In 1939, John Tjaarda and Briggs Manufacturing proposed this futuristic set of automobiles, and they were as radical on the inside as they were on the outside.

A few months ago we introduced Johan “Jan” Tjaarda (1897–1962), also known as John Tjaarda van Sterkenburg, the Dutch-American car designer who was originally trained as an aircraft engineer. It was his work with Briggs Manufacturing on an experimental rear-engine automobile that led directly to the 1936 Lincoln Zephyr. (See our feature on the Zephyr here.)

However, his work at Detroit’s largest body supplier didn’t end there. As head of the design engineering division at Briggs he was responsible for a number of projects, including this ambitious proposal for a line of radically new automobiles. Unveiled in the January 1939 issue of Motor, the American auto trade journal, they were billed as “The Cars of Tomorrow.”

Power for Tjaarda’s Cars of Tomorrow was supplied by a lightweight V8 that featured an L-head layout with the exhaust path in the center of the vee, hydraulic valve lifters, a crank-driven cooling fan, and a five main-bearing crankshaft (a conspicuous improvement over the Ford V8, which had only three). According to the Motor article, this V8 displaced 166 cubic inches, weighed only 300 lbs, and produced 80 horsepower at 4700 rpm. Further, it was engineered to be suitable for both front-engine and rear-engine chassis.

The proposed drivetrain (above) included a swing-axle rear suspension, in part to reduce the floor pan height for rear seat passengers, with a transverse leaf spring and articulation via Rzeppa-type constant-velocity joints. Another novel feature: Instead of a hypoid gearset to reduce the floor height, this arrangement employed inexpensive spiral bevel gears with the pinion pointed down at an extreme angle, using another Rzeppa joint to correct the angle for the driveshaft.

Other suspension advances described in the article include twisting-rubber spring elements for the independent front suspension and an axle linkage designed to bank the front and rear wheels into the radius of a turn. A number of different styling looks were included in the illustrations, while body construction was described as a unitized body/frame system similar to the Lincoln Zephyr.

How far the Cars of Tomorrow project progressed beyond the Motor feature is unknown to us. (We could assume the magazine article appeared when Briggs was unable to generate manufacturer interest through its regular Detroit channels). We do know that it was not long after this that Tjaarda and his employer Briggs became locked in a bitter dispute over the patent rights to his extensive work. Briggs and Tjaarda parted ways in 1941, and in 1942 he launched his own design firm, John Tjaarda and Associates.