This brings up one of my favorite subjects: aerodynamics. Not that I know anything about aerodynamics, it's just that I like watching faces fall and people turn away whenever I go to parties. The very first automobiles did not give much thought to aerodynamics, because, let's face it, it was all they could do to make the fool things move, turn and stop on command. Once that bit was sorted out, (sorta - they're still working on it), the next step was to make them better able to attract the ladies (sorta – they're still working on it.) This usually involved speed and bits of derring-do that left the hapless driver broken and crippled, yet somehow very attractive to young ladies who liked broken cripples. It was the speedy parts that caused a young zeppelin designer (really!) to think that, rather than push air about all nilly y willie, a barn door would be far more slippery at speed, or even stationary for the matter. Once this proved to be the case, our hero, Paul Jaray, felt that a zeppelin-like design might prove even more efficient. Though the barn door beginnings were still present in his first effort, at least Paul did not choose to mount the zeppelin vertically:
As is the case with such visionaries, Jaray's designs were placed high upon the pedestal of ridicule and pelted with rotting vegetables. Undeterred, Jaray decided that seventy five gallon Stetsons were not a requirement for driving fashion and lowered the greenhouse a tad. Suddenly, Audi, Maybach, Benz and Hanomag were taking notice of the strange automobiles. Prototypes were created and the era of the streamliner was born. Tatra created the first production Jaray designs with the Tatra 77 and 87. The customers flocked to stay away. Chrysler, with its much heralded Airflow, paid royalties to Jaray and once the public recognized this fact, they once again ran screaming from the showrooms.
The Jarayform can be traced throughout the history of the automobile, from the early streamliners all the way up to the present, with the Maybach Excelsior being the most current Jarayform that has left the public gasping.
Lest you get the wrong idea about me feeling that Jaray's designs were ugly, nothing could be further from the truth. I find them 'challenging', 'compelling', 'fascinating', 'awkward', 'difficult' and a whole lot of other adjectives in quotes, but never, ever 'ugly'. Jaray was a man who created so much, yet is recognized so little. An engineer of the first order, he put function before form and maintained the engineer given right to keep it that way, no matter what the public or anybody said.
There's a wonderful website full of Jaray information here:
http://www.design-classic-cars.de/jaray/paul-jaray.htmlIt's in German, so most of you will simply have to enjoy the pretty pictures. Others like me, will content themselves with making interesting sounds as we move our lips when we read. Any way you look at it, Jaray was a man well before his time and worth much more than a tertiary sub-reference of a footnote in automotive history.
