Taking Advantage of Tail Winds?
 

Us as ecomodders try to streamline our cars so that we can cut through the air with as little resistance as possible. That is great and will always be helpful since we are moving our cars forward 99.78% (not real statistic) of the time. These modifications are extremely helpful when we are faced with a head wind, but if the wind is coming from any other direction they do us no good (other than fighting the resistance of our driving speed).

So, the question here is: Is there any way to take even greater advantage of side winds or tail winds, without negative effects?

I'm thinking something along the lines of reverse parachute.
http://i40.tinypic.com/33usnib.jpg

Maybe if you were moving considerably slower than the wind. Maybe.

Ew, did not think of that... /fail

I wonder if it would be beneficial with a side wind? Probably not.. just going to add additional drag I suppose.

Hey, you're considering things and asking questions.

If you want to see what can be done about sidewind performance look at the Morelli banana car.

parachutes
 

As shown,they would simply fill with stagnant air and air acting against the 'transom' would just push against the buckets of dead air as if they were a solid surface.
If the entire transom area were concave it would catch air when 'struck' from behind,although as Freebeard has mentioned,would only 'show' at low speed,like a square-rigger sail.

Last weekend I made a road trip up north and had a very strong tailwind that at one point I slowed down to 55 mph (interstate was somewhat deserted) and for several miles the scangage was showing 99.6 mpg! At one point I was going 60 mph for several miles in neutral on flat ground! Tailwinds are definitely friendly for mpg.:D Chumly

Just as with aircraft then?

Tailwind - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Some interesting math in the link above.

Windmobiles of Mr. Amick
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ick-20412.html

DDWFTTW - directly downwind faster than the wind or 3x faster than the wind. DDWFTTW #1 on Vimeo