Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
Which one? According to The 1964 and 1967 Lemans entries have distinct differences.
|
The 1967 designed by Deutsch Bonnet. With the full tail, its drag coefficient came out to 0.13. The dual rear fins help it to stay stable on the Mulsanne straight without much need for downforce.
Coupled with the low frontal area, this shape over a Corvette chassis and appropriately scaled for width/wheelbase would have about 1/3 as much aero drag as a stock Corvette. As far as cars of the time period go, the C5 Corvette was already among the most slippery available and got decent highway mpg bone stock, so cutting its drag to 1/3 is going to have a massive impact.
And it is easy to find an engine greatly more efficient than that crappy(at least regarding thermal efficiency) pushrod V8 it came with, but it would still get good economy with its original engine.
Quote:
|
Rather than changing the body into something else, I could see sacrificing lateral acceleration and go to tall narrow wheels and tires with as much negative offset as possible to accommodate four wheel skirts.
|
Hard to say what the results of that would be. The Corvette's shape, while more slippery than the average car of its period, still had a lot of compromises made for aesthetics. I wonder what kind of Cd would be possible going that route?
If you're going to downside the cylinders and displacement, why not the 3-cylinder freevalve engine used in the Koenigsegg RAW concept? 600 horsepower in only 2L of displacement, but overall thermal efficiency comparable to the anemic Atkinson-cycle engine in a Prius. And its low mass would do a lot to keep the weight down.
That might open the door to such a car weighing significantly under 2,000 lbs in spite of the large footprint of the chassis if you get rid of that stock lump of a pushrod V8, and economy would go up even more with a more efficient engine. The wide track and long wheelbase of the Corvette chassis coupled with such lightness with most of the weight in the center of the chassis would have an unholy cornering potential too, even without the typical downforce aids most racecars use...
Maybe 70+ mpg HWY non-hybrid supercar? That would be really sweet.