[Piwoslaw]

I'll just brutally resurrect this long-necroed thread.

When our 3 person family travels, we fit the bikes inside the car to minimize aero drag:

But this configuration is quite demanding on time/ease of packing and unpacking, and while travelling we would like to sometimes quickly have access to the bikes for a short ride, but resign from this due to the hassle.

We do not want the fuel penalty of a roof rack, so most likely I will invest in a hitch and then a hitch-mounted bike rack. But I am afraid that even then the parts of the bike sticking out the sides (and possibly the top) will mess up the aero
This pic that freebeard posted:

and this random pic:

only confirm my doubts

So back to the original question: Can the bikes be made to fit:

1. inside of the wake of the rear of our stationwagon?
2. inside of the reduced wake of a Kammback?

Or is hiding the frame in the wake, but still getting the penalty of the wheels sticking out on the sides, the best compromise I can expect?

Two thoughts I had were:

1. a rack where the bikes are oriented in forward direction. This would be very long, and hitch-mounted racks cannot extend more than 1 meter, iirc, so out of the question.
2. taking off the wheels (maybe only front wheels) to make the bikes shorter and lower.

Any ideas, comments?

Or maybe in the years since this was originally posted someone has some practical experience?