THAT’S DESIGN
Clean Sculpture
Chrysler’s C300 air cleaner is utilitarian art at its finest
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICHARD LENTINELLO
Gone are the days when a part as
basic as an air cleaner assembly
was a symbol of pride. But back
in the Fifties, it was a badge of honor
to open your hood and show off your
“batwing” air cleaner.
Truth be told, little has changed
because, even today, car guys get all weak
in the knees when they see one of these
shapely sheetmetal beauties sitting atop
a V- 8. Not so much because of its distinctive design, which is quite attractive in
its own right, but because of what the
batwing’s inclusion in the engine bay
signifies: dual-quad carburetors. If the
car’s owner ordered the dual-quad carburetor option, this was the air cleaner
that was installed.
Its design is based on the old form-follows-function school of thought, with
a little pizzazz thrown in for good measure, such as the dazzling gold finish.
To feed a sufficient flow of air to the two
four-barrel carburetors, and to make
sure that air is as clean as possible, the
engineers designed this assembly to
house two separate air cleaners. Because
there is limited space between the top
of the engine and the hood, the two air
cleaners had to be moved alongside the
carburetors, to the empty area just above
the valve covers. The primary reason the
air cleaner is so large is because it runs
from cylinder head to cylinder head.
Being a sheetmetal stamping, it was
fabricated in multiple parts. The two
round air-cleaner housings are separate
from the main base, and like the top section, are easily removed by unscrewing
the two chrome wing nuts. Legend has it
that this air cleaner earned its nickname
because of its triangular shape, which
some gearheads back in the day felt
resembled a bat’s wings in full flight.
This particular batwing air cleaner
is fitted to a beautifully restored 1955
Chrysler C- 300 that is owned and restored
by John De Tulio. It hides a pair of Carter
WFB 550 CFM four-barrel carbs fitted
to the big Chrysler’s 331-cu.in. Hemi
V- 8. These air cleaners weren’t made by
Chrysler; instead, they were outsourced
from an outside supplier. Similar bat-wing-type air cleaners were used on a
variety of GM-built cars back in the mid-Fifties too, mainly Cadillac, Oldsmobile
and Chevrolet.
The batwing air cleaner is a perfect
example of the creativity and passion
which characterized industrial design
back in the day. The time it took to
design, engineer and fabricate one of
these metallic beauties clearly renders
it a true mechanical marvel. With its distinctive aesthetics, a batwing air cleaner
wouldn’t look out of place in a museum’s
glass showcase, or even in your wife’s
china cabinet.
64 HEMMINGS MOTOR NEWS • JUNE 2009
