Phantom Corsair

The Phantom Corsair is a prototype automobile built in 1937. It is a six-passenger 2-door sedan that was designed by Rust Heinz of the H. J. Heinz family and Maurice Schwartz of the Bohman & Schwartz coachbuilding company in Pasadena, California. Although sometimes dismissed as a failure because it never entered production, the Corsair is regarded as ahead of its time because of its futuristic features, and styling cues such as faired-in fenders and a low profile.

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 tubine—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.”