German experimentation with low Cd automobiles in the 1930's

[vtec-e]

Originally Posted by orange4boy

We must improve our rear fahrtwind.

With lots of Basjoosing!

ollie

[orange4boy]

A cornucopia of MB prototypes, racers and concepts...

Found a Jaray Benz:

1935 mercedes-benz 200 for the geneva salon, body by paul jaray

And a much earlier Benz tropfenwagen: 1923.



1938 W125



MB T80... with spoked wheels, no less.

[NeilBlanchard]

The 1937 Auto Union (Audi) Type C Streamliner:





Lots of car drawings: The-Blueprints.com

[NeilBlanchard]

Another image I have not seen before:



And one similar to another we have seen:



Can anybody listen to the German MP3 and tell us if it has any info on the Schlörwagen?

http://www.helmholtz.de/fileadmin/us...ind_liegen.mp3

[RobertSmalls]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Can anybody listen to the German MP3 and tell us if it has any info on the Schlörwagen?

http://www.helmholtz.de/fileadmin/us...ind_liegen.mp3

Neil,

It's an article on the Göttinger Ei. Unsurprisingly, there's not much that we don't already know, but it's described as a 2m wide car large enough for a family, with a Cd well ahead of its time: 0.15, for around 25% fuel savings. The design still looks futuristic today.

This Cd was achieved with a cross-section that looks like an airfoil, an enclosed floor, flush-mounted windows, and its elongated roof.

The Goettingen Egg (Göttinger Ei) is compared to an Egg of Columbus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , and it's suggested that modern aerodynamics researchers could stand to learn from the Ei. If Schloer has achieved Cd=0.15, then so can they.

They also mentioned that they had the model in a modern wind tunnel in Göttingen with laser smoke visualization, hence the goofy sound effects around 1:58.

[XJguy]

Originally Posted by basjoos

In the mid to late 30's in Germany, there was a lot of work done in creating vehicles with a low Cd. The impetous for this was the building of the Autobahn, which provided a roadway that was capable of handling much higher speeds than the typical car/engine combinations available at the time could produce. They soon found that by reducing a car's drag, the existing engines could propel a car much faster down the Autobahn than it could could do in a traditionally shaped car body. Unfortunately this bout of automotive experimentation was shut down with the the start of WWII and most of the vehicles lost in the ensuing conflict. The following website (in Germen) shows a number of these cars (hit the "Tour" buttom at the bottom of each page to go to the next page). Its interesting to look at the state of the art back in the 1930's. There were some fairly wild looking designs.

http://www.design-classic-cars.de/jaray/kamm.html


1939 Maybach Stromlinienkarosserie

And here is the 218mph $8million modern version of that car commisioned by Fulda tires.

[NeilBlanchard]

The '39 Maybach needed just a 150HP engine to go 150mph. I think the new one needs considerably more HP -- it looks relatively lame, aerodynamically...

The Exelero is a chopped-down two-seater coupe with a bored out 5.9 liter V12 engine that puts out 700 hp and over 738lb ft of torque. Despite its 5,864 pounds, it can get up over 218mph and can go from 0-60mph in 4.4 seconds.

[NeilBlanchard]

The old picture link was broken...

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Hi,

Here's a front view of the Maybach:

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by RobertSmalls

Neil,

It's an article on the Göttinger Ei. Unsurprisingly, there's not much that we don't already know, but it's described as a 2m wide car large enough for a family, with a Cd well ahead of its time: 0.15, for around 25% fuel savings. The design still looks futuristic today.

This Cd was achieved with a cross-section that looks like an airfoil, an enclosed floor, flush-mounted windows, and its elongated roof.

The Goettingen Egg (Göttinger Ei) is compared to an Egg of Columbus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , and it's suggested that modern aerodynamics researchers could stand to learn from the Ei. If Schloer has achieved Cd=0.15, then so can they.

They also mentioned that they had the model in a modern wind tunnel in Göttingen with laser smoke visualization, hence the goofy sound effects around 1:58.

In Hucho's book he says they tested the Schlor car in their modern tunnel and came up with Cd 0.186.

[aerohead]

I found two second-hand Automotive Quarterly's,one with Jaray article,the other about Kamm.Both articles by Jerry Sloniger.
In the Jaray piece he reports that Maybach built two of the Jaray-bodied cars.
The two cars were considered so 'ugly' that he couldn't sell either one and ended up giving both away.