Quote:
Originally Posted by lunarhighway
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The Rekord isn't bad compared with other cars at the time for Aero. Even the early ones had a good stab at aerodynamics - this is the Vauxhall one from the late 70s which the Rekord (above) is based on.
GM at the time (mid-late 70s) was doing this DRG thing which Wayne Cherry was in charge of. DRG stood for (apparently, marketspeak alert) Down the Road Graphics. They did things like the "droop snoots" which changed this
into this
which was copied by ford who turned this
into this
as a kind of part response. At the same time as the Rekord Ford was making this
Rover made this
and Renault made this
And of course the queen of 70s Aero...
So in Europe we had it good for aero - at the same time (1981) GM in the US does this
and Ford does this
And then over the next 2 years Ford (Europe) came up with this
and this
The Sierra really pushed the envelope for Aero not only in terms of styling but also in terms of stability - early models suffered from high speed problems because it moved the air so gently that the centre of pressure (the air joining back together after its been moved out of the way) was in the boot instead of somewhere behind the car. Later ones had sort of wings attached to the 3rd side window to solve this without drag. Cool.
And then after this we got the 80s with grills and old-world retro shapes...