From Southern California in 1936 came the Arrowhead Teardrop Car, which its creators claimed was “America’s first truly streamlined automobile.” 

It’s often said that the perfect aerodynamic shape in nature is a drop of water falling through the air—a teardrop, in the vernacular. That is not to say, however, that the teardrop is the ideal aerodynamic shape for an automobile. That’s another proposition altogether. But then, aerodynamic perfection was not the goal of the Arrowhead Spring Water Company of San Bernardino, California in 1936. The bottler was simply looking for a memorable marketing gimmick.

The design of the Arrowhead Teardrop is credited to W. Everett Miller, a prolific West coast car designer who worked with the coachbuilding firm of Walter M. Murphy, among others. On this project he was partnered with Medardo Morgagno’s Advance Auto Body Works of Los Angeles, where they often collaborated on promotional vehicles for Gilmore Oil and other clients. The body, very nearly a true teardrop, was constructed from sheet aluminum formed over an elaborate wooden buck, with a pair of front-opening doors and a large clamshell engine cover in the rear. The headlamps were Woodlites, as used by Cord and others, but tucked inside the body. Exactly 17 feet long, the Teardrop was painted in “Aquamarine Blue with chromium finish,” according to the company.

The Teardrop’s chassis was, if anything, even more unusual than the bodywork. It was a three-wheeler in the same general configuration as Buckminster Fuller’s 1933 Dymaxion car, though significantly different in detail. A Ford V8 engine, torque tube and drivetrain unit was turned around so that the former rear axle now drove the front wheels, while the single rear wheel performed the steering duties. The brakes were Lockheed hydraulics on all three corners, while the rest of the running gear appears to be early-to-mid ’30s Ford. The cost of construction was reportedly $8,000, a hefty investment in the middle of the Great Depression.

How the Teardrop handled on the road was never reported, but if it was anything like the Dymaxion, we’re guessing not very good. Rear-wheel steering is fine for tool carts and fork lifts, but at any greater speed things tend to go wrong in a hurry. In June 1937, the Automobile Trade Journal reported that the car was severely damaged in a crash, and it was presumed scrapped.

However, in July of 2020, Geoff Hacker and Bob Cunningham, reporting from Geoff’s website Undiscovered Classics (great site, check it out) unearthed a photo of the Teardrop in the late 1940s, now repaired and carrying signage from the Craig Oil Company of Los Angeles, which then advertised its Wilshire Boulevard service station as the largest in the world. What happened to the Teardrop after that, we don’t know.