All I Need Is the Air That I Breathe…

A couple of blogs ago I wrote about our Citroen 2CV Special which I enjoyed this summer with some open-roofed thrashing along the highways of Cheshire. It’s great fun harrying the Mercs that can’t handle the corners as well as our Gallic marvel. It’s the perfect car for zipping around in on a balmy summer's evening. It’s so easy to chuck about, roof fully open, letting the wind tousle your hair as you try to scrape the door handles whilst leaning it at 50 mph into terrifying bends.  In that piece I extolled the virtues of its small but mighty air-cooled engine. One might think with this year's spell of hot weather such loutish driving might be an issue and boiling oil and white hot cylinders would be the result followed by an ominous clunk and a trip home on a breakdown truck. However, even under heavy use, these engines have a distinct advantage. Why? Because there’s no water to evaporate, radiators to explode or pipes to burst and leave you in a steaming mess at the roadside. So why don’t we use this technology more given its simplicity, reliability and ease of maintenance? Some say it’s because air-cooled engines are coarse and noisy and make it difficult to heat the car. Others argue the reliance on air as the only cooling medium is a single point of failure meaning problems when they occur are usually catastrophic. Finally, there's the belief that as a lot of air cooled engines are rear mounted the cars become inherently dangerous in their handling. Well I'm here to demonstrate that history shows air-cooled cars are amongst the most enduring and interesting on the road. Let’s take as our evidence some of these breezy beauties…

Tatra T97 (1936 – 39)

I mention this one because, although I’ve never encountered one of these rare cars, research indicates that Czech firm Tatra were early pioneers of high performance, air-cooled engines. In fact, without Tatra, a whole chunk of motoring history would not have existed. Why? Well, it's alleged that Ferdinand Porsche basically ripped Tatra off when designing the VW Beetle in the late thirties (urged on by Adolf Hitler). It was all rather blatant and such was the ire this caused it ended in VW having to pay substantial compensation to Tatra after years of post-war protests. There was some natural justice in this saga for any who feel affronted by this information. During the Czech occupation tail-happy Tatra cars were responsible for the deaths of so many speed-crazed German Army officers  that they became known as the ‘Czechs’ secret weapon’.

Volkswagen Beetle (et al) (1938 - 2003)

Despite the above we can’t not mention this iconic car. Famously air-cooled and rear-engined ‘developed’ by Ferdinand Porsche the 'bug' became the basis for an extended family of similarly powered cars including: Type 2 Camper, VW Fastback, Karmann Ghia not to mention the Porsche 911 the German uber-car named after the legendary designer.  This last example definitively demonstrating that air-cooled is not a cheap and cheerful car option. Far from it.

Well preserved Porsche on display at Gawsworth
Classic Car Show May 2015

Chevrolet Corvair Corsa (1960 – 1969)

This was Detroit’s contribution to the air-cooled canon and what a car it was. It was at once very pretty and a potential death trap (according to industry critic Ralph Nader).  Badly planned, rear-engined and extremely tail happy. It was claimed it had dangerous swing arm suspension all of which may have done a lot to undermine the perception of air-cooled cars in the US but for no good reason other than poor design and execution.  Take for example its solution to the common air-cooled objection: how to heat the car in the absence of a hot water supply.  Let’s install a petrol powered heater in the front luggage compartment they thought. Perhaps plutonium might have been safer.

The original Fiat 500 (1957 – 1975)

Need I say more?  Cute, Italian, economical, compact, iconic and, oh yes; air-cooled. Not only that but its jelly mould design is still so popular it’s been re-worked for today’s market based on a Fiat Punto engine which is, errrmh, water-cooled.

NSU Prinz (1957 - 1973)

I thought I’d give mention to the NSU Prinz series of small economy cars produced in the former West Germany. I do this mainly because I seriously considered buying one last year but decided (rightly) another classic was financially a bad  idea. However, this car fits pretty neatly into the list.  It was small, quirky and utilitarian with a tiny 600cc engine which helped to mobilise owners both economically and effectively. It was designed like many wannabes to compete in the small economy car class but, like most, was overshadowed by the Austin Mini. When I test drove my prospective purchase I found the ride made the road feel like corrugated steel and if there were any brakes provided I couldn’t find them. It may have an air-cooled engine but this won’t help the driver as using it in today’s traffic you’d always be sweating buckets; from fear mainly.

Citroen A Series (1948 – 1999)

I started by mentioning the 2CV but some might not know that its same basic 385/405/602cc engines actually powered a number of Citroen’s budget vehicles.  These included the Dyane – the pimped up 2CV; The Ami 6/8 – uniquely designed urban coupés; The AK series of vans (able to lug nearly half a metric tonne) and the Mehari; a fibreglass-bodied beach buggy. All were based on the same utilitarian engine(s) and all successfully fulfilled the design brief envisaged for them despite how popular or otherwise they were with the public.

There are many others I might have mentioned but looking at this list even a badly-informed classic car aficionado can see that there’s some highly recognisable, well-thought-of cars here. All share the same air-cooled heritage. So perhaps we should celebrate more the advantages and reliability this approach brings and agree there’s definitely something to be said for eschewing liquid coolants and allowing a simple cooling breeze to waft us along on our motoring adventures.

Copyright Anthony Boe 2014.  All Rights Reserved