1955 Monocoque
Monocoque’s most distinguishable feature - left side-only exhaust pipes. They were placed there, instead of the conventional rear setup due to technical limitations and too large design interrupt.
The year was 1955. Airborne was already producing some cars, but they were too small and too european for USA taste, which was company’s main market. Actually, company’s CEO had realized that some time earlier and he already had an upscale model ready. Meet first luxury-tier Airborne in their history, the Monocoque.
It’s debut was quite controversial. While critics had nothing to issue Airborne in case of handling, dynamics, flexibility and equipment inside some of them were divided about lack of chrome, which was visible especially when compared to some cars of the era, like Cadillac Series 62. Later fans and customers were thinking about Monocoque as basicly a car that was 10 to 15 years ahead with it’s design, especially when comparing examples that usually were early 70s Maines or legendary cars of Znopresk, such as Z200. From other minor details that were rarely seen on cars these times is actual reverse light.
Tech-wise, Monocoque was an extremely modern car in it’s times too, especially in it’s main region that was USA - still big V8 engine, but SOHC instead of pushrod and for first time ever in Airborne and probably whole US - full monocoque chassis made out of galvanised steel. This innovation was enough to give the car it’s name. It had however retained the sense of luxury seen in typical american cruisers.
And the engine was innovative enough for the company to use it until late 60s in the Alpha and Beta models and the M70 engine was succeeded by short-lived M71, which was very similar except for DOHC valvetrain.
The Monocoque had pretty respective figures for a luxury cruiser - 7.0 L 60 degree V8, SOHC which generated 236 hp and was enough to push the 1700 kg behemoth to 100 km/h in 11.3 seconds and reach the top speed of 199 km/h. Gearbox was probably one of the strangest choices ever made by Airborne - despite engineers’, Adam Skrzyszowski’s and Koelner’s massive criticisms Dawid Skrzyszowski had accepted 2-gear automatic torque converter for extra comfort value.
Monocoque, as it was Airborne’s successful superpremium model had opened the market for the company and worked as perfect ad for the whole Airborne. It wasn’t however mass-produced: due to high quality parts and their manufacturing cost there were only 7630 Monocoques made in years 1955-1960 and each of them was the most expensive vehicle officially available in the company’s lineup during that time. Monocoque was however also a great learning material for Airborne; it’s successor, Alpha, officially launched in 1961 was more mass-approaching and fixed some problems of it’s precedessor.
1958 Black-spec
Mythical Monocoque version which wasn’t even offered in official dealership network; only 25 examples were made and those which remained are skyrocketing in value.
Designers at Airborne weren’t pleased with Monocoque’s some too comfy choices and criticized them as taking away company’s sporty soul and name. In 1958 they have proposed their propositions to start building another Monocoque variant which would live more to the heritage. CEO had declined not finding any reasonable idea to start producing something that years later would be called a muscle car.
The “Black Card” designer team was upset enough so their leader had gritted his teeth and said: YES, SIR. when he had heard that and walked from the room, shutting the doors. Actually, they’ve decided to make their plans alive anyway and bought 25 Monocoques at their own cost and tuned them. Every car was however a loss, but Monocoque in the tuned variant was more of an manifest than actual profitable project.
Exterior changes were minimal. All the cars were painted black and rims were replaced with more aerodynamic ones, painted black too with chrome outline. Inside the hood changes were more drastic: while stock engine was kept, whole fuel system was changed from 2 barrel installation to DCOE one, resulting in a power boost from 236 hp to 255 hp. Pistons with conrods were replaced with their forged equivalents to withstand higher torque and moved RPM limit. Those changes, along with sportier suspension setup and interior stripped out of phonograph and super luxury seats (which were replaced by stiffer seats with longer backrest and side holdings, which were known later by the name of bucket seats) and in total of circa 70 kg of weight loss resulted in surprisingly good car: it was quite fast on straights and had comparable handling and cornering with most european sports cars of the era.
Black Card Monocoque (in 80s fan-dubbed “Black-spec”) was never officially sold to public - they were rather sold by underground network of customers and car enthusiasts. After selling out those 25 Monocoques way quicker than official Airborne did, D. Skrzyszowski had noticed the success, apologized to the design center and next luxury designs also had luxury, but sporty approach - in a single or two variants.
