*1962,Ford engineer notes that side-view mirror adds 1-pound of drag at 65-mph and increases fuel consumption by 0.05 mpg.On a 1,000-mile trip,the mirror costs and extra 7-cents (@25-cents/gallon).
*March,1983,Ford's development work on the Probe-IV got the side mirror drag down to where it almost compensated for their frontal area addition.
*1986,Subaru's shaping and mounting 80mm clear of the body surface,produced side mirrors which did not deteriorate the cars Cd 0.29.
*1990,BMW Technik Gmbh,discovered noise with flush-mounted side mirrors and mounted them on stalks to get air moving in between,thereby killing the noise.
*In 1998,GM,using the EV1 as an aerodynamic test mule for development of the USCAR,PNGV 'Precept' concept,indicated that side mirrors would add 0.015 to the Precept,raising the Cd from 0.163,to 0.178,a 9.2% drag increase.
*In 2014,at the Darko Technologies wind tunnel,the 'Spirit of Ecomodder.com' demonstrated a drag reduction,from Cd 0.268,to Cd 0.251 by folding in the stock sideview mirrors,a 6.7% drag reduction.
*Aeronautical Engineer,Tyler Story,of Darko,estimated that removal of the 'Spirit's' mirrors would develop on the order of Cd 0.24,an 11.6% drag reduction.
*At 75-mph,the mirrors are contributing 1-hp to the road load.
*The original road load of the 'naked' T-100,was 47-hp at 70-mph.
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It appears that the drag contribution of the side mirror(s) becomes more and more important as the drag coefficient is lowered lower and lower.
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*A solid hemisphere,soft face into the wind is Cd 0.42
*An open (shell) hemisphere,soft face into the wind is Cd 0.34
*A contemporary mirror body might be Cd 0.38 with its box-cavity.
*A cylinder section with prolate elliptical nose of L/D= 1.5 is Cd 0.233
*The 'stalk' can very in drag
