop car, or raindrop car. Rumpler’s idea was that a falling drop of liquid was nature’s perfect airfoil design. As a drop fell, it would react to the pressure around it, and in so doing, its contour minimized wind resistance or drag. Only a limited number of these vehicles were built in 1921 and 1922, and then Rumpler sold the patents to the Benz firm. A surviving example of this historical curiosity can be found in the Technical Museum in Munich. 

            It is unclear what, if any, influence Rumpler had on the thinking of American automobile engineers, but technical articles appearing in the 1930s suggest that Paul Jaray’s work was noticed and carefully studied in the U.S.¹⁷ The Hungarian-born Jaray was chief of the development department of the Zeppelin Airship works between 1914 and 1923. During the spring of 1921 he studied air flow passing around car bodies by using one-tenth scale wood models at the Zeppelin facility in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Jaray concluded that the vertical longitudinal section of a car was most important, and that it must be designed in such a way as to guide the air flow up and over the car in the front and down in the rear in such a manner that minimizes turbulence.

            Others were thinking along similar lines during the late 1920s, and certainly one important figure was that of Carl Breer. As previously discussed, Breer, along with Owen R. Skelton and Fred Zeder, were known as the Three Musketeers at Chrysler Corporation during the 1920s. The three had formed a consulting engineering firm in 1921 after working for at time at Studebaker, and it was then that they caught the attention of Walter Chrysler. In 1924 they were instrumental in designing the Chrysler Model 70. As the story goes, Breer conceived of the Airflow concept while driving to his summer home in 1927. Traveling near Selfridge airfield, he spotted what he first thought was a flock of geese flying overhead, only to find it was a squadron of Army Air Corps planes on maneuvers. Aviation was on the minds of many Americans in 1927. In May of that year that Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic, and a new era of commercial aviation was just beginning. Breer’s insight, and his playful inquisitiveness involving the forces of air resistance to an arm extended outside his car’s window led him to ponder ideas that were being discussed much of the time, namely that of form following function. This design principle had roots in the writing and architectural work of Louis Sullivan and his far more famous pupil, Frank Lloyd Wright. The question remaining in 1927 was “Why were aircraft becoming more streamlined while cars remained little more than boxy carriages?” 

            Approaching the problem scientifically, Breer went to William Earnshaw, an engineer at a research laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, and provided him with a car for making measurements of air-pressure lift and distribution. He also talked with Orville Wright, who assisted Earnshaw in designing a small wind tunnel where Breer subjected various scale models consisting of blocks of different shapes to aerodynamic analysis. With the addition of smoke, airflows passing around the models could be studied in the wind tunnel. As Earnshaw discovered from these experiments, areas of lower pressure formed behind the model, and higher pressures in the front. By rounding the front of the design and tapering the rear, streamlining was achieved.¹⁸

            Before long, Walter Chrysler became interested, and approved construction of a much larger wind tunnel at Highland Park, Michigan, where over the next three years researchers tested hundreds of shapes, plotted eddy curves, noted turbulence, checked wind resistance, and calculated drag numbers.¹⁹

            In addition to Chrysler engineers, there were others working on streamlining at this time. Most significantly, Amos E. Northrup, who worked for the Murray Body Company, designed the 1932 Blue Streak Graham with its enclosed fenders and radiator cap under the hood. A few others had more radical solutions, especially Buckminster Fuller with his Dymaxion car.²⁰

            Fuller, one of the true design geniuses of the twentieth century, is better known for his geodesic dome structure that was first proposed in 1949. In 1928, during a period of intense study, Fuller wrote a 2,000 page essay he called 4-D, and it was from the ideas articulated in this essay that the Dymaxion car emerged. Fuller designed his streamlined automobile in an abandoned Locomobile factory located in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The first Dymaxion was produced in 1933 from plaster models, and demonstrated at the Chicago Century of Progress World’s Fair. It was a gleaming, aluminum bullet-shaped object powered by a standard Ford V-8, and was capable of going 115 mph. It brought together submarine and dirigible shapes, and there was nothing like it on the road. In this car the driver sat in the front, and there was no long hood. Shatterproof aircraft glass wrapped around the front, and sticking through the roof was a rear periscope. It was a low-slung vehicle that resembled a wingless fish and rode on just three wheels, two in the front and one in the rear. The two front wheels provided traction and braking and the rear steering. So many new ideas went into that transport:  front wheel drive, air-conditioning, recessed headlights, and a rear engine. But an unfortunate accident killed the novel vehicle – even though the car was not at fault – and its major idea, streamlining, was captured by the 1934 Chrysler Airflow.

