German experimentation with low Cd automobiles in the 1930's

[Eighty-Nine Si]

During the war, VW flat-fours were used to power triple-A (anti-aircraft artillery). Lacking adequate power, they were fitted with superchargers. Dr. Porsche installed one of those motors in his personal vehicle. I have never been able to verify if that specific car was the type 64 or a VW type 1. Either way, it hauled. Note the black-out headlight covering on the black car.

[Eighty-Nine Si]

Note below...

[Cd]

Originally Posted by tjts1

Pre war type 64 Porsche

One curioisity about this car is the reversed side marker light.
( Pointed end first versus blunt end first )

[NeilBlanchard]

Originally Posted by Cd

Neil, you always find those rare images ! Thanks for posting.

I wish I could claim to have found them -- it was Sven7.

An interesting trio of cars that seem to share genes: the Maybach, the UrSaab, and the Porsche above.

[basjoos]

Originally Posted by Piwoslaw

Maybe testing showed that the front wheel covers' increase in frontal area wasn't worth the reduced turbulence? On the other hand, the top view shows that the rear of the wheel well sticks out well beyond the front, scooping up lots of air, so that doesn't help either. On the tuft test you can see that the airflow isn't as clean behind the front wheel.

I think the lack of front wheel covers is related to the car's intended purpose, high speed tire testing under real world conditions on the Autobahn. With the higher speeds suddenly available after the construction of the Autobahn, the existing tires at the time couldn't handle the continuous high speeds and were blowing out and otherwise not holding up to the high speed conditions, hence the need for a car to test new tire designs at high speeds out on the road. They had to be able to easily inspect the tires after a run and quickly change them out for other tires to be tested, which would be more difficult to do if they had to remove a wheel well cover each time. Also, since most cars have open wheel wells, they had to do their testing in an open wheel well for the results to be real world transferable to the typical car of the day. The original design for a high speed, low drag car included front wheel covers, since that was obviously the lowest drag way to go, but they didn't include them in the final build since they got in the way of their tire testing. That is also why they had the poor aerodynamics around the front wheel covers mentioned above, since it was a last minute decision to drop the wheel covers.

[ai_vin]

Originally Posted by Cd

One curioisity about this car is the reversed side marker light.
( Pointed end first versus blunt end first )

All the better to see the breaking lights go on. And I don't see it as having much of a negative effect on the aerodynamics considering the rear side lights are on a body panel that's curving inwards.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

I found a picture of the Mercedes 170H chassis, like the one used in the Schlörwagen:

I just found another source for that photos, plus an interior shot.

Lord K's Garage #113: The Schlörwagen - Dieselpunks


This is an interesting photo as well.

Lord K's Garage #113: The Schlörwagen - Dieselpunks

A model built at AVA (Aerodynamic testing Institute, Göttingen) was dubbed "tortoise". During the wind tunnel tests, it showed an anheard-of Cd: 0.113.

[NeilBlanchard]

Yep, that interior picture was on the same site as the wind tunnel picture, and the stunning side and front views, with the gentleman we think may be Dr. Schlör.

I've had them on my Photobucket library since then.

[freebeard]

That's a great interior shot. Centered driver seat between the wheel wells, right?

The wedge shape of the dash reminds me of my 1954 23-window bus.

[NeilBlanchard]

Centering the driver makes sense when you have a low drag shape - there is simply more volume forward in the vehicle, and fitting the driver into the space between the front wheels becomes an obvious solution.