retro fenders for better aero?
 

a lot of cars these days are comming out with hood rides that seem intended to guide the air past the A pillars.
this can be partly explained by styling trends and might not have much to to with aerodynamics, but on the other hand the A pillar is a bit of an aerodynamic hotspot, so it's not unthinkable at least some research and improvement has been made regarding the airflow in this area.

it just struck me that with a little imagination some of these designs begin to resemble some 30's to 40's era car designs
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j5...-tourer-04.jpg
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j5...pressie_01.jpg
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j5...can10559_1.jpg
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j5...eot_308_GT.jpg
it all reminds me a bit of this
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j5...way/155718.jpg

perhaps, designs that treat the wheel arches and hood as separate volumes might have certain aero advantages without actually looking retro

I believe some of these changes are also due to the raising of the bonnet (hood) to cater for pedestrian safety - allowing some empty space between the top of the engine and the hood.

If you currently get on E-bay: in the kit and reproduction section is a late '90's T-bird modified to look like a '49 Ford!

Be it a practical application for aerodynamics or not, I appreciate the aesthetic consideration lol, "bubble cars" are so bland ;)

raised bonnets have had a big effect on car design, back on the 80's and 90's aerodynamic car design even for family sedams involved low pointy bonnets where these days cars seem to be much taller, an impression reinforced with lower bumpers/airdams that visually seem to double the height of the hood on some cars.

these ridges may also be part of a strategy to make the hoods structurally stronger while using less material wich makes them lighter and at the same time more flexible in the center wich could improve pedestrian safety.

with all this said the resulting shape looks like it will have an effect on aerodynamics as well

considdering in the 70's a lot of car where very boxy affairs

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j5...rd_d_v_sst.jpg

the moderns shapes seem to do something more than simply smooth out the straight edges, in fact they seem to introduce new hard edges in certain places

There needs to be 165mm (page 33) clearance to engine and all other hard objects behind the bonnet and bumber if I remember correctly (worst case scenario). If you want to educate yourself take a look at this:
http://www.euroncap.com/files/Euro-N...7e3c73aee9.pdf

That gives the guidelines what cars should look like if you want to get 5 star rating. That is also one of the biggest reasons why cars of the same era looks pretty similar. You are not able to many things differently or you wont get 5 stars in the crash tests.

That is also one of the reasons why cars aero will get even worse due to pedestrian safety! If you crash into living pedestrian at 50-60 km/h does he or she have to survive? Lots of things have already went wrong if you hit human at that speed.

I think you could save more people by making cars more aerodynamic and have less CO2 and other fumes to the air!.

Interesting question, and one which I too have wondered about. Besides better contol of the A pillar vortex, I would guess there really wouldn't be any real benefit ( just a guess ) because the frontal area remains the same.
The first vehicle that comes to mind was the redesigned Dodge pickup trucks that started to use a seperate fender section apart from the main hood section. Dodge did put a bit of effort into trying to improve the aero of their trucks when they did the redesign in the mid nineties, but from what I have read, the sepetate grille and fenders were designed to resemble a semi such as the Kenworth T2000.