[instarx]

True, but most people aren't going to buy a car with a boat-tail or wheel skirts on the front wheels. In such a perfect world all our houses would be spherical and we would enter them through hatches. Same with cars - convenience and appearance play a part, too.

With all the discussions here on topics like the advantages/disadvantages of air tabs, or ziggy tape on mirrors, or dimpling, I don't find the ideas mentioned in the article to be so useless or outlandish. After all, they're just ideas (presumably with some wind-tunnel verification even). Who knows where they might lead?

I think the important message of that article is that aero-design is such an unknown that it isn't wise to assume that the conventional wisdom is always right.