            In the six years that Breer and his team spent on the Airflow project, many trial and error experiments were performed that discovered some of the practical the rules of aerodynamics. One of the conclusions suggested a modified teardrop shape that allowed for a windshield and hood.²¹ The Airflow was an “engineers car,” with a conventional front engine rear and drive layout, but with some important modifications. Its engine was moved some 20 inches ahead of its normal position, front end styling characterized by a short curved nose, and an integral trunk. The fuel tank and radiator were now concealed. Inside, the center latch doors were chair-height seats in a vast, spacious interior. Riders sat at almost the center of the car's balance, producing an effect described in one brochure as “Floating Ride.” Indeed, “Floating Ride” was the consequence of Breer’s insights concerning the natural rhythms of the human body and the periodic oscillations that automobiles developed because of spring height. “No matter whether you are sitting in the front seat or the back, you can relax completely and utterly . . . you can ride comfortably amidships . . . experience no bumping, bouncing or vibration of any kind. The bumps seem to flow under the car without reaching you.” Also missing from the Airflow was the typical wood and steel composite body common to virtually all other cars of the period. In its place was one complete unitized steel unit “built like a modern bridge.” Streamlining was thus achieved not only on the outside of the car, but structurally as well. Box girders ran longitudinally up from the front and were joined with vertical and horizontal members to create an exceptionally strong structure, supposedly 40 times more rigid than the conventional frame and body. With the rear seat moved 24 inches inward, and the engine now positioned immediately above the front axle, driver and passengers no long experienced the same levels of fatigue as those riding in traditionally-designed vehicles.

            For all of the Airflow's virtues, many buyers just couldn't ignore its new shape. In retrospect, it was probably too different for the general public to accept. The most controversial elements were probably the rounded snout with its waterfall grill, plus slabbed sides and the spatted rear wheel openings. After its introduction in 1934 and public criticisms, modifications were made to the 1935, ‘36 and ‘37 designs, including changing the shape and size of the grill to the point where by the end of the production run, it appeared to take on a conventional appearance.²²

            Despite these attempts to earn public acceptance, the critics were unforgiving and unrelenting. Industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss claimed that the Airflow was a “case of going too far too fast.” Frederick Lewis Allen, editor of Harper's Magazine, described it as being “so bulbous, so obesely curved as to defy the natural preference of the eye for horizontal lines.” Because of lengthy retooling delays, the car was late coming off the line and there were rumors of it being a lemon. GM didn't help by orchestrating a smear campaign and introducing its own turret-top all steel roof automobiles in 1935. And certainly early models were plagued with flaws, as line workers had difficulty making this very new kind of car. 

            Chrysler responded with publicity stunts like that of Citroen where a car was dropped off a 110-foot cliff. Unharmed, the Airflow’s doors opened easily; started under its own power and was driven away. Beginning in 1935, Chrysler made outward design changes and entered the car in various endurance motor sport events. But the damage was done, and the cars would not sell. Beginning with only 12,000 units sold in 1934, the numbers continued to slide though 1937 before it was discontinued after 1938. More conventional models and a conservatively revised Airflow design called Airstream saved the company, but the whole episode is a case study in what rumors will do to undermine a technologically advanced product. From innovative leader to conservative follower, Chrysler emerged from the Airstream episode badly shaken, reluctant to take on major changes given what could happen. Throughout the 1940s, and indeed into the 1950s Chrysler was content to follow GM designs, the third of the Big Three. Chrysler’s executives were well aware that it could be trampled by the large paws of GM if it went in too bold a technological direction.

A G-Series Porsche 911 Urban Rally Car!

A Sunset (Boulevard) Safari

01/04/2020

Meet automotive journalist Matt Farah’s solution to urban travel. 

Not all city cars are born equal. Well, not according to YouTube star and world-renowned automotive journalist, Matt Farah. Shortly after moving out to the west coast of America from New York, Farah realised that the crumbling infrastructure in LA made his daily drive more like an expedition down a back-country trail than a traditional city commute. From the monstrous expansion joints on Interstate 405 to the cracked roads in downtown Venice Beach, only his Baja inspired pick-up truck was capable of smoothing out the various lumps and bumps. 

”Although we are blessed with places like the Angeles Forest and Malibu Canyons, two of the finest places on Earth to drive a sports car, the city itself is a nightmare,” Farah explains. “The infrastructure is crumbling, repairs are rarely thorough, the freeway expansion joints are a sports car owner’s worst nightmare, and for a city as ‘spread out’ as LA is, it’s awfully crowded all the time. It can be a real challenge in low, modern sports cars.” 

Photo: Larry Chen

Which is why his Raptor pick-up with its off-road suspension set-up and huge sidewalls was, as he puts it, a “gamechanger”. But of course, while Baja-inspired trucks ride well, they’re ultimately too unwieldly for tight city streets – even in car-friendly LA. So what was the solution? For Matt, the answer was easy: “I wanted something like the Raptor, but smaller, so the obvious answer was a rally car. Once I drove Leh Keen’s personal Safari 911, it was like a light bulb moment.” 

