1938 PHANTOM CORSAIR The 1st “Car of the Future”!!!

By John Truman, July 26, 2010 2:36 am

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romanoarchives.altervista.org The Young in Heart (1938) (Excerpts) Director: Richard Wallace Production Company: Selznick International Pictures When the first real "Car of the Future" appeared to the public? I guess it happened in a 1938 movie called "The young ln Heart". The name of the car in the film is "Flying Wombat" but in the reality this streamlined black beast is a Phantom Corsair, a six-passenger coupe that was designed by Rust Heinz, a member of the HJ Heinz family, and Maurice Schwartz of the Pasadena, California based Bohman & Schwartz coachbuilding company. Heinz planned to put the Phantom Corsair, which cost approximately $24000 to produce in 1938 (approximately $400000 in 2008 dollars) into limited production at an estimated selling price of $12500. However, Heinz's death, shortly after the car was completed, ended those plans. The automobile was featured as the "Flying Wombat" in the David O. Selznick film The Young in Heart (1938) starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Paulette Goddard, Janet Gaynor, and Billie Burke. Heinz and his car were also featured in a segment of the Popular Science film series in 1938. The other "Flying Wombats" we see in the showroom sequences were just static copies of the car, probably made of wax. The unique 1938 Phantom Corsair now resides in the National Automobile Museum (The Harrah Collection) in Reno, Nevada. With a height of only 147 cm (58 in.), the steel and aluminum body had no running boards, fenders or door handles ...