History of Automobile Chassis - The 1950's

Starting from the 1950's and for about twenty years, the automotive market demand was very high: the indutries could produce vehicles at a very high production rate, with great benefits in terms of scale economies. This led to the diffusion of the stamped steel unibody structure: the primary material was cheap, the vehicle was easy to produce and assembly at high production volumes, with very competitive costs per unit.

On the other side, niche-cars adopted different solutions.

The Chevrolet Corvette (1953) was the first production car with a fiberglass body (46 components in total). The frame was a steel spaceframe.

Chevrolet Corvette (1953)	Demonstration of lightweight fiberglass (GM Media Archive)
1953 Chevrolet Corvette - Click to enlarge (Photo by Raymond Wong, Quad Photo) 1953 Corvette - Body and frame

In 1959 Maserati launched the Tipo 60 racing car, with a tubular chassis made by 200 tubes (diameter of 10, 12 and 15 mm), that formed a complex skeleton. From this structure came the name "Birdcage".

The front structure was made by three horizontal planes, connected together by triangular meshes and reinforcing plates in the most stressed locations.
The other parts of the structure were less complex, and adopted holed sheet plates as reinforcing elements.

The tubes were built with mid quality steel and were designed so that the elastic deformations could not cause the fracture of the weld seams.

Maserati Birdcage (1959)

1961 Maserati Tipo 61 Birdcage Cutaway Drawing

1961 Maserati Tipo 61 Birdcage Cutaway Drawing
(James Allington Collection)

Mercury (1950) - Ladder Frame
(source: J.M.Flammang "Cars of the fabulous '50s", Publications International, Ltd, 1995)