Cadillac CTS Aerodynamics
 

I realize this isn't exactly ecomodder material, but interesting non-the-less. Skip to 5:25 for just the under-body aero stuff.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnzDIceKecw

underbelly pans!!!!!! Sweet!!!!! weight reduction!!!!

Im hopeful I can apply some of these aero tricks to my cts and improve on the .33 cd

It looks like GM suddenly started pulling apart Japanese and European cars to find out what the last several decades of development have yielded! And then only because they are forced to.

Most cadillac owners are not concerned with mileage. Just like any manufacturer, they produce what gives them the most profit.

I liked the part about the B-pillar at 4:14 or so. The thickness varies along the part's length, and the edges are scalloped.

0.33 down to 0.29 Cd from the underbody sounds possible. Bellypan[s] and rear wheel spats.

suddenly
 

All U.S. car makers have been 'benchmarking' foreign cars for 25-years or so.They buy some of the competition and study everything about them,then integrate what the bean-counters will allow after committee meetings and consumer clinics.It works the other way too!
When I was at the Chrysler Proving Grounds in 1991 they had a sampling of foreign cars inside.
GM doesn't innovate.It's their corporate policy not to.They are risk-adverse.They will copy,when they feel a need.Alfred P.Sloan,Jr. does a fine job of explaining in his book about when he ran GM.And competition is fierce within some market segments.Platform and component sharing among GM marques globally,allow R&D and tooling expenses to be recouped at little expense per unit,allowing many features to be offered at little additional cost.
They're in business to make money for their shareholders,they just happen to make cars to do that.They have a legal,fiduciary responsibility to do so.
Sylvester Stallone essentially shi- on GM's 100-mpg Ultralite in "Demolition Man",going to great trouble to secure a 60s GM 'muscle car' for his movie heroics.The market is still kinda locked into that paradigm.
Those 100-mpg cars are waiting in the wings.It's up to the market to decide when and if they'll ever be produced.

Yeah, does anybody else remember the PNGV? Not that long ago, either.

Long enough--more than 20 years ago that the program started, and nearly 15 years since the concept cars were shown.

Meanwhile, we could have been driving these by now...

http://oldconceptcars.com/wp-content..._concept_1.jpg

...and instead, we get this.

http://www.drivesrt.com/assets/image...xuPXOcb3LF.jpg

The Cad is at least decent looking. I run 12k miles/month and it is about the only one where lines, etc, come together nicely that I see. VW has a sedan that also does. All the rest are nearly indistinguishable from one another.

If that Cad has ice-cold A/C, is dead quiet and has great seats for 600-mile days I'd sign myself up. Very nice mpg (compared to the 12-14 highway mpg Dad got wtih his early/mid-70's monsters) would be icing on the cake. Assuming one can genuinely afford a Cad, then range is the thing as fuel cost is irrelevant. Choosing the nice places to stop and re-fuel and/or to eat matters more. Otherwise hop a Southwest irlines commuter flight and get a rental. Not always ideal depending on client service..

80% of 27-gls at 13-mpg was somewhere a little north of 250-miles to fillup. Barely make it from Houston to Dallas. For a Texan that's what you knock out before breakfast . . but it sure limits the places for lunch if you get out west. The drastically better cars of today lose something with interior size, etc, but if you get there faster and easier . . . . .

The loss of energy independince made the cheap use of fuel for ones own plane far too expensive, if even one owned the company. A 90-mph cruise in a Cadillac was nice, but 190-mph does cover ground quite well across this state and the adjoining. (1947 aero a la 1970 spec; the step up from a luxury car was once a luxury single engine airplane). Sad to get old. Nostalgia makes what was better even more poignant.

http://www.beechcraft.org/vtail/p20318/OldBobsV35B.jpg



(not his, but quite close)

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