"For a city as ‘spread out’ as LA is, it’s awfully crowded all the time. It can be a real challenge in low, modern sports cars.” Matt Farah, automotive journalist

A two time Grand Am Rolex GT Champion and lifelong Porsche fanatic, Leh Keen has spent the last half a decade designing and building Safari 911 for people who want the ultimate go-anywhere vehicle. Matt, being a rather well-connected chap, got the opportunity to drive Leh’s first Safari build (that’s right, car No. 1) for his show on the /DRIVE network and although Matt admits the concept, “is totally different to what most people think you should be doing with a 911” he was sold. “I sent him a deposit check almost immediately afterwards.”

As part of what is known as ‘The Keen Project’, Leh is happy to either source a donor car for the customer (the base car must be a G-Body 911 from 1979 to 1989), or they find their own. Matt went with the latter option as he wanted to choose “the colour, the year and the interior.” 

For Matt, it was particularly important to have a 1987-1989 G-body with the G50 gearbox as “it has a more direct shift feel”, so he settled on an ’87 3.2 Carrera in striking Cassis Red; a rare and retro hue that he decided to preserve with an Xpel car wrap, rather than repaint – something the majority of buyers choose to do when moving to a rally spec. 

Photo: Larry Chen

It was a decision Matt wasn’t sure about at first: “The colour was actually a bit of a controversy. I had originally planned to paint any car I found Dalmatian Blue, which is probably my favourite Porsche colour of all time. I was just looking for any clean coupe with a G50 gearbox and straight body. As luck would have it, the guy I bought the car from was not exactly Annie Leibovitz, and photographed the car at high noon, which makes Cassis Red look horrific; like Cyndi Lauper’s lip gloss. I was sort of down on the colour on Instagram and said I was going to paint it, which caused a bit of a ruckus with the purists. It was priced cheap and seemed to have nothing else wrong with it. When I got there to pick it up and saw that the colour was actually incredible, I decided immediately not to paint it. I frequently get ‘I told you so’ from the fans. Honestly, I’m gonna take some credit for the fact that Cassis Red is cool again.” 

After finding his unusually pristine donor car, it was shipped straight out to Keen in Atlanta for a new interior and the fitment of the Baja-inspired hardware. The parts list reads like a Tamiya brochure: bash bars, skid plates, rally light pods, shaved side door mirrors, tucked bumpers, Braid motorsport Fuchs wheels, Elephant Racing Safari suspension, a Quaife limited-slip differential and BF Goodrich K02 tyres – the same tyres, coincidentally, that are used on his pick-up truck. 

Photo: Larry Chen

For the cabin, Matt opted for what he describes as an aggressive interior design: “Leh actually found the commercial grade LA city bus fabric and when I saw it, I was sold almost instantly. The car came with factory Burgundy full leather, and was in incredible condition, so we were able to retain the headliner, door uppers, dash upper, and base carpet. We were nervous if the bus fabric was going to work with the Burgundy leather, but it worked out. The hardest part was the matching leather MOMO Prototipo steering wheel; apparently it took the guy like 20 tries to make it work, and I had a temporary black steering wheel for like six months. But it’s basically the Pasha concept really turned up to crazy, and it’s also super functional because that fabric is designed to last 20 years in a bus; it’ll probably outlast the rest of the car”. 

After some engine work on its return, the car was ready for the road. The finished build couldn’t be further removed from what most drivers would consider to be a ‘city car’, but for Matt, it is perfect. “It is literally my daily driver. I recently loaded three bushels of firewood behind the rear seats. I mean – it’s not meant for attacking the canyons or going to the racetrack, it’s meant for going to the shops, driving to my office, running errands and then taking to the dirt for some fun. It really is the best parts of a Baja truck and the best parts of an air-cooled 911.” 

It seems city cars don’t have to boring. They just have to be fit for LA’s urban safari.

Photo: Larry Chen

Hacking into Cars in 2020 -- from Phoebe Wall Howard and the Detroit Free Press

Howard is my favorite automotive journalist -- she writes for the Detroit Free Press. I discussed this issue years ago in my Stealing Cars (Johns Hopkins, 2014).From her article published 1/9/2020.

No, you're not talking crazy.

The threat of regular people having their vehicles carjacked by cyberattackers is real.

Fact is, computer hackers on the other side of the world potentially could — while you’re driving — crash your navigation system, cut your brakes, disrupt your steering or remotely take control of the entire vehicle. Hackers do not need to be in close proximity; all they need is something as simple as internet connectivity. Cars have become heavily connected to the internet.

They are essentially computers on wheels.

