In 1958, Ford jumped on the Motor City’s air-suspension bandwagon, but then quickly jumped back off.
Four-wheel, self-leveling air suspension is commonplace today, mostly in the premium makes such as Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz. But in the late 1950s, the Detroit automakers were giving it their first serious try, especially at General Motors, where it was adopted by Cadillac in 1957 and the other four GM car brands in 1958. For GM, the experiment was not a success. Chevrolet and Oldsmobile dropped it after a single year, Pontiac and Buick after two years, though Cadillac hung onto air suspension through 1960. In fact, GM’s original air suspension is a well-documented flop.
Though it’s far less known today—it’s almost completely forgotten, which is probably fortunate—Ford also tried air suspension in 1958, but met with a similar lack of success. The system, marketed as Ford-Aire, was discontinued almost immediately after it was introduced.
Ford-Aire was similar to the GM system in general layout, with an engine-driven air compressor, a vinyl-rubber air bladder at each wheel, and a system of pneumatic valves and electric switches to adjust and maintain the ride height. In Ford’s setup, a single-cylinder, 2.7 cubic-inch compressor capable of 300 psi (though the operating pressure was 170-180 psi) supplied a 400 cubic-inch air reservoir mounted nearby under the hood.
Why air suspension, anyway? In the late ’50s, automakers were adopting ever-lower spring rates to obtain the soft, luxurious ride then in fashion. But that, in turn, required greater wheel travel to prevent bottoming, and soon the engineers were running out of vertical room. On the other hand, an air chamber can have a highly progressive spring rate; that is, the more the bladder is compressed, the greater the air pressure (Boyle’s law). The spring rate is comfortably soft at normal road height, then rises in stiffness as the wheel approaches bottoming. On the ’58 Ford’s independent front suspension, the air bag neatly slipped into the same space usually occupied by the coil spring.
But at the rear of the ’58 Ford, adapting air suspension was more complicated. The standard setup used a pair of semi-elliptic leaf springs for suspension and lateral location, with no practical way to accommodate air chambers. So here the leaf springs were replaced by a pair of rigid steel trailing arms with a Panhard bar for lateral control. Interesting to note: Instead of pivots at the front of the arms, Ford used a set of strut bushings to allow some axial displacement but limit radial deflection, reducing ride harshness.
Ford-Aire was offered as a $158 option on the Fairlane, Fairlane 500, and station wagons, with a small badge below the right rear tail lamp to trumpet the feature, but then the feature was discontinued almost immediately. How Ford-Aire failed so quickly and conclusively is a topic for speculation, since automakers are not in the habit of publicly documenting their failures, and this was years before product recalls and consumer advocacy. However, along with the few sketchy reports, we can safely guess that Ford-Aire suffered problems similar to those encountered in the GM system.
The Ford system’s air chambers and copper air lines were prone to leaks, it was known, while the pneumatic ride-height control valves (two in the front, one in the rear) were delicate and less than reliable. The compressor was required to process large quantities of air, which means large quantities of moisture, spelling trouble for all the components in the system. Reportedly, Ford stopped marketing Ford-Aire in regions where the ambient air temperature fell below 10°F, as the control valves would freeze up.
How many ’58 Fords were actually equipped with air suspension is another open question, evidently. Estimates range from 20 to 100 or more, but only a handful are still around today. Personally, we’ve never seen one, though we have seen cars with the Ford-Aire emblem still in place, but retrofitted to conventional suspension, probably by the selling dealer as most were. Mercury marketed the system as “Air Cushion Ride,” including it in its 1958 sales brochures, but again, how many cars were produced with the feature is unknown. To us, anyway. In Canada, Ford’s Meteor brand advertised the system as “Air-Suspension.”
When Lincoln was redesigned for 1958, coil spring rear suspension was adopted in preparation for the pneumatic system, but ultimately, the Lincoln engineers decided not to pursue it and the division reverted to rear leaf springs in 1960. Reportedly, the Edsel Division ordered 40 pilot-production cars with air suspension early in the ’58 model year. but only five were built before it was given up as a bad idea. This may be the only recorded instance where the star-crossed Edsel managed to dodge a bullet.
I think the whole air suspension fad at GM and Ford was a reaction to Packard’s 1955-56 Torsion-Level suspension (designed by William Allison, while he was working at Hudson). GM and Ford couldn’t go the electric route without copying Packard, so they developed their air bags.
