1036 Berlin


Schlörwagen, or simply the "Pillbug", built in 1936 and still looking fantastic today!

We left this streamlined beauty out of the last article on purpose - it warrants much closer look, especially since the circumstances of its creation during the Third Reich and the subsequent loss of the only working model add a touch of mystery to the whole affair... Plus this "pill" does not look dated at all, in fact, it looks as though it was just created on a computer for automotive design competition, or something that Hollywood might conceive for its next futuristic movie vehicle.


(image via)


So, take a look at this sleek black shape under the propeller a true marvel of technology for 1936. Professor Karl Schlör from AVA (an Aerodynamic Testing Institute in Göttingen) came up with a rear-mounted-engine aerodynamic shape with an unbelievable drag coefficient of 0.13 - and presented the completed working concept car in 1939 at the Berlin Auto Show (the 1939 Berlin Auto Show asks for its own article on DRB - it showcased multitude of sleek, beautiful cars, surrounded by the Nazi propaganda hysteria and overall sense of impending war and doom).






Here you see the wind tunnel testing (achieving a drag coefficient of 0.113, a number that everyone found hard to believe at first, and which is considered very impressive even today, with all computer-based modeling and testing): 



(images via)


Believe it or not, this futuristic dream machine was slated into production for 1939! I want to see this alternative universe in which the war did not happen, and Germany is full of these lovely "pillbugs" lying the newly-constructed autobahn system:




This interesting image presents an original blueprint (showing near-perfect aerodynamic design) superimposed over the concept car:


(image via Neil Blanchard)


You can see why the car was lovingly called "the pill", the shape is very distinctive and reminiscent of Bucky Fuller's Dymaxionexperimentation in the 1950s:



(images via)


"The whereabouts of the sole functioning model remain unknown

I love great art, no matter the medium.

Bananas

Vitamin Enriched GMO Banana Entering Human Trials

A genetically modified banana, boosted to have higher levels of alpha and beta carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A, has the best backer imaginable - The Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation.

I love great art, no matter the medium.