Overview
The Phantom Corsair is a prototype automobile built in 1937. It is a six-passenger 2-door sedan It was shown to the local press in Pasadena in July 1937, and first exhibited publicly at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 15 February 1938, with publicity including many construction details: “Streamlined to the ultimate—underneath as well as above—the body of the car covers wheels and eliminates necessity for fenders or running boards and thus makes possible a longer seat on which four people ride abreast.
A rumble seat accommodates two passengers who face the rear…With a body of electrically welded aviation steel tubing - and an outer surface of alloy steel - and a passenger compartment lined with rubber composition, passengers ride in a scientifically safe ‘steel cage.’ Electric push buttons replace door handles, while the hood raises by an automatic trigger on the instrument panel, automatically switching on an engine service light. Seats are of solid cast rubber, eliminating seat springs. There is a ‘crash board,’ padded with cork and sponge rubber and covered with leather to minimize injury in case of accident. Layers of cork and rubber latex applied to the entire body of the car kill vibration and rumble at its source and eliminate all normal highway and engine noises.
Indirect lighting features the car's interior, while built-in headlights of enormous candlepower, with amber fog lights below, afford 180-degree highway illumination....The passenger section contains luxury compartments—one on either side of the rumble seat. There is an all-wave radio with twin speakers and an aviationtype aerial. Ceiling and sidewalls are lined with three-quarter inch light cork composition and layer of sponge rubber under upholstery of tufted design. The floor is acoustically treated with a layer of pulp composition, sprayed cork, rubber and floor carpet. Interior features are of dull finished chromium, and unprotruding. Air conditioning, which is additional, thermostatically controls cold and heat producing units.”
Design
The Phantom Corsair's steel-and-aluminum body measured just in height and incorporated fully skirted wheels and completely flush fenders while forgoing running boards. Though these features from the Cord 810 chassis were all retained on the Phantom Corsair, the chassis was modified in order to accommodate the Corsair's large body. The body measured an impressive long and wide, enough to accommodate four people in the front row, including one person to the left of the driver. The back seats could only hold two passengers, however, in large part because of space limitations posed by on-board beverage cabinets. Though weighing a hefty , the Phantom Corsair could achieve speeds of up to because of its modified, naturally aspirated 125 bhp Lycoming engine as well as its aerodynamic shape.
Production
Rust Heinz planned to put the Phantom Corsair, which cost approximately $24,000 to produce in 1938 (equivalent to about $370,000 in 2010), into limited production at an estimated selling price of $12,500. However, Heinz's death in a car accident in July 1939 ended those plans, leaving the prototype Corsair as the only one ever built.
Media appearances
* The automobile was featured as the "Flying Wombat" in the David O. Selznick film The Young in Heart (1938), starring Janet Gaynor, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Paulette Goddard, and Billie Burke. * The Corsair is one of the 15 rare drivable vehicles featured in the 2011 video game L.A. Noire.
Image gallery
File:Phantom corsair.jpg Side view, at the 2006 Goodwood Festival of Speed File:1938 Phantom Corsair - Flickr - exfordy.jpg Front view, at the 2006 Goodwood Festival of Speed File:1938 Phantom Corsair Pasadena, California.jpg Side view, on museum display File:1938 Phantom Corsair Pebble Beach Concours dElegance 2007 01.jpg Side view, at the 2007 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance File:1938 Phantom Corsair Pebble Beach Concours dElegance 2007 03.jpg Rear view, at the 2007 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance
External links
* Website of Popular Science films including Phantom Corsair segment