Thank you, MCG! You teased the Ford-Aire feature a couple of weeks ago in the ’58 Ford piece, and I was intrigued enough to go to the Brochures to check it out, but it left a lot of questions.
You’ve given us more info on it here today than I could have expected then. Bravo and well done!
Thank you very much for your interest. This crazy old stuff is a lot more fun when there are others to share it with.
One feature I didn’t mention in the story as it was already too long: There was a second high-pressure stage triggered by (two or four) door jamb switches. When a human stepped into or out of the car, Ford-Aire would quickly adjust the ride height.
An already excellent article improved with this “footnote”!
I really enjoyed & appreciate this article. First rate!
Thanks, this was the first article to explain why the 1958 air suspension systems were desirable in the first place. I always wondered what was the point.
Citroen DS anyone???
But that wasn’t “air suspension”, but hydropneumatic.
Another very interesting article. Thanks for this.
Never knew this, but doesn’t surprise me. Ride was and always has been a hot topic. Primarily for the well to do, can’t spill the drinks in the back, and a rough ride just wouldn’t cut it. Every kind of suspension was dabbled with. While Stuart^ is right, Packards electric torsion bar suspension, while complicated, actually worked well, this is about air ride, and never seemed to catch on. Too much hardware and too many variables. Now in trucking, air ride was a God send. It became popular in the 80s, and revolutionized the industry, and is now standard on all trucks today. Buses too had air ride back in the 50s, but never made it to passenger cars. Lest we should forget, air shocks were the preferred method of raising a cars back end for tire clearance. Ride was the last thing we cared about. Thanks MCG!
Feel free to delete after reading this, but I think you have a typo in the first paragraph. Pontiac is mentioned twice.
Thank you. First instance was supposed to read Oldsmobile. Correction made.
Thanks so much for this! I’ve always been fascinated by these. I’ve been in trucking for 20 years and many tractors are still solid axle spring ride with drum brakes out front-all are air back! Only 10% of our trailer fleet are still spring ride. My 04 TC rides on air in the rear. Trouble free so far
Another terrific article about an unknown, at least to me, subject from MCG. Well done! It’s these stories about forgotten or mundane motor city subjects that really draw me in, but I’ve yet to come across any article that I haven’t enjoyed reading. It’s a little odd, to me, that for a technology that’d been around as long as air suspension had by the late ’50s, that none of the manufacturers could ever make it work on the automobile level. Although far from common, I would imagine that semi truck builders had at least started tinkering with it on tractors by that same time. As to Howard A’s comment about air ride being standard on trucks today, I’m not sure that a person could even order a rig with spring ride anymore.
The biggest impact on air suspensions, as well as other air components such as air braking systems, was the invention of the air dyer by Bendix. The first one came out around 1970 and fell into the category of better than nothing, but designs progressed thru the years and when the bomb proof AD-9 came out in 1989 it was off to the races for air suspension. No more moisture or oil ( from worn rings on high mileage compressors) in air system tanks meant no more freeze ups or oil plugged valves. At first it was trailers, and air ride was used as a sales gimmick to get freight by letting shippers know that their product was much less likely to get damaged on an air ride equipped trailer than a conventional spring ride trailer. You can still see old trailers here and there with the large “air ride equipped” lettering on the side, usually back by the axles. As more tractors were replaced with air ride equipped units it became a hiring tool with large fleets proclaiming in their hiring advertisements that they now had air ride equipped tractors in their fleet. As was mentioned, its now become standard, with only the heaviest trucks operating in harsh environments using non air suspension. Even a large portion of loggers, dump trucks, and cranes use air ride now. Peterbilt, as well as Hendrickson, offer reliable, proven air ride steer axle suspension as well. As far as car air ride goes, even the current luxury models with air ride use a simple cartridge style air dryer to keep the system reliable.
I don’t recall ever seeing a 1958 Thunderbird with Ford-Aire, but ALL ’58s had the air-compatible trailing arm rear suspension. Today, the ’58’s are prized for the ability to easily add aftermarket air bags in the event the owner is building a vintage style custom. The current aftermarket systems really do offer the ride benefits promised in 1958, making lowered cars tenable on bumpy streets and highways.