This 103-Year-Old Romanian Clown-Shoe Car Pioneered Automotive Aero as We Know It

There are many unforgettable names in the history of the automobile, names that represent massive achievements in both engineering and design. Henry Ford, Enzo Ferrari, Colin Chapman, Marcello Gandini, and, most recently, Gordon Murray, to list a few. But there’s one that’s been mostly forgotten: Aurel Persu. In 1922, the Romanian engineer and designer created a vehicle that may look strange by modern standards, but actually represented a breakthrough in aerodynamics. And if it was built today, more than 100 years later, only a handful of cars would beat it in that department.

Persu graduated from the Charlottenburg Higher Technical School in Berlin in the early 1900s and continued to study both aerodynamics and aircraft in Romania during the First World War. After the war, he returned to Berlin and, in 1922, was granted a patent for an aerodynamic automobile that had its wheels tucked into the bodywork. That was a big deal, as most cars at that time were open-wheeled.

What he came up with was a car that looked like a raindrop, with a big, smooth front end that tapered off to a much smaller, narrower rear. There isn’t a wealth of information on Persu’s clown shoe, but according to this site dedicated to him, the car had a wheelbase of just over 10 feet, an overall length of 15 feet, and a much wider front wheel track up front (3.9 feet) than at the rear (2.2 feet). But the most important figure was its coefficient of drag. Some reports claim it had a Cd of 0.20, while others say 0.22.

Even at the more conservative estimate, 0.22 is still an astonishing figure for 1922. Today, there are only a few cars that outperform it, like the Lucid Air, Mercedes EQS, and Volkswagen XL1. The Porsche Taycan ties it, and the Tesla Model 3 is slightly worse, with a Cd of 0.23. Of course, Persu didn’t have to deal with modern safety regulations, crash structures, pedestrian safety, or interior creature comforts. Car companies today, with all the knowledge and tech available to them, could effortlessly beat Persu’s Cd figure if they had a blank slate like he did. For his day, though, those achievements were unprecedented.

That bulbous front end is where the passengers sat, while the engine, transmission, and the rest of the drivetrain were in the skinnier rear tube. So it was a cab-over, mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive two-seater—a rare combination it would be interesting to see others copy. The engine itself was a water-cooled four-cylinder built by Berlin engine maker AGA-Werke and it made 40 horsepower. But with that ultra-slippery shape, Persu’s car was reportedly capable of 62 mph.

Persu only made one example of his slippery shoe-shaped car and reportedly used it as his daily. The lone example now lives at the Dimitrie Leonida Technical Museum in Bucharest, Romania. Persu apparently got some good use out of his creation, though, as the museum claims that his raindrop-shaped car has over 100,000 miles on it. The car was thoroughly restored in 2023, according to an exhaustive story by Romanian outlet TurboMAG.

Persu is beloved in Romania, where he and his car were even featured on more than one stamp—and it isn’t hard to understand why. While he built just one car, it was one of the most innovative automobiles of all time.

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