That’s why automakers in Detroit, Germany, France, China and Japan are aggressively working to monitor technology protections in private cars,  trucks and SUVs connected to the global internet to provide navigation assistance and so much more. 

“The awareness of cyber security in the entire world has gone up. It’s not a secret there is an existing cyber war between the U.S. and Iran," said Moshe Shlisel, CEO of GuardKnox Cyber Technologies, based in Ramla, Israel. His company is composed of Israeli Air Force veterans who helped pioneer the cyber defense systems still deployed in their fighter jets and missile defense systems.

'National risk'

An even bigger concern is the risk to fleets of vehicles that could cripple the transportation system.

“This would be a national risk,” said Shlisel, who indicated sites of energy companies in the U.S. are also on high alert amid tension between the U.S. and Iran.

The Department of Homeland Security warned this week that the current international conflict “may result in cyber and physical attacks against the homeland and also destructive hybrid attacks by proxies against U.S. targets and interests abroad.”

The federal agency urged companies to “consider and assess” the potential for cyberattacks..

“In the past, to conduct an attack on a specific individual or vehicle, you needed a person on the ground or a tracking device to identify the target. Today, in the era of connectivity, hackers can penetrate a vehicle remotely to find its location and then execute an attack,” Schlisel said.

Now more than ever

Protecting vehicles is like running security protections on your computer non-stop, Shlisel said.

It can be frightening to someone who understands that hackers are working relentlessly from all parts of the world to penetrate our networks and create chaos, and that includes cars.

Holly Hubert, a cybersecurity expert who retired in 2017 from the FBI in Buffalo, New York, said, “Since cars now are run by computers, vulnerabilities can be patched and mitigated just like any other computer. Automotive companies are aggressive in trying to find mitigation strategy for faulty code.”

No question, cyber security experts said, the issue is top of mind now more than ever.

Incredibly, that means competitors in the automotive industry are sharing valuable information and working together on this public safety issue.

“The bad guys share this information all the time. If the good guys aren’t sharing the information, they’re going to get hit,” said Faye Francy, executive director of the nonprofit Automotive Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Auto-ISAC), which specializes in cybersecurity strategies. 

“Very simply, one company’s detection is another company’s prevention,” she said.

One of the reasons the automobile industry brought Francy in to coordinate cyber security is she, too, worked in the aerospace industry. Security for cars and jets have a lot in common.

'Take this very seriously'

“There’s an awful lot going on as far as commitment to implementing cyber security,” Francy said. “As far as automakers go, they take this very seriously, as serious as they take safety. We’re in a nascent area and there’s a great deal of learning going on. We’ve made a lot of strides and there’s still more to be done.”

Remember, cyber crime experts pointed out, wireless technology controls thousands of elements in our cities and connected cars and all those areas are potential targets.

General Motors said it is intensely committed to defending against attacks.

“As vehicle connectivity continues to evolve, GM has continued to strengthen cybersecurity measures.  We have a three-pillar approach which deploys defense-in-depth, monitoring and detection, and incident response capabilities to protect our customers, their vehicles and their data,” said spokesman Chad Lyons.

The company plays a leading role in Francy’s organization, analyzing intelligence and best practices for emerging risks, he said. “The industry has taken product cyber security very seriously and continues to work quickly on new standards and strategies to continue working to stay ahead of the threat.”

GM noted that the new Corvette and Cadillac CT5 actually have new cyber protections.

GM, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler executives all serve on the board of directors of Auto-ISAC. 

“FCA US is deploying both hardware and software technologies to protect against cyber intrusions. But we also improve protection by partnering with others,” says Sandra Hosler, senior manager, vehicle cyber security at Fiat Chrysler.

“Open collaboration with our industry peers through the Auto-ISAC, trust and transparency with our suppliers, and cooperation with security researchers through our bug bounty program, are all critical components of our vehicle cybersecurity program," she said.

It is perhaps because Fiat Chrysler made news in 2015 when Wired magazine wroteabout how researchers hacked a Jeep Cherokee and took control of the windshield wipers, climate system, radio and then cut power to the transmission while the vehicle was being driven by a reporter. 

This particular experiment didn't damage the reputation of Jeep, experts said, it simply illustrated industry-wide vulnerability.

T.R. Reid, spokesman for Ford Motor Co., said, “Ford is constantly creating new technology that improves mobility.  With that comes responsibility for making sure people and their personal information are safe.  We take that very seriously.”

All a hacker needs to identify your vehicle is the computer network.

“You can’t believe how easy it is,” Shlisel said. “They can penetrate the GPS (global positioning system) and understand your location and get your internet address. You can do it remotely by just penetrating the network and do whatever you want.”

If you catch hacking, you can retrofit your car with protections device, he said during a break in activity at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Companies must be on alert at all times, cyber experts said The key to safety is establishing a strong defense, monitoring carefully and being prepared for attack.